A Williamsburg Landmark Gets a Tex-Mex Makeover

Chef Jackie Carnesi inside Kellogg’s Diner. Photo: Jeremy Liebman

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When Kellogg’s Diner — the chromed-out lodestar tucked under the BQE overpass — went bankrupt, restaurateur Louis Skibar took over with a plan to help it join the city’s growing roster of modern neo-diners. To rethink the food, he tapped chef Jackie Carnesi, the Empellón and Roberta’s vet, who grew up in the Texas border town of Brownsville and arrives at Kellogg’s with a deep affinity for southern and Tex-Mex cooking. “Do you know the restaurant Pappasito’s?” Carnesi asks, explaining that the Texas cantina chain uses massive tortilla rollers similar to one purchased for the diner. “I don’t know where we’re going to put it,” she says.

Before Kellogg’s, Carnesi was the chef of Nura, a Greenpoint restaurant serving “Indian-accented New American” food. It was the sort of gig she’d wanted to find when she first came to the city. “Nura was my dream for a really long time,” she says. At first, she signed on at Kellogg’s only as a consultant, but it was Michelle Lobo, the owner of Nura’s, who pointed out what a rare opportunity this diner could be.

It’s a big change, starting with the literal size: “I don’t think you’re prepared for how big this space is,” Carnesi says while talking me through the basement. There’s a meat grinder and a storage room just for liquor. There’s a rooftop terrace and a second floor that, when it opens, will be a restaurant within the restaurant. Aside from possibly the Roberta’s campus, it’s bigger than anywhere else she’s cooked.

The kitchen sprawls as well, but the menu remains grounded. “I’ve never worked at a restaurant where I’m expected to make things that largely already exist,” Carnesi jokes. Some diner standards — waffles, a BEC — will hew to the Platonic ideal; others will get Texan accents: cornmeal pancakes, meatloaf with poblano peppers and chipotle ketchup, hash that swaps out corned beef for guajillo-braised short ribs, and deep-fried, thick-sliced Texas French toast. Nachos will be served “tall,” stacked with queso. “I would be honored to be compared to somewhere like the Vermillion in South Texas” — the motto: NOT FANCY … JUST GOOD— “and I would feel weird about being compared to a cheffy restaurant,” she says.

The goal, throughout, is to give people diner food that feels deeply comforting. Jeremy Liebman.

The goal, throughout, is to give people diner food that feels deeply comforting. Jeremy Liebman.

Like many restaurants, Kellogg’s has taken longer to open than expected. That has given Carnesi time to travel, and recipe-test, and recipe-test some more. She put out a call for employees this summer and was happy to hear from Amanda Perdomo, who was the pastry chef of Greenpoint’s Cool World until it closed last year. Her dessert menu will include coconut cream pie, hummingbird cake, and buttermilk pie. There’s a soft-serve machine, of course (“Her ice creams are phenomenal, and she’s doing mango sorbet with chamoy,” Carnesi says), and strawberry pretzel salad with a Synder’s of Hanover crust, whipped cream, cream cheese, and strawberry Jell-O on top.

“There are certain things on the menu that will be as classic as it gets,” Carnesi says, “like huevos rancheros or chilaquiles — stuff that I don’t need to fuck with — but I can maybe have a little fun with the fried-chicken sandwich.”