What's in A Name? A Look at Crown Republic Gastropub

"Where should we go for dinner?" my girlfriend asked one Friday night, as is her custom. I pondered a moment before a dim light bulb materialized and dropped on my head.

"How about that restaurant downtown we've been to a couple times, you know...that place on the corner of that new building? What's the name of it again?" I replied authoritatively and with utmost certainty.

"I can't remember. It had a rooster on the sign."

"It starts with a 'C.' Crown Royal? Wait, that's a whisky."

Such is our thought process whenever it comes to Crown Republic, a downtown gastropub that opened over the summer. The restaurant is located in the new Encore luxury apartment building at Eighth and Sycamore. There are actually two restaurants at the base of the building sporting black-and-white chicken logos —Crown Republic's is the one nearest to Silverglades Deli.

The gastropub offers some unique takes on burgers and sandwiches for lunch and some truly impressive, house-made pasta dishes for dinner, along with a variety of entrees whose roots suspiciously hearken back to Italy. That's no coincidence: Chef Anthony Sitek, one of the two chefs and founders, names his Italian grandmother as one of his chief culinary influences, leading to his stints at several high-profile Italian restaurants in New York and Florida. And the co-founder, Chef Mike Casari, worked at Joanne Trattoria, a restaurant owned by Lady Gaga's parents and cookbook author Art Smith.

So why is it called, "Crown Republic?" We learned that the restaurant's original intended location was the Crown Furniture Co. building on Elm St, across from Findlay Market, where Harvest Pizzeria now resides. There are also, of course, the obvious "crown" and "Queen City" ties. "Republic" may allude to its Old World culinary influences. The rooster on the logo remains a mystery to us.

My girlfriend and I tried their brunch, lunch and dinner menus over the course of the summer. Sporting floor-to-ceiling windows, the space is bright, open, sparse and a bit sterile, with hard, unpadded, metal chairs at each wooden tabletop. The message here seems to be: come for the food, but don't get too cozy.

Beet toast appetizer

We began our first experience with a beet toast appetizer ($8), with roasted beets, walnut tapenade and honey goat cheese and arugula atop slices of toasted ciabata. The peppery snap of the arugula and the tangy zip of the goat cheese offered a resounding counterpoint to the earthy beets, and the satisfying crunch of the toasty bread made this one of our favorite starters.

My Cuban sandwich ($12) featured milk-braised pork, house-cured ham, malt pickles, dijon mustard, a fontina-based "fonduta" cheese on a hoagie bun. When it arrived, I was a little annoyed by the fact that the sandwich hadn't been pressed, because the toasty caramelization from such a preparation would have easily elevated the sandwich. Alas, the bread was doughy and a bit forgettable. The accompanying fries were cut so small that they all seemed like the crunchy remains of a regular-sized French fry batch, making me yearn for proper chips.

Cuban sandwich

Belly Buster sandwich

My girlfriend's Belly Buster breakfast sandwich ($10, available for lunch and brunch), sported anise-flecked bacon, cheesy, over easy eggs and crispy potatoes on a brioche bun, along with a slightly over-dressed, mixed-green side salad. She was actually surprised that her entree had arrived as a sandwich because she'd missed the word, "brioche" on the menu. It was a hearty meal and the brioche, as it turned out, was among her favorite components.

On a Saturday brunch visit, my girlfriend opted for the cornmeal buttermilk pancakes topped with beer caramel, honey butter and fresh strawberries and blackberries ($9). We both agreed the cornmeal grit made for a delicious and unique take on the pancake, but we both lamented the miserly amount of syrup and berries.

Cornmeal buttermilk pancakes

CRG Burger

I tried the CRG Burger ($12), a classic combination of American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion and a pickle aioli (aka "special sauce") on two beef patties, served with fries. It was a monster of a burger, with a pleasingly toasted sesame seed bun and a nice, grilled char to the meat.

We also enjoyed our accompanying order of apple butter toast ($8), with anise-spiced cubes of smoked lardons, caramelized onion, fennel and Gorgonzola on ciabatta. This time the ciabatta bread wasn't at all toasted, making the slices disappointingly soggy from the apple butter and onion. Despite this, it remained a delicious side snack.

Apple butter toast

On a later dinner outing, we marveled at the amazing onion soup dumpling appetizer ($12), a set of plump, Swiss-cheese and onion-filled dumplings swimming in a shallow pool of sumptuous sherry broth. Sweet basil highlighted a house-made gnocchi soaked in a "Sorrentina-style" tomato sauce preparation with creamy burrata cheese. I enjoyed a seasonally-made butternut squash capellini pasta with roasted mushrooms in a brown butter truffle sauce. The dish exploded with savory umami flavor, whose richness I countered with an underwhelming featured cinnamon cocktail filled mostly with ice cubes.

Crown Republic offers some great pastas, small plates and sandwiches. Despite some of its fixable missteps, we can fully endorse, you know, that one restaurant on the corner with that name.