A restaurant opening this week in Williamsburg dubs cheese its most valuable ingredient, employing some form of fromage in each of its entrees. Denizen, opening Friday on Roebling at North 7th Street, fancies itself a "cheese-centric" restaurant, using the versatile ingredient in some straightforward (cheese plates, grilled cheese) and unexpected ("french onion" toast) ways. Don't mind if we do.
The menu's set to change with some frequency, so the opening menu has a bent towards cozy fall flavors, like a Warm Chicory Salad ($12) with apples, bacon vinaigrette and chevre (a tart goat's cheese) and Fall Squash ($10) draped in Red Rock (a cheddar blue cheese), sage, 'nduja sausage and pumpkin seeds.
Their version of grilled cheese ($10) tasks challah bread with holding together three different types of cheese and "boozy" onions, the whole of which can be dunked in an accompanying cup of tomato soup. Other bready options include that onion toast with oxtail and Timberdoodle ($12), a mushroom toast ($13) with the world's most decadent cheese (Harbison), and the Salumi Sammie ($12) with Tubby, an alpine cheese aged in Brooklyn.
Where cheese lives, wine typically cohabitates. Denizen's list makes note of sustainable, biodynamic wines where applicable, with vintages from Europe and the United States on tap and by the bottle.
88 Roebling Street; denizenbrooklyn.com
