Commerce.(Restaurant review)

Fancy food, unfancy setting: that's the guiding idea at Commerce, and the source of its schizophrenic charm. This ancient space, at the end of Commerce Street, was for many years Grange Hall, and before and after that the Blue Mill Tavern, and before all of it, yes, a speakeasy. Commerce's owners, Harold Moore and Tony Zazula, have retained or replicated elements of those forebears--subway tilework, walnut banquettes, terrazzo floors--but they've gussied up the place, installing, for example, a coffered ceiling inlaid with three thousand tiny bulbs, it being harder than ever, apparently, to get the right glow. Nonetheless, the bustle and din (from neighborhood walk-ins and foodie brow-furrowers) remain tavernish.

The food does not. There is no trace of succotash or other such favored comforts of the Grange. Moore, the former chef at March and Montrachet, is into clever combinations, debonair plating, dainty apportioning. It was a kick, one recent evening, for a table to pit opposites against each other: in one corner, a springy cucumber soup, with smoked trout and salmon roe, and, in the other, orecchiette with a ragout "of odd things"--tripe, pigs' feet, oxtail. Garden versus Barn. Each was excellent, but being of divergent weight classes, ...