Two new restaurants join the Williamsburg area dining scene

Summer, traditionally, is a slow time in the restaurant business — but don't tell that to chefs in the Williamsburg area. Several exciting new places have been popping up in recent weeks.

DoG Street Pub has opened up on Merchants Square. It's the third new venture for chef David Everett in recent years, who also oversees The Trellis Restaurant next door and the Blue Talon Bistro around the corner.

Across town, Jim Kennedy has retooled Dudley's, moving from an old house in Toano to a new space called Dudley's Bistro in New Town.

In and around Kingsmill, there's a new Cuban restaurant called Centro Havana Cafe. Also, chef Peter Pahk is putting the finishing touches on James Landing Grill, an extensive renovation of the casual Kingsmill eatery that sits on the James River.

Maybe it's the fact the Williamsburg is a tourist magnet that swells with people in the summer or that it has a sizable population of retired folks eager for a new place to dine. Whatever the reason, the city and its surroundings are offering up some great new places to eat this summer.

Open for a week, DoG Street Pub plays off its Duke of Gloucester (DoG) Street address. The British-style "gastropub" has taken over a 1930s bank building that has been vacant in Merchants Square.

Everett and his wife, interior designer Kathryn Tawes, have been working as a team to bring the restaurant on line. In addition to designing the kitchen and the menu, Everett has spent hours building cabinetry and other wood accent pieces — it's a particular hobby of his — to give the restaurant its pub-like atmosphere.

Unlike his other two restaurants, DoG Street feels more like a kick-back and work-on-a-beer kind of place. A long bar and large trestled table topped with stone dominates the front room. High ceilings and the original skylight has been restored or replaced. A raised dining area to the right is accented with grillwork that once separated the bank tellers from their customers.

The building required extensive renovation, says Everett, including removing a massive walk-in vault that took a month to dismantle.

In the rear dining area, a canopied bar area and paneling give the room a true pub feeling. Tawes has used fall colors of greens and reds and tiled the room in a stone mosaic. An additional room in the basement is available for parties and other gatherings. Behind it a refrigerated tap room controls the 17 draft beer lines that are pulled upstairs.

Initially, Everett considered several different cuisine concepts for the space, but decided what the community needed was an "adult bar and a place to relax." He admits that his other restaurants are wine-driven and that "beer brings out a whole different group of people we weren't familiar with." That required research and naming Michael Claar, who had worked at more beer-related restaurants, as general manager. In addition to the regional and international drafts, the pub will carry more than 100 bottled beers.

Everett's menu includes British favorites such as fish and chips and prime rib with Yorkshire pudding as well as pastas and dishes such as Tikka Masala that reflect London's international flavor.