Upscale Bangers and Mash

A British approach to cured meat works for a Columbia Heights restaurant

CommonWealth Gastropub
1400 Irving St. NW
202-265-1400
www.cwgastropub.com

** (out of four stars)
Sound Check: 80 decibels (extremely loud)

Charcuterie plates tend to show off shopping, rather than cooking, skills. With few exceptions, most restaurants are comfortable putting out a plate of sliced cured meat, a few gherkins and some bread and calling it a day.

CommonWealth, a daring upstart in Columbia Heights, takes the road less traveled. Its Butcher Plate eschews the usual selection of protein -- prosciutto, salami and the like -- for dishes you may never have heard of, let alone tasted. "What's fuet?" a curious dining companion asks our waiter. "What are trotters?" he presses. "Is head cheese what I think it is?"

The waiter smiles and patiently answers each question:

"Pork sausage."

"Pig's feet."

Head cheese is not a cheese at all, my friend is informed, but what you end up with after braising a pig head and mixing the meat with parsley, capers and preserved lemons.

When you're working in the first British-themed dining room on the block, you're called upon to do a lot of translating.

Chef Jamie Leeds, with two Hank's Oyster Bars to her credit, and her business partner, Sandy Lewis, are gambling that their "people's gastropub" will help fill a need for good food in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. CommonWealth has its roots in Great Britain and is modeled on watering holes aspiring to offer better than bangers and mash (read: sausage and potatoes). Executing that vision here is chef de cuisine Antonio Burrell, whose background includes kitchen duty at the Eleventh Street Lounge in Clarendon and the late Viridian near Logan Circle.

The tavern invites customers to get out of their comfort zones. Yes, there are hamburgers. But why eat a burger when you can get an excellent thin-crusted Cornish pasty (imagine an empanada from across the pond) stuffed with beef and pork? Frog in a Puff slips dense but tasty lamb sausage between sheets of golden, and slightly greasy, pastry. The appetizer, a slightly more civilized cousin to pigs in a blanket, prompts smiles all around.

Scotch eggs make a great icebreaker, too. The featured attraction, a welcome change of pace from all the deviled eggs out there, consists of two hard-boiled eggs encased in sausage and bread crumbs, split in half and served on a metal stand with a trio of dips; stick to the green herb sauce, a nice foil to the substantial snack.