Jamie Leeds

The post is a two-year commitment that will place a fairly serious burden on Leeds’ time and attention. She will oversee the marketing and membership committees. She will attend quarterly meetings. She will have a say on the organization’s spending and Web site. She will even travel to Chile soon for a sort of culinary fact-finding mission.

“It means a lot of work,” Leeds tells Y&H over the phone this afternoon. “It’s a very challenging, exacting, and very rewarding position.”

How will Leeds manage her three restaurants with such a heavy commitment over the next two years?

The restaurateur, who has been part of WCR since its inception in 1993, explains that the president is eased into the position with a one-year incoming term, followed by the two-year presidency, and then a one-year outgoing term. The president also has lots of support from the WCR board, an executive director, and the committees. In other words, Leeds won’t have to do everything for the 2,000-member organization.

Still.

“I did sit down with everybody [at her restaurants] and talk about it,” Leeds says. “It has taken me out of the restaurants a great deal. All the managers and chefs are very supportive. I wouldn’t have done it without their support.”

What’s more, Leeds adds later in our chat, “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think the restaurants were strong enough to support it.”

Leeds’ new gig comes as she and her chef de cuisine, Abigail Fellows, have been opening up the menu at CommonWealth, adding some lighter fare and more options beyond the chef-driven gastropub grub.

As fate would have it, I was dining at CommonWealth last night, test-driving some of the new dishes. I enjoyed the homemade squash ravioli with an orange butter sauce (though it was a touch sweet between the sauce and the roasted kabocha). And I thought the patty on my “Uncommon” lamb burger was a righteously meaty mouthful, firm and savory, but I found the mint pesto far too sour and the English muffin a poor substitute for a genuine bun. The bread-to-meat ratio was way off, and the muffin didn’t supply the sweet buttery flavors I like in my patty-delivery system.

Mostly, I have to admit, I was disappointed even to see some of these selections on the menu. While much of the original gastropub menu remains intact, there are clearly additions that take CommonWealth in a completely different direction, like the pork belly sliders and ceviche and the chicken and dumplings.

It’s the price you pay, Leeds shrugs, for being a neighborhood restaurant. You have to cater to the neighborhood’s wishes. “They come here for all the different types of desires they have,” Leeds tells me. “If we were packed every night with people ordering head cheese and black pudding, I’d be in heaven.”

But that’s obviously not the case.

Why? Because neither Okochi (Kaz Sushi Bistro) nor Sandoval (Zengo and too many other places to name) are handling the daily kitchen chores at Masa. They’ve left that to former CommonWealth chef de cuisine, Antonio Burrell.

So where does that leave CommonWealth, Jamie Leeds’Columbia Heights gastropub that was a top 50 performer in this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide? It leaves the place looking toward Europe.

Leeds and her new chef de cuisine, Abigail Fellows, the former executive sous at CommonWealth, have revamped the menu, adding more sandwiches and salads and even a turkey burger. They’ve cooked up an “Uncommon” burger, too, which is a lamb patty served with mint relish. Other items that you might see, either on the menu or the specials list, include duck confit risotto, kabocha squash ravioli, and chicken and dumplings.

“We lightened it up a lot,” Leeds tells Y&H.

I asked Leeds if this signaled a shift away from the gastropub concept, with its emphasis on chef-driven takes of classic British dishes. Sort of, the owner says.

“We’re changing to just slightly more traditional European [food],” Leeds says. “Just because I think it’s more accessible to people.”

Looks like Y&H needs to check out this makeover soon.

Photo courtesy of CommonWealth

One by one, we’re running through the 50 restaurants that made the cut on this year’s Young & Hungry Dining Guide. If you have visited the day’s featured restaurant, let us know what you think. If you’re planning to visit for the first time, tell us about your meal when you return.

Jamie Leeds, the chef behind the casual seaside comforts of Hank’s Oyster Bar, seems to have no interest in joining D.C.’s fine-dining ranks so that she can, one day, find her name among the short list of Beard Award nominees. Nope, Leeds strikes a more populist pose, which is undoubtedly why she gave her latest project, CommonWealth in Columbia Heights, this deft little descriptor: The People’s GastroPub. Like Hank’s, CommonWealth is a neighborhood hangout, a place so bound up in concrete and human congestion that it virtually demands that you walk, not drive, to it. You could argue that Leeds’ brand of populism precludes patrons who can’t afford $14 for fish and chips or $15 for bangers and mash, but you could also argue that cheaper ingredients would only move CommonWealth toward Logan Tavern–level mediocrity, just with better beer.

 CommonWealth, 1400 Irving St. NW, (202) 265-1400

(202) 265-1400

Jamie Leeds, the chef behind the casual seaside comforts of Hank’s Oyster Bar, seems constitutionally incapable of opening a generic New American restaurant designed for K Streeters who pull up in their E-Class Coupe or 911 Carrera and toss their keys to some valet working for handouts. No, Leeds has a populist streak as wide as the English Channel, which is undoubtedly why she gave her latest project, CommonWealth in Columbia Heights, this deft little descriptor: “the People’s GastroPub.” Like Hank’s, CommonWealth is a neighborhood hangout, a place so bound up in concrete and human congestion that it virtually demands that you walk, not drive, to it. You could argue that Leeds’ brand of populism precludes patrons who can’t afford $14 for fish and chips or $15 for bangers and mash, but I’d argue those prices are almost a steal compared to the quality of food found on the plate, not only with ingredients but also with kitchen skill. The nicely browned bangers are genuine Cumberland sausages, coiled and stuffed with rough-cut pork. The beer-battered fish is so lightly and uniformly fried that you’d swear it was the fish’s natural skin. The butcher plate features some of the finest offal in town, though I do wish Leeds would default back to her original recipe for head cheese, which was this rich, aromatic square of jellied pig’s head meat. The beer, I’ll grant you, is indeed pricey, upward of $8 a pint, but the list leans heavily on English imports—ales, stouts, and lagers—supplemented with a few brands brewed in America’s own commonwealth states. Compared to some other “neighborhood” restaurants in the District, CommonWealth, I’d say, is one rare haunt: It’s not only neighborly, but downright ambitious and cool.

As a general rule, the Young & Hungry blog is not here to plug every damn product that comes down the pike, but we’ll make an exception for the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs 2009 calendar, which you can purchase for $12 over at WCR’s Web site. It’s a great holiday gift, blah, blah, blah.

The national organization’s mission is “to promote and enhance the education, advancement and connection of women in the culinary industry,” which says way more about the industry, I think, than about WCR. I mean, we’re nearly eight full years into the 21st century, and women still need a specialty group to promote their interests inside the kitchen? The French influence, she is still strong in the restaurant world, oui?

The calendar is D.C.-centric, even though the organization is national. The local chefs, restaurateurs and sommeliers who appear in the calendar include Melanie Parker (Equinox), Ris Lacoste (ris and Rock Creek), Amy Brandwein (Fyve), Barbara Black (Addie’s Restaurant, Black Market Bistro, Black’s Bar & Kitchen, and BlackSalt Fish Market & Restaurant), Beverly Bates (ici Urban Bistro at Sofitel Hotel), Nora Pouillon (Nora), Ruth Gresser (Pizzeria Paradiso), Jamie Leeds (CommonWealth Gastropub and Hank’s Oyster Bar), Heather Chittum (Hook), and Tracy O’Grady (Willow Restaurant). So do some of their recipes.

“The D.C. calendar is the first one that WCR has ever done!” e-mails Rachael Siefert, a publicist for the project. “The idea came from the D.C. chapter of WCR…and WCR is hoping to take it to other cities in the future.”