Going Out
Craft Stake
Photo Credit: Dan Watkins
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There are elements that give Foundry on Elm a workshop aesthetic. Chicken-wire glass. An oak bar, built by a local millworker. But the inspiration behind the name isn’t so rugged.
“In a foundry, raw material came in, went through a process and came out a finished product,” co-owner David Flanagan says. “This is an acknowledgment of the original craft worker.”
But rather than punch-clock dining or a menu that beats you over the head with sanctimony, Flanagan, with partner Ken Kelly (Precinct, the Independent), has developed a casual place influenced by the Dublin native’s time in Paris. “I used to eat in brasseries five days a week,” he explains. “I loved that it had such a wide variety.”
The pair hopes to fill the near 200-person space with brasserie standards like a raw bar, coq au vin ($16) and steak frites ($19). Executive chef Sam Putnam, over from the Ashmont Grill, will also prepare smokehouse bratwurst sandwiches ($8), bacon, sweet corn and arugula flatbreads ($10), and other comfort foods made to leaven the French feel with tavern touches.
Opening this month, Foundry is the first of the team’s three-phase incursion into Davis Square. In late 2010, a “pre-Prohibition” saloon will operate two doors down—the label carefully chosen, the hidden doors and passwords of preening modern speakeasies left behind. Taking over Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway, a neighborhood club for music and comedy will debut in the spring.
For a team paying tribute to the craftsman, there’s plenty of work ahead.
Foundry on Elm | 255 Elm St., Somerville | foundryonelm.com
