“Our food philosophy celebrates the craft of traditional Italian handmade foods using products grown and harvested in the Northeast.”

Homemade burrata; handmade pastas.

A sustainable approach to cooking is almost a given at Andrew Tarlow’s restaurants. The owner of some of Brooklyn’s most beloved neighborhood spots sources produce from local farms, works off green energy, and has worked to link his businesses so that they share resources to reduce waste. Meat comes from the team’s whole animal butcher, Marlow & Daughters, bread is baked by the company’s She Wolf Bakery, and pastas, which change regularly at Roman’s, are made in-house.

Sustainability extends beyond sourcing here. The group is focused on supporting its team and paving a new road for restaurant wages. Tarlow kicked off his Gratuity Free movement at this Fort Greene trattoria in early 2016. Here, servers are part of a revenue-sharing model and the kitchen team is started off at $1 above the minimum wage (with the hopes to increase that number to $2). While Roman’s is a neighborhood restaurant, it is more than worthy of a special trip to Brooklyn for a date night.

“The menu changes daily, and there’s a sense that you could come back often and rarely get bored.”

–Andrea Thompson, The New Yorker