Just heard from Leigh Jones regarding Jonesy’s EatBar, which took over the space that once held her Dish Bistro at 400 East 20th Avenue. While Dish was definitely a bistro — a small, informal restaurant serving wine — Jones says the new joint is absolutely a gastropub: a neighborhood bar featuring high-quality food to complement the beer and wine on offer.
More brasserie than bistro, more izakaya than either, a gastropub is really just a ridiculous name for a place that serves better food than a bar while offering the same volume of booze. And the food here looks awesome — no surprise, since I liked the menu at Dish, too, and Jones had a heavy hand in the creation of both, going for a “This is what I like to eat, and you will, too” approach and nailing it on both occasions.
This time around, the kitchen is serving up big bowls of fries done three different ways (truffled, with balsamic reduction or Frank’s RedHot) and mussels two ways (coconut green curry or steamed in beer — Avery White Rascal, in particular). Jonesy’s also has five interesting salads, a hanger steak, a miso tuna noodle bowl and a shredded-lamb sandwich with blue cheese, bacon and caramelized onions that I want right now.
Jones is good at inventing menus — pulling off the anachronistic and borderless world-food/comfort-food shtick with an ease that looks like carelessness, though is anything but. It took her months to come up with this one, and there’s not a single thing on the board that I don’t want to try.
I know where I’m having dinner this weekend…-- Jason Sheehan
