Extra! Extra! More Breakfast for Brooklyn
A new place where refugees find home, and you find egg, pepper and feta breakfast sammies
As you may know, Emma’s Torch is a restaurant with a beautiful mission — to train and empower new Americans—refugees, asylees, asylum seekers, or survivors of human trafficking who have arrived in the United States within the past five years, for a new (or continued) career in kitchens.
Once enrolled, Emma’s Torch offers them an 11-week, paid apprenticeship (free to participants) with up to 400 hours of culinary training as well as employability, equity, and empowerment training. It’s a diving board into a new life with a stable, strong career base.
The students work in the cafes and serve up dishes from their respective native lands. I went in a few times for dinner when it first opened, and really enjoyed the food. Now they’ve just changed up their model so that they are doing an all-day breakfast menu, with lots of cute outdoor and indoor tables, which is a welcome addition to the neighborhood (which now also includes Salt’s Cure). Not to mention their breakfast sammies are pretty damn great.
From the pastry kitchen, there are homemade muffins, buttermilk biscuits, rich chocolate brownies, fluffy cornbread, and sesame blondies. The savory menu will get you some better than basic morning fare like homemade sausage egg and cheese on a biscuit, avocado toast and smoked salmon tartine, but also more global eats as well: black-eyed pea hummus and pita, and their cult favorite: the red pepper, egg, and feta breakfast sandwich. Brunch on weekends includes shakshuka, caramel apple pancakes, French toast, and more. Also, really good coffee! Good morning!
Emma’s Torch is located at 345 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY, 718.243.1222; new hours are Tuesday - Sunday - 8:00 A.M. — 5:00 P.M.