Restaurant
Williamsburg, Greenpoint
Urban Rustic
Imagine if Morgan Spurlock were to open a burger joint where the hamburgers were fashioned from contented, grass-fed, sustainably raised cows. That would be something like the situation at Urban Rustic, a grocery store in Williamsburg. Co-owner Aaron Woolf also happens to have directed the documentary film King Corn, and as it was in his film, Woolf’s mission here is to raise awareness about where our food comes from as much as it is to sell groceries. At Urban Rustic, the goods come mainly from local farmers, butchers, cheesemakers, and assorted purveyors. The 2,600-square-foot space is designed, in the current fashion, to look like a sleepy nineteenth-century general store, but has just about everything you’d expect to find in a modern foodie emporium, including a juice-and-coffee bar and an elevated dining area. Every item for sale, from the biodynamic yogurt to the Brooklyn bath salts, has a story, and, like good documentarians, Woolf and his partners plan to tell each one. — Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite
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