A Chef With Art & Soul: Art Smith

WHILE MOST BRAND-COOKS trade in their toque for a food franchise or a line of TV dinners, Art Smith is venturing into the hi-lo country of feel-good cuisine. His menu at Art and Soul Cafe brings modern and regional flavors center plate with a soothing drawl.

The Land and Sea hoe cake is essentially a cornmeal pizza with blue crab, braised beef and Brie. Homey standards like lamb chops come with charred poached pears and mint julep sauce. Ham-swaddled rockfish paired with crab risotto is a belly-filler that harks back to a time when nobody worried about carbs or cream.

There's no denying the sweetness of Smith and Morgan's sinful caramel apple crisp and the baby cake, a variation on the Lady Baltimore layered with coconut, lemon curd and chocolate.
Hill-dwellers and employees alike can retire to ArtBar, a handsomely appointed lounge where the joint's signature drink, the "Put-Up," is prepared with precision. The name comes from the farmer's tradition of preserving vegetables for the harsh winter months. In drink form, a mixture of Purus vodka and dry vermouth is "put up" with an assortment of pickled baby carrots, beets, onions, olives, watermelon rinds and quail eggs. Sip it with boiled peanuts and pork cracklins dashed with cayenne and brown sugar.

For an added homemade touch, Smith and Morgan have included a breakfast menu with depth. The French toast soufflé whips together doughy, dewy challah, organic maple syrup and fresh fruits. And, of course, there are biscuits aplenty.

Art and Soul's spiffy design features a series of portraits of celebrated bridge builders, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Winston Churchill. The Liaison Hotel bustles with executives, dignitaries and politicos who interact with one another like electrons hurrying, colliding and connecting. Art and Soul offers a humbler means of bringing people and ideas together. Chefs Art Smith and Ryan Morgan are breaking bread.

» Art and Soul Cafe, 415 New Jersey Ave. NW; 202-393-7777. (Union Station)

Written by Express contributor Christopher Correa
Photo courtesy Hisaoka PR