Arrive Magazine - September/October, 2011

Food & Drink

In the late ’90s, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was rife with street art and the remnants of an industrial past, a neighborhood rich in unexpected rewards for the urban wanderer. It was on a long ramble, sometime in 1999, that I first happened upon the restored 1927 Pullman-style dining car that houses Diner ( 85 Broadway), standing in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge and within sight of the legendary Peter Luger Steak House—long considered the neighborhood’s sole “serious” dining option. My curiosity piqued, I entered Diner.

At first glance, the original tile work and the vintage fixtures within—not to mention the blue haze of cigarette smoke in an era before the city’s smoking ban—suggested an especially authentic entry to the ranks of burger-fries-shake eateries. But, instead of the standard multipage catalog of the fried and the fatty, the menu consisted of a single card. To further confound expectations, the waitress took a seat at my booth and, brandishing a pen, proceeded to write the day’s specials directly on the white butcher paper covering the table.

Thus began my love affair with Diner and its daily-changing menu. Years before the phrase “farm to table” became a cliché or Michael Pollan extolled the virtues of seasonal, locally sourced ingredients, I experienced their pleasures firsthand in these