The dining room is bigger, too, up about 20 seats from the old one. It no longer feels as if you're eating in someone's mildewed rec room dressed up with framed French posters (though the posters remain). Something is gained, something is lost. Craigie on Main looks just like a restaurant should, handsome and welcoming. But it doesn't feel like a basement speakeasy. Eating at Craigie Street Bistrot made you feel you were in on a well-kept secret, even as you knew you weren't (the accolades from Food & Wine magazine gave that away).
Perhaps the biggest difference is a bar area, with several little tables and a menu of its own. This features the likes of bone marrow, pork jowl croutons, and a very good cheeseburger of local, grass-fed beef served with funky mace ketchup and a pile of sweet potato fries as thin as fingernail shavings. (Salt isn't listed as a burger ingredient, but there's enough to qualify it for inclusion.) You can also order off the regular menu. Eat a full dinner in this more casual side of the restaurant and you'll witness several waves of customers come and go; the bar is doing serious business.
Heading it up is Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli, formerly of Eastern Standard. With him he brings the bartender equivalent of perfect pitch (try the Northern Lights, a harmonic convergence of elderflower, Douglas fir, and Scotch), a love of bitters, and groupies. "I'd order Fernet Branca, Tommy, but I have a bottle at home," a young woman confides, showing off her knowledge of the cult liqueur. A few seats down, a fellow bartender is sniping about colleagues around town. If esoteric descriptions aren't your thing, the cocktail list will give you a headache; wording such as "Updated Friend and Modern Technique" (Vergano's Bronx) and "Alpine Elixir meets Le Grand's Masterpiece" (Florentine Flip) can be confounding.
