For nearly two decades, Andrew Tarlow has built something real in Brooklyn—a collection of restaurants that actually improve neighborhoods instead of colonizing them. Marlow & Sons, Olmsted, Achilles Heel: each one earned its reputation through consistency and care, not hype cycles. So when Tarlow finally crossed the river with Borgo, opening in September in the East 27th Street space that once housed I Trulli, the question wasn't whether he could do it. It was whether Manhattan was ready for what he builds.
The answer, arrived at swiftly by critics and diners alike, is yes. New York Magazine included Borgo on its 43 Best Restaurants list for 2025 before the restaurant had been open four months. This isn't an anomaly. Jordan Frosolone, who spent years at Momofuku and Hearth, has designed a monthly-changing Italian menu that moves between the familiar and the inventive without announcing itself as either. The timballo di anelletti—a refined riff on SpaghettiOs with a tomato sauce that's acidic and just a touch sweet, a center that's creamy and rich—shouldn't work as a statement dish at a fine dining restaurant. Yet here it does, because the cooking underneath is precise and the pasta is made right.
Borgo feels like the restaurant New York needed without knowing it: one built for adults who want to drink natural wine and eat properly cooked food without irony or apology. The martini cart isn't scenery. The wood-burning oven isn't decoration. The linguine alle vongole with bottarga, the wood-fired chicken with marsala jus, the deep-fried squash with honey and calabrian chili oil—these are dishes that reward your attention and your appetite equally. The cucumber and octopus salad is a lesson in restraint, each element distinct, nothing fighting for dominance.
What matters most about Borgo, though, isn't that Andrew Tarlow finally opened in Manhattan or that Jordan Frosolone found the right kitchen for his talents. It's that this restaurant works because it's not trying to be anything other than what it is: a place built for people who care about eating well, in good company, with excellent wine. In a city that has spent the last few years confusing novelty with quality, that's more radical than it should be.