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Frederick
This is quite an establishment, from the old Jaguar often parked in front of the entry to a sleek dining room to the enormous, high-ceilinged Victor's Saloon & Raw Bar in the original Victor's Home Remedies patent medicine business that paved the way for the old Everedy factory. The Jaguar is “our mascot – I drive it every day,” said Dr. Nicola Tauraso, a physician who opened the restaurant in 1987 for his son Michael, a talented chef not long out of Rhode Island's Johnson & Wales University culinary program. “This is the toughest business I've been in,” says Nick, who's been involved in his share. The place seats 300 and is open every day except Christmas. Although there's considerable show, the food is taken seriously here. We've seldom been served a better pasta dish than the luncheon special of linguini with seared grouper fillet, marinated green olives, roasted garlic and white wine, accompanied by a dish of grated parmesan cheese. We also liked the homemade seafood sausage with pepper and olive compote and the focaccia seasoned with sage, oregano and garlic. The cappuccino, dusted with fresh nutmeg and served like most drinks here in glass mugs, arrived with an amaretto cookie. All this was delivered by a tuxedoed staff at white wrought-iron tables on a large outdoor courtyard under a red, black and white canopy, beside a trickling fountain. The soaring interior dining room is just as dramatic. Its high black ceiling contrasts with exposed ducts painted pinkish-mauve. The black marbled tables bear huge white service plates emblazoned with the Tauraso logo. An extensive list of daily specials supplements an ambitious menu categorized as pizzas, pastas and specialties ranging from cioppino in a light tomato-saffron broth to filet mignon with béarnaise sauce. Your only difficulty may be settling on a choice between gourmet pizzas fresh from the wood-fired oven and specials like peppered tuna with braised vegetable ragoût and sundried tomatoes or grilled rockfish with tomato-basil vinaigrette. Bananas foster, chocolate mousse cake, warm peach cobbler, cannoli and Italian ice creams are possible desserts. A staggering, 400-choice wine list has great range in both price and origin and is computerized for changes every week. (301) 663-6600. Entrées, $14.95 to $22.95.
Lunch, Monday-Saturday 11 to 4, Sunday 11 to 3. Dinner, Monday-Saturday
5 to 10 or 11, Sunday 4 to 10.
Innovative food and wines from around the world are featured at this sleek new restaurant and wine bar at a prime downtown location. Chef-owner Michael Tauraso, co-founder of Tauraso’s Restaurant at Everedy Square, opened Frederick’s first wine bar in 2002. The corner storefront is stylish in pale yellow and black, with white-clothed tables rather close together beneath a black ceiling. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out onto the passing street scene. Flights of wine are featured at the curved bar along one side. Michael’s menu is designed for grazing, as you might infer from the restaurant’s name. You can make a meal of starters billed as first choices and plates to share. Begin with lobster chowder. Or sample the panko-fried gulf shrimp with sweet Asian vinegar dipping sauce, tuna fritto misto with roasted pepper rémoulade, Scottish smoked salmon with gruyère cheese and grilled brioche, and beef carpaccio with arugula salad and parmegiano-reggiano. For main courses, if you’re not already sated, consider pan-seared sea scallops with white mushrooms and truffle butter, sautéed rockfish saltimbocca, hoisin-grilled pork loin, veal chop milanese or rack of Colorado lamb. Lobster whipped potatoes is one of the interesting side vegetables and salads. Crab and artichoke frittata and a chilled shrimp salad are lunchtime favorites. To go with is a choice selection of more than 125 wines, priced on the opening menu from $16 to $200. (240) 379-7772. Lunch, Monday-Friday 11 to 3.
Dinner, Monday-Saturday 5 to 10 or 11.
Proudly voted Frederick’s “best new restaurant” in 2002 is this long, high-ceilinged taverna and tapas bar on the main floor of the historic brick Hendrickson Building. Brick walls and a green pressed-tin ceiling contribute to a dark an intimate look for this slice of Spain run by the Bowers family, which also owns Brewer’s Alley. Executive chef Frank Tyeryar oversees a menu consisting of dozens of tapas – categorized as hot, cold and seasonal. The last are some of the more novel: steamed clams with spicy chorizo and amontillado sherry, grilled shrimp wrapped in serrano chiles with saffron aioli, farm-raised barbecued quail grilled in a smoked paprika glaze, and grilled chicken breast with chocolate sauce and toasted sesame seeds. Besides tapas, there are Spanish soups (how about creamy lump crab chowder with root vegetables and jerez sherry?) and salads. Those who have not had their fill can choose among six entrées, from seared salmon Malaga style to paella valenciana (which serves two to four). Desserts to end this Spanish feast include peach sherbet served in the shell of a peach, a classic flan with caramel sauce, and chocolate-cinnamon torte topped with hazelnut ice cream and chocolate sauce. (301) 698-8922. www.isabellas-tavern.com. Entrées,
$12.95 to $18.95. Lunch, Tuesday-Friday 11:30 to 2:30. Dinner,
Tuesday-Friday 5 to 10, Saturday noon to 11, Sunday noon to 10. The
Province Restaurant Billed as a bistro-style restaurant and pub, this is not French as its name might suggest, but creative American and international, in the words of co-owner Nancy Floria. It takes its name from the 1767 deed to the property, when the area was known as the Province of Maryland. The brick walls of the first building on the site form the central part of the restaurant, which is cozy and historic in the front and middle, and opens onto an airy garden room addition in back. The last is a stunning space for lunch, overlooking a flower and herb garden eked out between downtown buildings. New Age music plays against a backdrop of brick floors, comfortable snowshoe chairs and handmade quilts on the walls. Here we enjoyed chilled peach soup, a seafood pasta salad, a brie and almond pâté and a Greek salad. An orange mousse cake from a dessert tray bearing at least nine yummy desserts was a light and refreshing ending. At night, the menu varies widely from shrimp provençal and Asian glazed salmon to Thai pork tenderloin, grilled Caribbean chicken and veal piccata. Soft-shell crab with honey mustard-pine nut sauce and roast pork loin with fettuccine ragu were specials at a recent visit. The hummus and pita, antipasto plate, spanakopita and fried calamari lend an international flavor to the appetizers. Desserts range from hazelnut cream cake to derby pie to Washington apple cake. They are made daily at the Bake Shop at Province Two, a caterer, baker and sandwich maker at 12 East Patrick St. (301) 663-1441. www.provrest.com. Entrées, $17
to $23. Lunch, Monday-Friday 11:30 to 2:30. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday
5:30 to 9 or 10. Saturday brunch, 11:30 to 3. Sunday, brunch 11 to 2:30,
dinner 4 to 8.
The Brown Pelican Pelicans are the theme of this elegant restaurant in the basement of a former downtown bank. They appear on drawings and paintings on the walls, in an etched-glass partition separating the bar from the dining room, and atop the oversize parchment menu that arrives rolled up like a scroll and refuses to lie flat. The atmosphere is serene: white-linened tables, captain's chairs, fieldstone walls and beamed ceilings. Scallops scampi and crab norfolk might supplement the nearly two dozen entrées on chef-owner David Sexton’s continental dinner menu, which seldom changes and appeals to traditionalists. It includes shrimp czarina, lobster savannah, walnut-bourbon chicken, roast duckling with orange or green peppercorn sauce, mixed grill (filet, pork chop and German sausage) and New York strip steak with red wine-shallot butter sauce. Appetizers cover all the bases from marinated herring and shrimp cocktail to baked brie and escargots. Six pasta dishes and caesar salad are listed under appetizers for two or more. Some of the dinner entrées and pastas turn up on the lunch menu. Interesting salads and sandwiches also are available. (301) 695-5833. Entrées, $16.95 to $21.95.
Lunch, Monday-Friday 11:30 to 3. Dinner, Monday-Saturday 5 to 9:30 or
10. Stone Manor For some of the most pure, exciting food in the area, drive fifteen minutes or so into the countryside southwest of town to this restored country inn and restaurant. It’s in an impressive fieldstone manor house, and the experience is likened to that of dining in a private home – which it was, for its first 200 years. Local business investors have turned it into a refined restaurant of distinction. Dining is in the main beamed and stone dining room with an enormous fieldstone fireplace and damask-covered tables seating a total of 25 to 30, in a private room set for ten or twelve, or in the gracious living room, where vintage linens top the fine polished tables. Periodic cooking demonstrations, a remarkably extensive wine cellar and special wine dinners attest to the fact that this is a restaurant that takes food and drink seriously. The inn grows many of its own vegetables and herbs and acquires others from nearby purveyors. The menu is prix-fixe, $69 for a pre-selected five-course dinner. Add $31 for wines with each course. A typical meal might start with sweet potato-vanilla soup followed by a baby red oak salad with beet carpaccio and orange-thyme vinaigrette or foie gras croustade with poached oysters and caviar quail egg. An intermezzo sorbet or fruit spritzer (and perhaps an adjournment for a short walk in the gardens) precedes the main course, which could be crispy-seared duck breast with black sticky rice, spiced pecans, brussels sprouts, and madeira cream. For the grand finale, you might find pear crème brûlée with whiskey-mint sauce. Other main courses in this kitchen’s repertoire could be arctic char in a tomato with eggplant caviar and spinach mousse, grilled wahoo with tropical paella and madras curry oil, braised rabbit on a Guinness Stout reduction, or cervena venison with sundried cherry sauce. Lunch is offered in three courses for $36. Expect treats like brandy-smoked bacon and white bean chowder, fried oyster salad with spiced pecans and lime vinaigrette, and apple tarte tatin with hazelnut sorbet and honey cream. Because this is a favorite place for private functions and because of its out-of-the-way location, meals are served by reservation only and the schedule may vary. (301) 473-5454. Prix-fixe, $69. Lunch, Tuesday-Saturday 11 to 2. Dinner, Tuesday-Saturday 6 to 9. Sunday, brunch 11 to 2, dinner 4 to 7.
Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2003. Wood Pond Press E-mail feedback to: Home
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