La Vara

On a brownstone block of Clinton Street, Alex Raij and Eder Montero — the husband-and-wife team behind La Vara — cook Spanish food that leans on traditional recipes and takes them somewhere new. After more than a decade, it remains Cobble Hill's best argument for staying in the neighborhood for dinner.

Start with deviled eggs topped with green tahini and Cantabrian anchovies on charred bread, then fried artichokes over ibérico sausage. Rossejat — toasted fideo cooked in lobster stock — and Galician octopus are the plates to share, and suckling pig is the splurge. Their seafood-focused sibling, Saint Julivert Fisherie, is a few doors down.