The Early Word: Lot 2

Lot 2 is on a stretch of Brooklyn's Sixth Avenue in what you might call Sunset Park, Greenwood Heights, or South Slope. It's a quiet avenue. A few blocks south, it dead-ends into Greenwood Cemetery. In the last few years, the area has enjoyed an unlikely mini-boom: Aside from Lot 2, there's Toby's Public House (and Scratchbread), Southside Coffee, and Safe Harbor--plus, the new branch of Lucali's, which is still under construction.

Chef Scott Bridi is a Brooklyn native, and was previously sous chef at 'inoteca, and director of the charcuterie program at Gramercy Tavern. At Lot 2, he's making his own pastas, charcuterie, and fresh sausage.

It's a small, comfortable restaurant--just a bunch of wooden tables and chairs, a small bar, and large windows that open out to the street. The menu is fashionably divided into small, medium, and large plates, although the portions are much more generous than those designations usually mean. A "medium" plate of homemade garganelli with roasted cauliflower and broccoli is actually big enough to be a sizable main dish. Prices are fair, ranging from about $13 for a plate of pasta or the burger, to about $20 for more elaborate mains.

Bridi has a thing for neck. He fashions dry-cured sausage from pork and lamb neck, and whips up duck neck rillettes. The cured lamb neck is delicious--pink, fat-mottled rounds with a spicy, meaty funk. We also loved a toast topped with whipped lardo butter that vaporizes on the tongue, plus brussels sprouts, and almonds. The garganelli in the vegetarian pasta plate has that nice, chewy character that good homemade pasta does, and a beef pot roast sandwich on a crusty baguette won't change your life, but is tasty and warming.

If you live in the area, you'll want to go back. Lot 2 isn't really a destination restaurant, and it's not meant to be. It's a neighborhood spot, and a good one, in the vein of Applewood.

687 Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn
718-499-5623
lot2restaurant.com