Brooklyn Restaurant Pioneers Onto Third Acts

The NYT reports that a restaurant space under construction at 570 Vanderbilt Avenue called The Vanderbilt will be 150-seater operated by Num Pang partner Ben Daitz and Smith Street pioneer Saul Bolton, the chef and owner of Saul, one of the original new wave Brooklyn restaurants. We took a quick look at the Prospect Heights space (right) in April, noting that a small section of Vanderbilt Avenue is quickly becoming the home to a bunch of new restaurants and bars. And while The Vanderbilt is scheduled to open this fall, Frank Bruni pays an unrated checkup visit to Diner in Williamsburg, the decade-old wellspring of Brooklyn's New Culinary Movement, and the proving grounds of Tom Mylan and Sasha Davies' UnFancy Food Show. "Diner was doing the Brooklyn tropes before they were Brooklyn tropes," he writes. Opening chef Caroline Fidanza has moved down the street to companion butcher shop Marlow & Daughters, ceding the reigns to Sean Rembold. The food remains consistent but is expensive. Bruni laments that a once $9 chicken dish now costs a steep $22 is par for the course: "That’s inflation, yes," he admits. "But that’s also what happens when a neighborhood itself ascends."