The last of my porchetta sandwich was cleared away an hour ago, but I continue to hang around Brookland's Finest Bar & Kitchen, chatting with two strangers at a low-lit bar that looks onto the snow-covered neighborhood for which the place is named. My mind reels at the thought that this conversation, in this restaurant, could not have taken place in the 1950s, before some Brookland residents waged an early battle to end segregation in their diverse Northeast community.
As I trade tales with my new drinking mates — she talks about her affection for dogs, he shares Super Bowl stories from Detroit — I feel these waves of gratitude that I can’t fully explain. Part of it is that doleful human condition known as nostalgia, which turns us into saps over places and periods in time that others can never experience for themselves. Nostalgia is a divider, not a uniter.
But part of my gratitude is rooted in the present conversation. The three of us have arrived at this place, on this cold night, via our own bittersweet paths, and we share this desire to reveal a sliver of our lives, that part for public consumption. The bar talk feels good, and I suspect the woman who loves dogs feels the same. She wants to buy me a beer so we can continue trading stories. Acceptance into a stranger’s social circle is a special grace, and I hate declining the offer. But I apologize and say I must go back to my neighborhood, to my dog.
Brookland's Finest stirs up intense memories for me. It reminds me of the bars in Houston's working-class neighborhoods, these no-frills clubs and converted homes where people of all races could gather over their shared love of Crown Royal and the blues. Today, food is the music that brings people together: Owners Tony Tomelden (the Pug) and John Solomon (Solly's U Street Tavern) have done a rare thing with their joint: They've converted a former dry cleaners into a casual chef-driven eatery without creating a food-snob Mecca that alienates locals. Brookland's Finest is a neighborhood restaurant in the best sense of the term, down to its willingness to work with residents during a vicious liquor license fight.
Their secret, I've learned, is chef and partner Shannan Troncoso, a Matchbox Food Group alum who reanimates the standard American menu with her quirky brand of locavorism, whether it's using invasive Maryland bottomfeeders in her fried blue catfish entree or paying tribute to Baltimore with her pit beef sandwich. Troncoso has a knack for making you pause over her plates, not an easy feat when serving hamburgers, Caesar salads, steamed mussels, spaghetti and meatballs and other dishes as common as cronyism on Capitol Hill.
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Start with her grilled chicken Caesar salad, a dish so in-your-face these days it generates a fight-or-flight response. Troncoso’s version features charred romaine leaves still clinging to their slightly bitter heart. The grill adds a sweet, smoky kiss to counteract the dressing with its sharp, anchovy sucker punch. The chef garnishes the long, tapered leaves with a crisp of shredded Pecorino romano cheese, which looks like it was sliced from a block of instant ramen noodles. At some point, the $20 Diner guilt reflex kicked in: This salad mocks my usual unrefined fare.
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This would be a recurring theme: Dishes that read like pub grub on the menu would assume personalities far above their station on the plate. The fried blue catfish arrives encased in cornmeal, its golden crust revealing flaky, succulent flesh with barely a trace of muddiness. The roasted half chicken sports both demi glace and reduced balsamic, which sounds like some gastronomic shotgun wedding until you taste how well the sweetened bird pairs with the chili-spiked rapini hiding underneath.
Troncoso exhibits a willingness to stretch the boundaries of a comfort food menu, but not to the point where it becomes a caricature, designed to satisfy only the chef's ego. So you'll find a hamburger (the deeply charred beef bomb known as the Colonel Burger, named for the man whose real estate would become Brookland). But you'll also find Baltimore pit beef (more Arby's than muscular open-pit cooking), butternut-squash-and-mushroom risotto (more earthy than rich and creamy) and seared salmon and grits (more Tabasco beurre blanc and cheddar grits, please!).
The chef’s Italian and Southern American roots have firmly taken hold at Brookland’s Finest, sprouting into flowers of varying perfumes. The small plate of butter beans assumes a clever, wintry persona with its red lentils and warm vinaigrette. The crispy exterior of the roasted porchetta gives way to a fennel-scented sausage stuffed inside the log, which Troncoso slices thick and serves with a gooey layer of mozzarella and arugula for a nearly perfect sandwich. The cannoli comes straight from Troncoso’s grandmother, its sweetened ricotta sealed with pistachios at both ends of the shell, although for a final course I prefer pastry chef Inma Bonarelli’s bittersweet chocolate-chip pecan pie. (Say that dessert out loud without drooling.)
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[More from the $20 Diner: Decoding D.C.’s coffee roasters]
Share this articleShareBrookland's Finest doesn't always live up to its name, a play on the Jay Z and Notorious B.I.G. collaboration, "Brooklyn's Finest." The charcuterie plate can feel cobbled together, more cheese than meat. The service flits between attentive and charming to neglectful and forgetful. And the bar managers clearly struggle to maintain consistency between what's advertised on the beer menu and what's actually on tap. It's a rare night some keg has not run dry.
But a restaurant isn’t that different from the community it serves — a reflection of its people, imperfections and ambitions. Like many spots in the District, Brookland struggles to balance growth with history, so that one doesn’t cancel out the other. A native of the neighborhood, Tomelden knows its past well. His motto here is simple: Feed the neighborhood and “anybody else that can find us.”
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One hopes that if they arrive, these interlopers will grasp how special the place is at bringing together all residents — black, white, whoever — and treating them like Brookland’s finest.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to the community's effort to end desegregation.
If you go
Brookland’s Finest Bar & Kitchen
3126 12th St. NE. 202-636-0050. www.brooklandsfinest.com.
Hours:Monday-Thursday 11 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.; Friday 11 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to
2:30 a.m.; Sunday 10 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.
Nearest Metro:Brookland, with a half-mile walk to the restaurant.
Prices:Sandwiches and entrees, $12-$27.
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