Borgo Is Andrew Tarlow’s First Manhattan Restaurant

Welcome to Grub Street’s 2024 Fall Restaurant Preview. All week, we’re diving into the upcoming openings we’re most excited about.

Twenty-six years ago, Andrew Tarlow, his then-business partner Mark Firth, and a young chef named Caroline Fidanza opened Diner, the Williamsburg restaurant that transformed the Brooklyn dining scene and, some have argued, Brooklyn itself. Thousands of Manhattanites braved the borough for the privilege of ordering its cheeseburger and beet salad. Some stayed and bought lofts. Now, there’s a Chanel boutique, a Chase Bank, and a Whole Foods, all within walking distance, so Tarlow has set sail to distant shores again, this time to a 9,000-square-foot space that — while on the border of Flatiron, Nomad, and Gramercy — does not feel like it is in a particular neighborhood of its own. “I call it No-Man’s-Land,” Tarlow jokes. “We’ve all seen what happened to Williamsburg — no one is going to knock down these buildings and put up ugly condos here.”

Borgo means “­village,” but it’s also, Tarlow says, “just a funny word — borgo!” This little corner of no man’s land, developed but not redeveloped, feels villagelike, indeed. Tarlow warmed to the neighborhood after taking his younger son, Roman — after whom he named his Fort Greene restaurant — to school on 23rd Street. Now his eldest son, Elijah, who has worked at Marlow & Sons, Roman’s, and, most recently, Mimi, is joining Borgo as one of two sous-chefs. “It’s his first OT-exempt job,” says Dad, “but he’s been working in restaurants since he was 10.” (Elijah will be joined, hopefully, by his ­sister, ­Beatrice, whom Tarlow wants to lure in as a hostess.) “All my kids have grown up inside these restaurants, as part of this whole community of people,” Tarlow says. “I’m excited to have them here.”

Heading the kitchen at Borgo is Jordan ­Frosolone, a 48-year-old father of two who worked for Tom Colicchio and Marco Canora. “Jordan is a great fit,” says Tarlow. “He’s not a young guy, and I’m interested in how we build restaurants and age in them.” There is room for 140 diners, and the menu — old-fashioned and large — has a picture of Librizzi, a hilltop village in Sicily, drawn by Drew Heffron, a longtime Tarlow collaborator. On offer are dishes such as the Sicilian garlic dip scurdalia, made with Italian almonds; ancient-grain spaghetti with Calabrian anchovies and chiles; and pork ribs with fennel pollen. Tarlow’s restaurants have always operated in the substrate of fine dining, good but not virtuosic, satisfying but familiar, habit-forming more than mind-blowing. “Ideally, in a real way without sounding goofy,” explains Tarlow, “I want people to feel fulfilled by the experience.”

As we walk through the dining room, still a sea of drop cloths in a fog of sawdust, the bones of a “classic” joint are taking form. “This is the first job where we’re officially general contractors,” he points out, “so we’ve been able to take our time a little bit more.” He says the restaurant is the start of a real next chapter, a time to build something he can pass down, and a return to Manhattan; he met his wife, Kate Huling (in the blue dress in the photo above), when they worked together at the Odeon. He met Firth there too.

Everything is designed to be timeless in that hazy, Tarlowian way. The original bar from I Trulli, the previous occupant, has been refinished and expanded; the archways have a graceful, Shaker-style curve. Tarlow & Co. have dug up and elevated the fireplace that sits between two dining rooms so it now rests at eye level. And the unusually large garden in the back houses a metal sculpture by Gabrielle ­Shelton, a Diner regular since day one.

More From Our Fall Preview

• Kellogg’s Diner Gets a Tex-Mex Makeover
• Borgo Is Andrew Tarlow’s First Manhattan Restaurant