At the time, the city wasn't dotted with neighborhood BYOBs. No Meme. No Audrey Claire. No Bibou. No Modo Mio. No Cochon. No Etc.
To get a plate of simply grilled octopus - another rarity - or whatever whole fish they were serving with lemon, or mussels or fried smelts, the grill flaring up, the room alive, the waiters threading the tight lanes, hip-checking, ah, that was an evening.
"Magical" would be overstating things. But it was special, all right. Many evenings, and not just on weekends, Dmitri's would serve 200 dinners - shrimp pil pil, beet salad, baba ghanoush - the tables turning over five times.
Dmitri Chimes, the founder and still the owner, doesn't spend a lot of time there these days. Ten years ago, he opened a second Dmitri's on Fitler Square, and he maintains his office there. And now, just like clockwork - 10 years later - he has opened his third branch, not out of an overriding compulsion, but to hear him tell it, out of a sort of harmonic convergence involving a real-estate broker who said he'd found a vacant coffee shop on Second Street in Northern Liberties that "looked like a Dmitri's," and then a wrong turn that Chimes made on his way to get rye bread at Kaplan's that sent him past said property.
Indeed, the spot in question - just south of the brawny gray fortress of apartments that flank the Piazza at Schmidts - did (does) look like a Dmitri's, outdoor panels of varnished wood, big sunny windows, hardwood floor, a fish grill behind the counter and, well, 10 more seats and more space between them than the Queen Village old original. (Plus, room for outdoor tables on the quiet Laurel Street side.)
Chimes noticed something, patroling the neighborhood - spiffed-up houses up and down the skinny side streets, young families with kids, just the crowd he's after, graduates of Standard Tap.
