Construction looks nigh on complete at the new restaurant going up in Williamsburg, on Broadway across the street from Peter Luger.
Most in the immediate neighborhood know this is going to be the latest chapter in the expansion of Dumont, the restaurant by former Balthazar barman Colin Devlin who has recently expanded his franchise with the tiny DuMont Burger on Bedford Street.
There are some gaps in the paper over the windows, and a hole where the lock casement will go, so you can get a pretty good look; recently I got a better one when some construction guys had the doors wedged open to bring in lumber.
It looks like a steakhouse. Lots of old-looking woodwork, a great bar with a mirrored back, palazzo tile floors, handmade wrought-iron chandeliers. In fact, it looks a lot more like a steak house than Peter Luger’s, the long unchallenged restaurant of Broadway, which is right across the street.
A local who has a reason to know told us the place would be called Dressler.
After Marie Dressler, the silent-movie and sometime Fatty Arbuckle actress, we wondered? After all, it would make sense of the name Dumont (think Margaret Dumont of Marx Brothers’ fame).
Incidentally, it also evens the score between Colin Devlin and his fellow McNally graduates, Mark Firth and Andrew Tarlow, owners of Diner and Marlow & Sons (who come from Balthazar and Odeon), two blocks down on the same street: they each have three restaurants in the neighborhood now. And among them, three on a three-block stretch of lower Broadway.
Meanwhile, we’re still keeping an eye on the old Willamsburg Art & Historical Society Building, which is trying to lease its ground floor to a restaurant.
– Tom McGeveran
