The Runner Up And Running

[Pigging by Wilfrid: February 24, 2014]

Another look at the new formality in Brooklyn. Chef Andrew Burman (Court St Grocers) and manager Robert Honeycutt (Gilt, BLT Group) are mixing the smart dining and casual ambience in Clinton Hill.

It's a pub, it's bar dining, it's a neighborhood restaurant, it's ambitious. Early days, but it's promising too.

Like Dover and Prospect, Runner is yet another example of apply delivering what once would have been considered relatively high-end food and service, at reasonable cost, and in a relatively simple setting. The Runner splits into two rooms--the first, quite simply a bar-room (burgers, wings at the bar), the second a spacious dining room (with a chef's counter at one end).

Service is almost lavish.  As at Dover, I met a full range of managers, servers, and bussers--there was even a young woman, dressed in black, who seemed to have sole responsibility for running drinks from the bar. It's not stiff, but you can't ask for anything more attentive and solicitous. For example, although there's a charge for bread ($6 for tongue bread or popover), as soon as the kitchen dragged its feet on my appetizer, I was comped. The popover was just a popover, but the maple syrup butter was excellent.

I ordered roast oysters, and remain puzzled that they come cheaper than half-shell oysters, which surely require less work. If the kitchen wants to signal that cheaper oysters go into the roast, I wasn't convinced: it was a mix bunch, but the larger specimens were very good.  They were all dowsed in a garlic-parsley sauce one might expect to find on snails, and served on a white-hot mound of salt.

The concise, American menu also proposes bone marrow as a starter, and lists half a dozen soups and salads. Entrées--chicken, hanger steak, trout, lamb (what, no pork belly?) are inexpensive, but ungarnished.

I ordered the lamb shoulder, and--tempted by the white beans with duck--a side of gruyère/raclette mash.

I was glad I did, because the creamy, properly stringy potatoes added necessary heft to a small portion of meat.

The lamb was very good, and smartly accented with sweet currants and sharp pickled onions. At $16, I thought I'd rather pay $20 or $24 and get some more of it.  But I may have been unlucky in the plating. (For example, the couple next to me were tackling the chicken for two, and there seemed no shortage of it).

No cheese, which is surprising in a new American bistro, and all three desserts featured chocolate (there are ice creams too). I filled up on a pleasant chocolate and hazelnut tart.

Almost everyone in sight was drinking cocktails with dinner. There's a modest but decent BTG wine-list; I took, for example, an $8 Schlumberger pinot blanc with the oysters. Expect to pay around $50 to $60 for three courses, before you start drinking. These days that's cheap.