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Very Best Restaurants: Georgia Brown's

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Georgia Brown's **
Washington, $$

Terrell Danley calls chefs Jeffrey Buben and Bob Kinkead his mentors, but he has borrowed some of the secrets of spicing from Indian cuisine to make his Carolina Low Country perlau an irresistible dish. The origins of this jumble of rice and seafood trace from Spain's paella to the jambalaya of New Orleans. What makes Danley's interpretation special is the spicing, which, like that of the best Indian curries, stimulates the taste buds and appetite. This arrives as a daunting mound of tomato-tinted rice, head-on shrimp, and other seafood and ends up an empty plate.

Danley's updated takes on soul food are in contrast to the restaurant's sleek, modern settingcurving room dividers of honey-blond wood and truncated Palladian windows. Warm up with powerful rum punches, then move on to platters, big enough for two, of cornmeal-crusted chicken livers; a genteel cream of she-crab soup or the best gumbo in the city; head-on shrimp served over grits studded with fiery sausage; braised short ribs with down-home vegetables; and, best of all, Danley's soulful reinterpretation of Italian osso buco, which replaces the traditional veal shanks with ham hocks. And if you're a vegetarianor just want to take a rest from your regular dietChef T can make your plate of yams and greens and other things sing without the help of fatback.

Georgia Brown's , 950 15th St. NW, Washington; 202-393-4499. Open Monday through Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday for dinner, Sunday for brunch and dinner. MapIt!

QUALITY: ****Excellent; *** Superior; **Very Good; * Good
PRICE RANGE: $$$= Very Expensive; $$ Expensive; $=Moderate; ¢=Inexpensive

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