Baguettes and Beyond at Runner & Stone

They had me at the baguette. One bite of Runner & Stone’s balanced loaf—a just-right ratio of flaky crust and chewy dough—and I was convinced that the latest opening on Brooklyn’s 3^rd Avenue, the borough’s newest burgeoning food stretch, would be a more-than-welcome addition to the neighborhood. After stopping in for dinner twice (and, admittedly, baguettes and other assorted morning sweets a few more times than that), I’ve been proven so right. Head baker Peter Endriss (formerly of Per Se and Bouchon) and executive chef Chris Pizzulli (formerly of Blue Ribbon), who named their new restaurant after the two stones used to grind grain in a mill (the Gowanus neighborhood is the location of the city’s first tide water grist mill), are focused on churning out a parade of elegantly simply dishes morning, noon and night (the restaurant is, impressively, open almost round the clock) using the best locally-sourced ingredients. What to try at R& S besides that transcendent baguette (it’s currently sharing favorite status with Almondine): the hearty, warming short rib soup (pictured above), the aromatic (it’s cumin) escarole salad sprinkled with pan-fried white beans, and, unsurprisingly, considering their bread domination, all of the house-made pastas (particularly the spaghetti with scungilli ragu). For those of us that are lucky enough to live close by it will be a beloved neighborhood restaurant; for those who live further afoot, it should definitely become a destination. FIORELLA V