When Liza Queen opened up The Queen's Hideaway in a quiet corner of Greenpoint in 2005, she was one of the first to popularize the seasonal, local, vaguely southern dishes that have all but taken over Brooklyn menus today. She closed up shop in 2008 after a rent dispute with her landlord, and promptly decamped to Vietnam. Now, she's back and ready for action. more ›

When popular Greenpoint restaurant Queen's Hideaway closed last October, chef/owner Liza Queen told us she was pulling the plug because her "prick of a landlord" had "astronomically" raised her rent, adding, "I think we're the last of those kind of vaguely scruffy places [in the neighborhood]." Now a new restaurateur is having a go at the location, and true to Queen's prediction, her famously hostile hideaway has been transformed into the comparatively un-scruffy Anella, which embodies the elegantly decaying, urban rustic ambiance that's so ubiquitous these days. That the bar top is made of recovered piano wood from the Steinway factory in Astoria pretty much tells you all you need to know about the design. more ›

For the record, The Queen's Hideaway has closed, following a reportedly raucous closing party Saturday night. Opened about four years ago, the seasonally-minded restaurant put an isolated little corner of Franklin Street in Greenpoint on the dining map, becoming kind of a big deal after a slam dunk review in the Times in 2005. more ›