Through the Looking Glass at Hera

Dining in Bed-Stuy becomes a quasi-psychedelic experience.

Hera x din din with Santé
387 Quincy St. (for now)
Bedford-Stuyvesant
Open since: 2021
Price: $$$
What to order: Just let them handle it
Jeff's Rating: 7.6/10

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It seems my restaurant reviews have been gaining traction.

It’s Monday evening and I feel the buzz go off in my pocket – a little shorter than the one for text messages, a little longer than the one for emails. I pull out my phone and, indeed, the screen glows softly with an Instagram message from my friend Jen. I swipe up, and it’s an invitation to dinner.

“This has been on my list for a while—cool enough to make the newsletter?” Fantastic news – at least one person is reading my posts, and not only that, it seems like she likes them too! And “Hera,” a pop-up restaurant that’s been ambling around the five boroughs every few weeks, does in fact look cool enough. The restaurant’s Instagram page describes it as a “collaborative restaurant project and neighborhood living room,” a bemusing description that, for any future alien race, certainly will distinguish this particular institution as an artifact of the early-2020s.

Riding high off of my new reputation as culinary luminary, I quickly say yes and Jen sends me an address for what appears to be a residential building in Bed-Stuy. By “neighborhood living room”, could they really have meant a literal living room? Slightly perplexing, but we’ll roll with it.

Fast forward a week, and Jen sends me some more details on time, place, and manner. We’ll be joined by a few more friends from law school, and the restauranteurs have in fact confirmed we’re going to an apartment. I grab my things and head out the door.

The year is 2034, and I’ve finally arrived in Bed-Stuy via subway. As I get to street-level I take a look around. As ever greater numbers of finance bros have moved into Williamsburg, this is where the hipsters have gone, migrating ever farther eastward to take over another Brooklyn neighborhood. A woman in one of those “Kale” tee shirts in the Yale font walks by me with a Pomeranian by her side. I smirk and begin walking towards Quincy Street, where I’ll supposedly find my dinner reservation.

I arrive at a nondescript walkup at around 6:30. The weather is just starting to warm up, and the sun is still shining in that pale, washed out, end-of-winter way as wind begins to whip up the street. I meet a few of my co-diners, and we attempt to figure out how to get to the right apartment. There are no buttons on the apartment directory, and as I search in vain for a buzzer my friend Andrew opens the front door. This is why he got better grades than me in law school.

Light shines in from a skylight above as we climb a dim staircase one, and then two flights up. At the top, we look around. I see no community living room, just a locked apartment with the wrong number on the door. Defeated, we head back downstairs and out into the twilight. I contemplate having to ride the subway for another few days to get back home. We gaze around solemnly until we hear a voice from next door. “Are you guys here for dinner?”

Our shepherd takes the form of a bearded, tattooed man wearing a chef’s apron who leads into a beautiful modern kitchen and down a set of stairs to a dark room full of musical instruments and hanging tapestries. A large wooden dining table has been set up, and I take my seat next to an upright bass while others settle near drums and electric guitars. Sound dampening panels line the walls, and Motown plays from a stereo in the back corner. I spot a queen-sized bed further inside what appears to be a quite spacious studio. Someone appears to live here, but the occupant has vacated for the evening.

I take a look at the menu in front of me and read by candlelight. They weren’t kidding when they said Hera was collaborative – this isn’t just Hera, it’s “Hera x din din with Santé.” Sure thing.

Once we settle in, the staff preps us for what lies ahead. Tonight’s dinner, they emphasize, is a collaborative tasting menu complete with a wine pairing. Our sommelier appears next with a bottle of wine the size of my torso. Or perhaps he, and everyone else in the room, are all just really tiny. At this point, it’s impossible to determine – we have truly descended into Wonderland. “Please Mister Postman” begins to play over the speakers, but Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” would probably be more appropriate.

The food begins to arrive, and our chef tells us that almost all of it was either “flying or swimming around” as recently as yesterday. Oyster ceviche with a delightfully sweet “rhubarb hibiscus consommé” on a bed of semi-edible uncooked grains. A bright purple “magic molly potato” (perhaps a bit on the nose?), served on a stick with puffed sorghum that looks like the last bits at the bottom of a bucket of movie-theater popcorn.

Our wine-man returns and we gulp down the rest of our first glass before he relates to us that what we’re about to drink next is “wine for the mind.” We take a taste – the wine is bright and refreshing, and out comes the next dish. What else but a mushroom soup? I’m losing track of which collaborator is creating which dish, but I think it’s Hera’s turn next for some beets the color of apples with fennel confit and spicy harissa. More wine.

The entrees begin and still more wine flows – we begin to laugh as we recall the server saying there would only be two glasses all evening. Was this just a lie? Have we been ensnared in some kind of trap? My friend Martin asks how the fish is cooked, and they describe a long process in the oven as we stare at steelhead that looks near-raw. The surrealism continues – apparently, we cannot believe our lying eyes (or tongues). Martin can’t bring himself to eat his fish but I happily have his serving – it’s a standout of the night, complete with a silky beurre rouge sauce.

The dishes begin to speed up. Or is it just time itself moving faster? Rotisserie chicken with farro and more wine. The chef goes into detail about the Puerto Rican influences of the farro and it’s another favorite from the menu, while Martin describes the poultry as “Costco rotisserie chicken.” Alas, they can’t all be winners.

And then dessert, which may be my favorite dish of all. The menu just describes it as “carrot,” and at the rate the night is going I expect to see a raw root vegetable rolling around on my plate. What we get instead is a carrot sorbet, a carrot mousse, and a spice cake with crispy rice and something called sea buckthorn. The mousse and spice cake are honestly fantastic, with notes of cinnamon and clove.  The sommelier returns with more wine to dole out, this time via some spouted contraption that he uses to drop the liquid directly into everyone’s mouths.

“We have an 8:30 reservation after you, but you guys are free to hang out on the patio.” And with those words, our culinary trip is over. We ascend the stairs and experience a sharp return to reality. It’s dark now, and we huddle together as we plan our next move. I look back at the apartment – within a few weeks Hera, din din, Santé, and whoever else will be gone from this place, off to a new neighborhood and serving up a new batch of solid food and dreamlike experiences for their customers.