On a fall evening, 12-year-old Miles Bolton ambles through Saul's candlelit dining room in his hockey uniform, acknowledges customers with a polite grin, drops his backpack near the kitchen door, and takes a seat at the bar with his mom, who is flipping through paperwork. Before long, his father, Saul Bolton—the chef and namesake of the homey Boerum Hill boîte in the heart of brownstone Brooklyn—has plopped down a plate of farm-raised steak with a side of pureed local butternut squash and a large slice of chocolate cake in front of his most important customer. "How was your day?" Dad asks.
In the past decade, this version of the American family dinner has become an increasingly common sight across Brooklyn, as up-and-coming chefs and their spouses have opened establishments devoted to both sustainable cuisine for their patrons and a sustainable lifestyle for themselves. In their example of the family-run restaurant, they are wedding culinary sophistication to down-to-earth food made from local, seasonal ingredients. And since most of these trailblazers are parents, they naturally welcome children without pandering to them with the usual chicken fingers or grilled American-cheese sandwiches. In fact, these chefs share a similar mission when it comes to feeding kids, whether their own or their customers': to introduce them to, and get them excited about, real food. In doing so, they're inspiring parents to do the same at home.
The New Mom-And-Pops
Every neighborhood has its pioneer. In trendy Williamsburg, it was Diner, home of one of the city's best burgers (made with upstate grass-fed beef), which spawned Marlow & Sons, a low-lit haunt next door where hipster parents sip local Sixpoint Ale with babes on breasts and kids on laps. Here, little ones gum focaccia and spread stinky taleggio and local rooftop honey on rustic bread, while parents shop for everything from organic yogurt to obscure candy in the store's cubbyhole market.
In the historically Italian enclave of Carroll Gardens, it was Frankies Spuntino, a neo–red sauce joint with homemade pastas and cured meats from Faicco's, an old-school New York City butcher. The garden here offers a neighborhood snapshot: old-timers, extended families, canoodling couples, co-owners Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, and Castronovo's children—Sophie, 11, and Louise, 7—studying as their parents work.
These restaurants are the result of a few cultural shifts that have taken place in Brooklyn since the late '90s, when skyrocketing real estate prices in Manhattan kicked off a new wave of outer-borough gentrification. To the bemusement of many longtime Brooklynites (and the dismay of others), a good part of the borough was suddenly crawling with young blood, proudly sporting "718" T-shirts (their area code), who were enamored of Brooklyn's storied, gritty history and eager to transform their new neighborhoods into ideal places to live.
Next Page: Blending family life, work, and the love of local food
