10 CommentsWe know that Deluxe has divine blueberry pancakes, but we at Bwog believe it’s time to diversify your dining portfolio. In our Brunch Chronicles, we will take our time and gladly overeat at leisure any time before 1 pm. In this latest addition, Bwog’s intrepid brunch warriors Brian Wagner and Sylvie Krekow checked out Il Cibreo on 113th and Broadway to discover whether a brunch by any other name would taste as sweet.
We did. Well, the first part at least.
Venture inside Il Cibreo for brunch on a weekend, and you’ll be greeted by a meager single-sided one-page menu. However, if it’s past 10:30 am (Il Cibreo—like last night’s regrettable hookup—is an unfortunately late riser) and you really have a hankering to sit in a dark place with uncomfortable chairs and do brunch, then Il Cibreo may be the place for you! From the looks of it, nothing inside the restaurant is different from Campo. The outdoor seating was decent, but the interior was glum and desolate.
Il Cibreo's Eggs Benedict. The fries were the highlight of the meal.
As far as food is concerned, Bwog’s review is a solid Meh, bordering on a Meh-. Nothing on the menu was particularly enticing (or Italian), so Bwog’s brunchers picked two standbys: blueberry pancakes and eggs Benedict. The eggs Benedict were of solidly mediocre quality with slightly over-poached eggs and a dubious substitution of prosciutto for the traditional Canadian bacon. The accompanying fries slightly boosted the overall quality. Zesty and topped with cheese and basil, with a hint of truffle oil, these were far and away Bwog’s favorite part of the meal.The blueberry pancakes were also subpar—typical pancakes with the odd blueberry mixed into the batter.
Blueberry pancakes, which look as they taste: fine, but unexciting.
For dessert, Bwog, ignoring the fact that it was 11am, chose the chocolate cake. What appeared minutes later was an elegant (albeit small) chocolate lava cake. Excitement turned to alarm when, having downed half the cake, there was still no sign of molten chocolate. Beginning to panic, Bwog persevered, and a few nibbles later a tiny dribble of gooey chocolate oozed onto the plate. Your brunchers finished the cake with a feeling of dejection.
Bwog nearly broke out its magnifying glass in search of the rumored gooey center.
The bill ran $11 for each entree and $5 or so for dessert. Whether you consider these prices cheap, expected, or a tableside mugging with food included, Bwog says it’s probably not worth it. In the end, brunch at Il Cibreo is much like Bwog’s experience with the chocolate cake: looks alright from the outside, brings very little to the table, and leaves you feeling disappointed despite promising trickles of something more. With Deluxe, Community, and Le Monde on the same block, it’s challenging to come up with a reason to go to New Campo. Il Cibreo’s menu labels it as “A Place for Sharing,” and therefore Bwog encourages you to share your hard-earned dollars with a different Morningside locale.
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10 Comments
@Anonymous Correction: serve. Both are still open, so go there!
@anonymouse I don’t know about brunch, because I haven’t eaten it at il Cibreo before, but I had dinner with a friend the other day and I was pleasantly surprised. We split three different dishes and it was $20 for the each of us, at around $11 a dish, including tax and tip. Their flat-bread pizza was surprisingly delicious, the lemon grilled chicken we got was perfectly cooked, and the polenta custard was a lovely consistency. Not to mention that the service was pretty nice. Granted, I never ate at Campo before, so I don’t know how it compares to its previous incarnation, but il Cibreo is a decent restaurant with interesting offerings for relatively cheap (as long as you don’t mind seeing at least twenty people you know by the first course), and I wouldn’t mind going there with friends again.
@the flatbread pizza at campo was bomb. Looks like it’s the exact same menu and cooks, just different name and management
@Anonymous Pertutti, Campo Il Cibreo…whatever they call it it’s just not going to be good.
@.... I actually thought Pertutti and Campo were both decent and reasonably priced– cheaper even than Tom’s Restaurant. So I’m not sure why both were so unpopular, or why each iteration seems to attempt a slightly higher “elegance” than the last. I suppose that given the quantities of money we spend to go to school, some of us expect truffled omelettes with caviar and champagne for breakfast every few days (and perhaps not unreasonably).
@LBB'12 I don’t know about truffled omelettes and champagne but I would settle for the occasional inflated grade and loose Barnard chick
@Anonymous Pertutti and Campo were both ridiculously overpriced for what they put out. Both incarnations served bland and usually cold dishes that made me wish I had just gone to Westside. They may be a bit further from 116th but both Pisticci and Covo served amazing Italian food at lower prices.
@holy crap wow, this………………. sucks…
@Anonymous They do have a really good sugar-coated satan sandwich
@Anonymous this is the EXACT same shit as campo.