Marlow & Sons - Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Down the street from Peter Luger's Steakhouse and standing in the shadow of sister restaurant Diner it might be easy to overlook Marlow & Sons along Broadway in Williamsburg. This would be tragic, however, as the little cafe has a feel all its own while still bearing the same local/sustainable food standard that it's owners have been advancing for years.

Much like Diner, all of the meats are supplied by the Marlow & Daughters butcher shop up the street. Beef, pork and lamb are sourced from farms in upstate New York and Pennsylvania specializing in grass-fed, hormone and antibiotic free meat. Chickens take a slightly longer journey, coming from a farm in Quebec which raises free-range, air-chilled poultry. The cheeses are mostly from New York and Vermont, and exceptions are clearly noted, as is the case with the oysters.

The area itself is fairly small, but utilized to create a quite cozy atmosphere. The front room is a multi-purpose area featuring a coffee/pastry shop, a general store offering everything from coffee presses to tote bags to magazines, and also serves as a small waiting area for both Marlow & Sons and Diner. The dining room features a full bar on the left and has table seating for roughly thirty people. The dim lighting and darker woods of the bar, floor and walls create a very rustic feeling and while some may be put off by the proximity of the tables the space isn't overly tight and lends a sense of communal eating.

This sense of warmth after trudging down Broadway through leftover snow on a frigid Sunday morning was much needed, as was the brunch fare on offer. The menu shifts not only with the season, but occasionally with the days as the head chef changes specials frequently. On this wintry trip the cabbage and potato soup ($8.50/bowl) and the brick chicken ($19.50) were enough to comfortably sate the taste buds and appetites of two.

The soup - cabbage and potato in a cream sauce topped with a poached egg, olive oil and fresh green onions - had a beautifully silky texture. The richness of the cream married well with the earthiness of the cabbage and potatoes, which were in turn offset by the sharpness and crunch of the onions. The egg yolk broke nicely, adding a note of saltiness to the broth. The complimentary flavors and contrasting textures resulted in a fantastic spoonful of comfort.

The chicken was skillet-fried in bacon fat and its own rendered juices with weight on top (hence "brick chicken") to give the skin tremendous crispiness. The meat itself was perfectly tender and juicy and was served au jus with potatoes and caramelized onions. Of course the bacon fat with the skin made for quite a salty dish, but the slice of citrus served to cut the salt well.

The decor and atmosphere at Marlow & Sons was perfectly low-key allowing the food to speak for itself - and it spoke brilliantly. Though the food was simple it was well executed and fantastically flavored. It's a neighborhood place with a neighborhood feel, but well worth a trip to visit.

Marlow and Sons
81 Broadway
New York, NY 11211