Dashing Alessandro Nivola currently stars as a buttoned-up, pre-WWI barrister in “The Winslow Boy” on Broadway — although the versatile actor will go full 1970s for the upcoming movie “American Hustle.” When he’s not on stage or behind the camera, the Boerum Hill resident, 41, fully embraces his borough — Brooklyn — with romantic riverside meals in Dumbo with his wife (“The Newsroom” star Emily Mortimer), playing soccer in Brooklyn Bridge Park and perusing the shops at Fulton Mall. This is his Brooklyn.
Pier 5, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Dumbo
“I have a bunch of Italian friends [whom] I play soccer with at this huge complex with state-of-the-art artificial turf. You can see the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge is above you — you just can’t believe you’re having a game in that setting. Sometimes on a Sunday, we go to the barbecue pits near the fields, bring hot dogs and chicken or whatever. And then there’s the promenade right above the park. It’s so beautiful. And behind you are the old Brooklyn Heights mansions that look like something out of ‘The House of Mirth.’ ”
Villabate Alba, 7001 18th Ave., at 70th Street, Bensonhurst
“Over the years, I’ve slowly made inroads into parts of the city I didn’t really know about. Villabate Alba is an Italian pastry shop where the cannolis are so good that people from my extended family in Italy said they were better than anything they had at home.”
Building on Bond, 112 Bond St., at Pacific Street, Boerum Hill
“They have a great menu, but the focus is more on the atmosphere. It’s a real local joint, and you see a lot of the same people every day. We go there almost once a day to get a croissant. They have an old Pac-Man table, and I sit there with my son.”
Fulton Mall, Fulton Street between Flatbush Avenue and Adams Street, Downtown Brooklyn
“I do all my shopping at the Fulton Mall. [It’s] great, because everybody is thrown in together. You have people putting up stalls and selling things like Michael Jackson DVDs, and they’re pumping music out of big speakers. My kids [ages 3 and 10] like to go there and dance, and everybody eggs them on. It’s totally pulsating with life. I even got my wife a birthday present at Kay Jewelers. I thought it looked great, but I’m not sure how much she appreciated it! It would have been a perfect accessory to [wear to] Tatiana Grill.”
Rucola, 190 Dean St. at Bond Street, Boerum Hill
“This place had been boarded up for the first five years we lived here. One day there was a notice posted — they put up their liquor license application — and the neighborhood went ballistic. There were petitions, protests, marches — you couldn’t believe the opposition to what they thought would be some nightclub. No sooner did the place open than every single one of those people became its most frequent patron overnight! I guess it’s Italian, but it’s more locally grown and homemade, organic but delicious. They have this great slow-cooked-pork sandwich I eat all the time.”
River Café, 1 Water St., Dumbo
“That is one of our favorite romance spots. It’s an institution that feels like a relief from all the lumberjack, urban-farmer hipster vibe that’s colonized the new Brooklyn. It’s just such a perfectly run place. The people who wait there treat you so well. We always start with Champagne and caviar. They do a great strip [steak] and a great branzino. This place was eviscerated by the hurricane, and we’re just thrilled it’s going to be available again, because you feel like you get away from everything.”
Tatiana Grill, 3152 Brighton 6th St. at the boardwalk, Brighton Beach
“Emily studied Russian at Oxford, so we like Brighton Beach. There are two restaurants called Tatiana on the boardwalk, but we go to the one with a Plexiglas floor and fish swimming underneath. It really feels like being in some provincial Russian coastal town in the 1980s. You have all the women in fur coats and full makeup, and the men [wear] nylon tracksuits and chains. The waiters are unbelievably rude and monosyllabic, but Emily speaks Russian to them, and it certainly changes their attitude.”