A lot of people open restaurants, but not many can claim to have invented, or at least heavily influenced, an entire scene.
During the boom period of Brooklyn, a long stretch during the 2000s and 2010s, when that corner of New York seemed to be at the epicentre of all things cool, Andrew Tarlow’s restaurants, namely Diner and Marlow & Sons (which recently closed after more than 20 years), pioneered the farm to table, casual service, good music and exposed brick aesthetic that has spread around the world. Walk into a restaurant in Jakarta, Tbilisi or Toronto and you’re going to see a through-line of what Tarlow, his former business partner Mark Firth, and a handful of other contemporaries started. Diner opened in 1998—a lifetime ago in restaurant terms.