Boars Head Meat

The Common Grill's uncommon quality

A full moon swallows the night sky, casting Chelsea’s rail line, brick buildings and the cornflower blue logo on its “Jiffy Mix” elevators in white. Purple Rose Theatre -goers pour onto Park Street, conversely stuffed with stage magic and hungry for meat, wine, starch and sweets.

Around the corner on Main, light from The Common Grill ’s dining room spills onto the sidewalk via its un-curtained windows: It is brilliant, a bistro like one seen ambling out of the smoky basements of Parisian apartments.

It would be a slight to suppose, however, that The Common Grill is merely a Midwestern carbon of a Montmarte district locale — manned by a maitre d', in Paris, coffee is served after dinner with a cheese wedge, with Burgundies and cigarettes, with airs. By contrast, executive chef Craig Common calls his restaurant an upscale American bistro, a restaurant as practiced and pure with its ingredients as any you would find in France.

Ingredients, like asparagus, peaches and whitefish, that Common says are, simply, “dynamite.”

Common began his kitchen career inauspiciously at age 14 washing dishes at Dearborn Heights’ Boars Head Inn . After years of learning the culinary trade from the ground up, Bob Daniels — proprietor of Chelsea Lumber and father of playwright Jeff Daniels — approached Common to open a destination restaurant as part of a downtown reinvigoration effort. In 1991, Common threw open his lacquered double-doors, and the Chelsea masses have been well-fed ever since.

“This is a restaurant where you can feel relaxed,” Common said. “We can accommodate anyone’s occasion, whether it’s a birthday party or if somebody comes up to the Grill to get a sandwich for dinner. We try to make it very comfortable for people.”

This comfort comes from fresh, un-fussy food served in a place that respects the basics. Suffice it to say that Common doesn’t adhere to the philosophy of chefs like Ferran Adria . Executive chef of Spain’s elBulli and considered to be among the world’s greatest culinary talents, Adria’s Willy Wonka approach to cooking has him preparing dishes like frozen polenta, asparagus with hot mayo, sushi with a ginger spray and tapioca’d ham.

Literally, this guy turns cured pig bits into gelatinous pearls.

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