February Assembly

Monthly ideas for better cooking, eating, and drinking

Hello from Vermont, where I’m spending the long weekend. We’ve been spoiled with fresh powder up here, and it’s bliss to sit by the woodstove while fat snowflakes fall outside. There’s no better place to read; there’s no better place to rest. I’ve determined that this house is at its most gorgeous on a snowy winter day just before sunset, when the outside turns rich blue and the inside turns golden. Blue hour! This weekend, the golden inside has been as it should be: full of friends, family, and dogs.

Blue hour in Vermont

Today, in an effort to give The Dish some structure, I’m launching a series for paid subscribers. I’m calling it Assembly, and it’ll contain monthly recommendations for better cooking, eating, and drinking. The balance between categories will change month to month, but it’ll always be a compilation of recommendations related to food and drink. I hope it’s as fun for you to read as I suspect it will be for me to write. 

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February Assembly

Dining at Diner

Last week, I met my friend Olivia at Diner, a little Williamsburg restaurant in a refurbished dining car that I’d long admired but never visited. I’m embarrassed (or proud?) to admit that I bought myself Diner merch years ago, having never actually eaten there. It’s a navy blue t-shirt with a whale graphic and ‘diner’ in capital letters. Can you blame me? I needed it! 

Founded by Andrew Tarlow and Mark Firth on New Year’s Eve, 1998, Diner is older than I am — a Brooklyn establishment at the forefront of farm-to-table cuisine in New York City. Tarlow has since built a restaurant empire, including Roman’s, one of my all-time favorite restaurants. Nick Perkins and Aaron Crowder, superb chefs and two of my former bosses at Hart’s and Cervo’s, both worked for Tarlow before starting their own restaurants, and the influence is clear: flowing olive oil, flowing wine, fresh produce, glowy candles, good people. So I’d always resonated with Diner from afar. 

When Olivia and I arrived, on a bleak, slushy evening, we were warmly greeted and seated at a booth, where our waitress wrote the menu in black Sharpie on our paper-covered table. We ordered well: a big chicory caesar salad, a spiral of lamb merguez, and a burger, which came with sharp cheese, pickled onions, and lettuce, plus fries on the side. We left feeling nourished and well-fed. 

As a cook, I’m not so fixated on elegance, or on reinventing the wheel. I just want to know that I left people feeling nourished and well-fed, knowing that they consumed good, simple food. Anyway, Diner made me feel that way. I think you’d like it.

The chicories, the merguez