Common Craft
When you go out to eat, you're always looking for a place that has tasty food and good drinks, but what you really want to find is an experience. And after visiting 1000s of restaurants, I can honestly tell you I have never had an experience quite like Common Craft.
We're in Burlington, Massachusetts, right at the Burlington Mall, and talk about unique. This place is definitely one of one. You have two beer halls, a wine bar, a speakeasy, and a kitchen serving some incredible comfort foods. It was all created by owner Larry Leibowitz, and his passion is showcasing and boosting local independent producers. So basically, this is like being able to have a pub crawl all under one roof. all the different rooms showcase a different independent producer. You have Exhibit A brewing out of Williamsburg, Massachusetts, Zero Gravity out of Burlington, Vermont, Deacon Giles Distillery out of Salem Mass, and the food is all local, and it's all made from scratch. This is basically an upscale gastropub kind of menu, so a lot of familiar favorites, but kicked up with a little bit of a gourmet twist.
There's one menu across the entire space, so no matter where you're sitting or no matter what you're drinking, you can get some awesome comfort food. And anytime I'm drinking a beer, I want a nice pretzel to go with it. This is the mighty Hofbrau pretzel, perfectly seasoned with some rock salt. And it comes with two kinds of dip. You have the house honey mustard, which is thick and a little spicy. And then you have the beer cheese that's made with an IPA from Exhibit A Brewing it's rich and creamy and cheesy. Oh yeah. And of course, it goes great with the beer.
My favorite starter here is definitely the ricotta toast. I mean, you don't usually find appetizers this beautiful in a beer hall. You got some grilled ciabatta bread that's topped with an apricot spread and whipped ricotta cheese, finished off with some fig honey and then some beautifully crushed pistachios. So good, so toasty, so addictive.
As a guy who grew up on the North Shore, I have been eating roast beef sandwiches my whole life, and I can tell you right now, I was shocked to find out they make one of the best roast beef sandwiches ever right here at Common Craft, the Executive Chef here is a guy named Matty Marquis. He was the original owner of a restaurant named Jamie's in Peabody. They were famous for serving incredible roast beef sandwiches, and now he's brought all that beef know how to Burlington. This has got to be one of the most beautiful beefs I've ever seen in my life. That glistening onion bun, the shimmering mayo, that sauce that is just falling and make a mess all over the plate, the cheese on the bottom bun. You're gonna need a couple napkins for this one. In fact, you're gonna need a whole stack of napkins. That soft, warm beef just melts in your mouth, and that onion roll not only gives you crunch, gives you some extra flavor. It's one of the messiest beefs in the business, but it's definitely one of the best. I'm gonna need a few more napkins there, dude. Thank you.
Pizza and beer is one of my all time favorite food pairings. This pizza is known as the Sweet Heat flatbread. The crust is nice and thin and really crispy around the edges, and it's topped with a combination of fresh mozzarella cup and char pepperoni, pickled jalapenos and some hot honey. But it's not too spicy, that honey brings some real sweetness to the party. It's a great pizza, and makes you want to order another beer.
When you talk about good drinking foods, one of my all time favorites is fish and chips. This is a beer battered fish and chips. Of course, they’re using a Cone Head IPA in the beer batter. It's a beautiful, fresh, flaky haddock. It comes with some fries, House made coleslaw. And the key is the malt vinegar tartar sauce. I love a good creamy tartar sauce, and the fact that they're actually putting some malted vinegar in it, that means you don't have to put vinegar over the top. It's already in the tartar sauce. These guys are genius.
Now let's talk chicken and waffles. The waffle they're using is a Belgian style Liege waffle with pearl sugar baked right into the batter that's topped off with a crispy fried chicken breast, buttermilk battered, has great flavor, and it's served over a pile of Deacon Giles spiced rum butter. So you get those savory spices from the chicken, the sweetness and toastiness from the waffle. It's soft and buttery and sweet. It's like the best brunch you've ever had, all in one forkful.
For dessert, I recommend having another beer, a root beer, actually a root beer float. You get a tall frosted mug with three scoops of vanilla bean ice cream, and it comes with a bottle of Gale’s craft root beer on the side. So you just take that root beer, pour it over the ice cream, let the carbonation just bubble up over the sides of that frosted mug. It's sweet, it's cool, it's refreshing. It's the ultimate way to end your experience. So you might come for the craft beer, but you're gonna stay for everything else, and one of the best beefs you'll find on the north shore here at Common Craft.
