Craft brews, delicious food, and a killer interior

Honeymoons are dream-like periods where post-nuptial bliss can shine unmolested by the reality of day-to-day marriage, when there tends to be far less molesting. Permanently extending bliss -- and expanding your belly -- The Rookery, now soft-open.

After honeymooning on the fair island of Manhattan, Rookery's owner decided to duplicate the relaxed, urban-rustic vibe of the Lower East Side, filling his white-tiled joint with reclaimed furniture & touches including an impressive iron spiral staircase and a cracked mirror so large whoever defaced it will continue to have horrible things happen to him even in the afterlife.

Smaller plates (drummed up by an ex-Pied a Terre/Hibiscus foodsmith) have smoked bacon & cannellini soup, marinaded salmon w/ herbs & radishes, and crispy pig's ear, gherkins & raisins to accompany "bath chaps": boiled and fried pieces of brined porcine head which are "mostly cheek", which is always the case with chaps

Up-sizing sees crispy lamb w/ chickpeas & mint, duck rounded out by borlottis & salsa verde, and, swimming in garlic cream, Cornish coley, a fish so similar to cod it might just save that species...and doom the coley.

There is of course booze behind the bar: a huge craft selection covering taps (Anchor Steam, 4 Meantimes, Sambrook Junction & Germany's DAB Original...) and bottles (Goose Island, Little Creatures pale ale, Westmalle Trappist), plus stalwart cocktails like Negronis, Gimlets, and Corpse Revivers -- or, what so many old wives must be to get any molesting out of old husbands.