Curry & Pie

Curry and Pie at 1204 34th Street NW operates in the space where two food traditions intersect: the British savory pie and pasty tradition, which has its deepest roots in Cornwall and the working-class meat-pastry culture of the British Isles, and the Indian spice tradition that British cuisine absorbed over centuries of colonial entanglement with the subcontinent. The result is not fusion in the pop-menu sense but a genuine cultural inheritance: the curry has been British for long enough that chicken tikka masala was once named Britain’s national dish, and the pasty has been a vehicle for whatever filling the maker considers good for centuries.

The Cornish pasty, which the Protected Designation of Origin rules in the European Union define as a D-shaped pastry with a specific filling of beef, swede, potato, and onion with the crimping on the top, is the structural model for the Curry and Pie format without being the exact product. The crimped edge and the hand-held portable format are what Curry and Pie takes from the Cornish tradition; the filling is where the Indian influence transforms the product. A curried lamb filling, a spiced vegetable preparation, or a chicken tikka composition inside the short-crust or puff-pastry shell produces a portable hot lunch that combines the textural satisfaction of good pastry with the aromatic complexity of Indian spice work.

The 34th Street Georgetown address is in the residential block near the waterfront end of the street, in the neighborhood that the C and O Canal, Dumbarton Oaks Park, and the Georgetown University campus create around the 34th Street corridor. The cafe serves the nearby residential community and the Georgetown visitors who find it through the local food press or by walking through this quiet section of 34th Street.

The combination of the British baking tradition and the Indian culinary tradition in a Georgetown cafe reflects the international composition of the neighborhood’s dining landscape. Georgetown’s restaurants have long served a diplomatic and international community, and the Anglo-Indian food culture has a specific place in the world’s more cosmopolitan food cities. For the Georgetown customer who wants a well-made savory pastry with flavors more interesting than a standard deli sandwich, Curry and Pie provides a distinctive lunch option.

Hours run Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm. The British-Indian culinary relationship that Curry and Pie explores is one of the most significant cross-cultural food exchanges in culinary history. Britain’s long involvement with the Indian subcontinent through the East India Company and the Raj brought the spices, the techniques, and eventually the cooks of India to British kitchens, where they transformed the national cuisine in ways that are permanent and deep rather than superficial. The chicken tikka masala that was declared Britain’s national dish in the early 2000s is the emblem of this exchange: an Indian dish transformed in British restaurants into something the subcontinent does not quite recognize but the British do not feel is foreign. The pasty, in this context, is the British vehicle for the Indian flavors that Georgetown’s 34th Street cafe has made its primary focus.