The Common Table Sudsy modern pub grub comes home to Fairmount

Moving into certain addresses sets one up for immediate comparisons: new 1600 Pennsylvania Ave residents must always serve America more skillfully than the last guy, while new 10 Downing St residents must always...also serve America more skillfully than the last guy. Moving into hallowed Uptown digs, The Common Table, open today.

TCT's the latest tenant of 2917 Fairmount, the converted home that's seen a string of vaunted restos, most recently Lola and Barclays; to stake their own claim, the new guys installed a chrome-spotlit central bar, orange-upholstered seating against olive green walls, an iron-and-pine-bench patio with the mammoth bar-height Common Table, and Helmut Newton photos of rockers like David Bowie and the Sex Pistols, who won't be having the bollocks after all. Dreamed up by a veteran of London's The Ivy, the upscale pub-grub is all wine-/beer-paired, and starts with "Small Plates" (veal parmigiana sliders, yuzu sesame-sauced pulled pork spring rolls, parm-dusted buffalo meatballs), soups (serrano-spiked Fireman's #4 Beer Cheese), and matchstick fries-sided sammies like the "Camburger", topped with creamy camembert after experiments with camneelybert knocked diners' teeth right out. Bigger munchies: the brown gravy Chicken Fried Rib Eye w/ roasted garlic cheddar mash, Shakespeare Stout Short Ribs w/ au jus/grilled scallions/young spring veggies, and Corn Fed Chicken with brown-sugar bacon & roasted-corn succotash, which has suffered, but in the grand scheme of things not nearly as much as the bacon.

As for booze, there are 23 drafts (16 standbys, 7 rotating "Specialties" from Ommegang Hennepin to Bear Republic Crazy Ivan) and 31 bottled beers including Chimay Blue and 37-proof BrewDog Tokyo, as well as around 50 wines and a dozen signature mixes named after everyone from Ted Williams, to The Strokes' Fabrizio Moretti, to PT Barnum, who avoided real-estate-related comparisons by living his whole life in a tent.