Craigie on Main

A whole roast chicken is the homiest of home-cooked dishes, the ultimate Sunday supper.

His is not the only local restaurant serving whole pigs. Citizen Public House & Oyster Bar, tapas bar Estragon, and the just-opened Remick’s in Quincy are among the establishments offering them by special request. (The cost is usually about $40 per person with a 10-person minimum.) Estragon also serves just the head, as does Craigie on Main. East Coast Grill prepares a smoked pig in a different style each Sunday night.

This 8-ounce patty is made from grass-fed short rib, brisket, and flap steak, with suet and bone marrow added to compensate for the leanness of the beef.

Expensive hamburgers are nothing new.

When the restaurant relocated from Craigie Street to Main Street in 2008, the larger new space meant room for a bar. Now Craigie is known for its burger as well as its seasonal 10-course tasting menus. “At 5:20, there’s a line outside the door and everyone rushes into the bar,’’ Maws says.

After years in its tiny basement space, Craigie Street Bistrot has a new location and name. Chef Tony Maws is still cooking the ingredient-inspired, seasonal fare he's known for. Now there's a bar to match, with seasonal cocktails that riff on the classics and a bar menu that includes a killer burger.

When a new product enters the market, or a really old one reemerges, as in the case of Bols Genever, you can more or less predict which handful of bars will be the early adopters. In fact, we could probably just focus this column on those bars - Craigie on Main, Eastern Standard, Green Street Grill, Drink - every week and never run out of ideas.

Craigie is out of the basement. In November, chef Tony Maws and crew moved from their subterranean digs on Craigie Street in Cambridge to a comparatively vast space on Main Street formerly inhabited by La Groceria. But what to do about the name? "Craigie on Main" preserves the legacy of Craigie Street Bistrot with veracity, if likely confusing newcomers and out-of-town visitors.

It is a battle waged in every city and town: Small, independent businesses known for their approachability try to hold their own against chain stores that harness the advantage of economies of scale. The turf this time is the dining scene in Cambridge, where Bertucci's Italian Restaurants and Uno's Chicago Grills have a strong presence in the city.