• email
• print
• Tweet
  
  
• 
  
  

3. Marlow & Sons

81 Broadway • 718-384-1441

Marlow & Sons is so often packed with cooler-than-thou neighborhood hipsters that Ford, eager for youth cred, recently featured it in an SUV ad. The cool kids are right about this bustling spot next to big brother Diner on Williamsburg's south side, though. A bistro-cum-marketplace, the front room doubles as a general store with artisanal and imported delicacies. Pastries in the morning give way to homemade ice cream and cold pizza slices in the afternoon. In the evening hours, you'll want to score a table in the cavernous back dining room or, for prime sunset viewing, on the front patio. Cheeses, like Jasper Hill's luscious Constant Bliss, can be mixed and matched with charcuterie to create grazing plates for the table. Fish specials are solid choices—monkfish poached with olives and sundried tomatoes is a recent favorite. Incredibly moist, lemon-doused brick chicken is a menu regular that might renew your faith in poultry. But if there's one dish you simply can't leave without putting in your belly it's the chocolate torte, a combination of dense chocolate and caramel with a sprinkling of chunky sea salt. Debates over the aphrodisiacal qualities of chocolate end here.

Browse a lifetime's worth of drinking and dining reviews at Observer.com.