606 R&D (CLOSED)

After a 15-year run, City Bakery's Ilene Rosen (a.k.a. the savory chef and salad whisperer) left the wildly popular institution she helped build, bringing GM Sara Dima with her. The pair teamed up to open this 30-seat American eatery in Prospect Heights. Rosen dispatches simple, homespun fare, such as carrot-parsnip pancakes, Faicco's broccoli rabe sausage with a celery-root mash, and rotisserie chicken with watercress, yogurt, lemon and toast. Some items have a personal provenance: Mortadella-and-cream-cheese roll-ups were inspired by Rosen's junior-high snacks, and her grandmother's Jewish-style chopped chicken liver also appears on the menu. Rosen put her Parsons interior design degree to work for the space—a George Nakashima wood hutch, a salvaged-marble cabinet and vintage pine-topped table with a black-painted trestle base decorate the spot.