Brooklyn's Columbia Waterfront District is a quiet micro-neighborhood that feels more isolated than a glance at a map would suggest. Separated by the BQE from Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill to the east, cut off from Red Hook by the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the south, blocked from the actual waterfront by the shipping yard, it's not the sort of place you find yourself regularly passing through.

Which is why, after traveling down multiple long residential blocks to get here, it's always a bit of a surprise how lively it is on the main drag, Columbia Street, replete with bars, restaurants, and other shops. One of the newest spots on the strip, opened last November, is The Longshoreman — a sleek, somewhat fancy "modern Italian eatery" named in homage to the dock worker's bar that occupied the space in the 1950s.