New York

Want to impress your foodie friends or prove to your parents that living in post-industrial Brooklyn is more than high rent and flaking plaster? Take them to Vinegar Hill House. First, check your NFT to see where the heck this non-neighborhood is, then lead them down the cobblestone path to obscure fine-dining! We passed the restaurant twice before making it into the organ-bedecked room warmed by the same wood-fired oven in which all the food is cooked. The menu is alarmingly brief with three apps, four entrees, and a special or two--soothe them with phrases like "seasonal produce" and "changes weekly." The tartlet is a highlight with a palate-popping combo of stilton and sweet-potato in gold-crisp crust. Everything else is solidly good: fish tender, sweet and sour eggplant both sweet and sour. Meat is served on cutting boards, water in old wine bottles, wine in tiny glasses (not BYO anymore, though they've jumped on the Old Fashioned train with liquor license in hand)--all by attractive flannel-clad twentysomethings. This enclave of rustic-refinement won't be your new watering hole, but VHH is a trump card to defend your Brooklyn restaurant cred.

Photo:  Molly Riordan