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The Spot: William Hallet, 36-10 30th Avenue, Astoria.

The Deal: No one knows better what a neighborhood needs than the people who live there. So when Astorians Gary Anza and George Rallis noticed the lack of late-night American fare deep in Astoria, they started planning, and in July 2011 the restaurant William Hallet opened.

“The great thing about American food is you can take a little from each culture and create new dishes, which is where we wanted to take the menu when we conceived Hallet,” says Rallis.

The bar and restaurant focuses on late-night bites, perfect for sharing with a crowd, and over the last three years the crowd has been changing.

“There is a greater concentration of young single people, as opposed to ethnic family-centric households,” Rallis explains. “And although we try to cater to the new Astorians, when we create a new menu we still take cues from the ethnic diversity that is still prevalent in the neighborhood.”

And William Hallet will be there, with a selection of shareable dishes, whiskey, and draft beers.

Read about William Hallet’s Signature Dish after the jump…

The Dish: When pushed to choose a Signature Dish, the owners of William Hallet were unable to narrow it down to one: for dinner, the turducken sandwich, and for brunch, the Hallet Benedict.

The turducken turns a complete Thanksgiving dinner into a sandwich: a turkey meatloaf sliced on an onion roll and topped with bacon and bourbon ketchup. The Hallet Benedict takes a traditional eggs Benedict and replaces the ham with pork belly.

Rallis picked these two dishes because of their slight variation on classic dishes. “The concept behinds Hallet’s menu is taking classic or recognizable dishes and rethinking them to make them fresh and new.”


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