Roasted-duck flatbread at Garden at the Cellar

^{Photo: JOEL VEAK}

The gastropub concept - the notion of elevating humble tavern fare into something wonderful by using great local ingredients, applying old-time kitchen techniques (smoking, curing, pickling, nose-to-tail butchery), and adding some refined cheffery - has suddenly caught on in a big way. Here at STUFF, we just recognized two restaurants in the gastropub vein, The Gallows and Russell House Tavern, as among Boston's best in our 2010 Dining Awards. Yet despite their apparently recent discovery by legions of food writers, gastropubs are hardly new, and careful observers of the local restaurant scene know that Garden at The Cellar (991 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 617.230.5880) has been adeptly plowing this furrow for a while now.

Chef Will Gilson seems born to run this kind of place, having grown up in tiny Groton, Massachusetts, on his family's four-acre herb and vegetable farm, a popular produce supplier to many local fine-dining restaurants. He remains a consulting chef at the farm's Herb Lyceum, a 30-seat restaurant in a restored 19th-century carriage house, where the distance from farm to table is literally measured in feet. Garden at The Cellar, sitting halfway between Harvard and Central Squares, boasts sophisticated, lively, urban-tavern atmosphere, but its philosophy remains close to what the Gilsons have always advocated: food that's fresh, seasonal, hand-made, and local.

Gilson won early fans among the bar's drinking crowd with an array of skillful renditions of deep-fried foods: his now-famous tater tots ($5), superb fries ($5) scented with black truffles and fresh rosemary, and wonderful chickpea "fries" ($7), plank-shaped fritters served with brown butter, gremolata, and preserved lemon. More substantial offerings here include a generous plate of orecchiette ($20) with braised local greens, roasted tomatoes, slices of grilled house-made Italian sausage, and great Parmesan. House-made charcuterie (a trend Gilson anticipated by years) appears in many dishes and is showcased in a nightly selection ($15) that recently included smoked bluefish rillettes, a pork/duck terrine, and creamy duck-liver mousse, plus some speck imported from Italy. Grilled flatbreads, hand-rolled oblongs of very thin dough with unusual ingredient combinations, include the typically light yet rich roasted-duck flatbread ($14), its shredded meat layered with tender eggplant and melting smoked feta, topped with fresh radicchio: a crisp gourmet pizza and salad in one go. Typical of the menu's casual yet refined aesthetic, it's delicious, creative food with a lot of local sourcing that doesn't seem extravagant on a recessionary weeknight. That's a song that sounds pitch-perfect at this particular moment.