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Salt & Vine has “welcome” splashed all over it.
You pull up outside the historic venue, which locals might know as the former Olney House, to find tables spread across the patio and porch of the grand white facade of the building. Step inside, and your appetite is piqued by a wood-burning pizza oven to the left and a tony lounge to your right. A host asks if you have a reservation. Judging by the crowds that flock here, you’re relieved to have a confirmed table. All my visits, I’ve been led upstairs, to one of several dining rooms, each with a different wall treatment. Walking through them is like taking a tour of an interior design showroom.
A stranger tipped me off to Salt & Vine, and subsequent online sleuthing suggested the Italian-themed restaurant, opened in May by chef Thomas Zipelli, would be worth my sharing with a larger audience. A 2010 graduate of Johnson & Wales, Zipelli went straight to the celebrated Eleven Madison Park in New York for his internship, after which he was hired and worked his way up to the fish station. When an old roommate told him about an opening at the equally renowned French Laundry, Zipelli left the East Coast for California’s Napa Valley, where he worked his way up to become saucier.
From there, the chef took his knives to Canlis in Seattle, another revered dining destination, and later heard from his father: What about opening a place of his own? In 2016, Zipelli returned to Howard County, where the New York native spent his teen years, and took over the Coho Grill in Columbia, which he rebranded as the Turn House. Next, he took over Ricciuti’s in Olney with the intention of simply expanding the bar. But the structure — the former Olney House — was in such bad shape (“about to fall down,” says Zipelli) the chef decided on a top-to-bottom renovation that took more than three years, no thanks to the pandemic. In the meantime, Zipelli added Maggie’s in Westminster, Md., to his collection.
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On paper, there’s promise at Salt & Vine, where day-to-day cooking falls to chef Eric Frisch, recruited from the Hamilton, part of the Clyde’s Restaurant Group. At first glance, it looks like the kind of restaurant that’s handy for date night, with a group, or when visitors come to town. Thought has gone into the sleek table lights, broad marble tables and comfortable butterscotch-colored leather chairs. I was charmed when I was able to call Salt & Vine to make a reservation after I struck out on Open Table, and a live person found a table for four on a recent Saturday night.
Really, what’s not to like?
Well, let me tell you about the bread basket I was promised my first meal and never saw, or the calamari so dark they looked as if they were fried in the Phoenix sun — and so small and hard I could have worn them as rings. Their one redeeming quality were the pickled peppers in the mix, which I fetched out and ate as a relish. Half a squeeze bottle of balsamic vinegar appeared to form the thick brown stripes on a clump of radicchio, endive and mozzarella, a sad salad with some oranges tucked into it.
The portions are generous, which some diners appreciate. Today’s dinner can be tomorrow’s, too! Unfortunately, a heaping helping of something inferior tends to magnify the dish’s flaws. Mushroom risotto so stiff and dense you could plant a flagpole in it isn’t going to improve on the ninth or tenth bite. Same with the bucatini tossed with sails of pancetta that taste like raw bacon. My most satisfying encounter with pasta here was orecchiette, ear shapes that caught drops of creamy-tasting parmesan sauce and crumbles of fennel pork sausage, sepia tones contrasted with bright broccoli rabe — a common pasta combination done right.
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This isn’t a complete Titanic, in other words. Navigate around the icebergs on the menu and let “grandma’s” tender meatballs float your boat. The recipe, incorporating beef, veal and pork, pays tribute to the owner’s paternal grandmother, from whom he learned some tricks of the Italian trade on weekend visits to her home outside New York. I also like the oysters, served in their shells with garlic butter, topped with cheese and breadcrumbs that are crisped in a wood-fired oven. And if you’re in the mood for meat, rack of lamb marinated in Dijon mustard, olive oil and herbs trumps the lackluster rib-eye steak. The entrees come with a choice of accompaniments. I side with the crisp smashed potatoes or velvety roasted peppers.
Everyone seems happy to see you, but not everyone goes about their duties with the same skill or attention.
The best servers know the history of the place, explaining that the pizza oven is the only element to survive the renovation, let you know half-orders of pasta are available and reveal a sense of humor. “Let me tell you about our one-calorie delight,” an attendant said in reference to a plate of housemade truffles. But I’ve also encountered servers who merely fly by after food has been dropped off (“Howseverythinghere?” one said on his way to another table) and staff who show up with dishes that have nowhere to land, since plates haven’t been cleared, forcing diners to scramble to make room for a pizza whose blond bottom appears to have been cooked with nothing hotter than a hair dryer. (Salt & Vine has lots of company when it comes to erratic food delivery. Layer on lesser cooking, though, and customer patience gets stretched.)
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“My ears are bleeding,” a companion said at the mention of dessert. DID I MENTION SALT & VINE IS LOUD, TOO? The upstairs dining rooms have light from multiple windows in their favor, but little in the way of soundproofing. Given the earlier uneven performances from the kitchen, no one wanted to stick around for another course. But duty calls and we stayed in our seats. Plus, I wanted to see if anyone on staff would free the table of the big shrimp tail, a remnant of an order of seafood stew, left directly in front of me.
The truffles, rolled from chocolate infused with raspberry Earl Grey tea, butter and cream, are satisfying. Other confections went unfinished after a sample. A wedge of tiramisu cake was shy on the expected flavors, and the acrid limoncello panna cotta seemed to be sponsored by Pledge. No, grazie.
Critics make repeat visits to test places for consistency and sample the range of a menu. I can tell you the drinks and wine list at Salt & Vine are good, beets and goat cheese make a better starter than raw tuna folded over roasted peaches, the fried calamari is always as bronzed as Magda in “There’s Something About Mary,” and the chicken stuffed with cream cheese goes down like chicken Kiev without its breading (and with fat as the prominent flavor). Remove the bland salmon from the cioppino — but keep the plump shrimp — and you’ll have a decent herbed seafood stew. Further, just because something is made on-site doesn’t mark it delicious. Proof: the vapid, snow-white focaccia I eventually received.
I can also tell you it gives me zero pleasure seeing so many people working so hard to please their audience with food that doesn’t always hold up its end of the deal.
In a story I wrote last year, I explained that while I went to more than 125 restaurants a year, I didn’t bother reviewing all of them. For instance, small or out-of-the-way places that aren’t very good typically go in the Why Bother? category. I felt compelled to write about Salt & Vine because of its history, the owner’s résumé, the pretty packaging and my mission: As much as I like to steer readers to good places to eat, I’d be remiss not to warn them away from middling (or worse) cooking.
I eat bad food so you don’t have to.
Dessert is typically the last chance a restaurant has to make an impression, one way or the other. In my case, the parting memory at Salt & Vine was the aforementioned shrimp tail — still hanging around on my table, even after I paid my check and rose to go home.
3308 Sandy Spring Rd., Olney, Md. 301-570-3388. saltandvine.com. Open for indoor and outdoor dining 4 to 10 p.m. daily. Prices: appetizers $13 to $35, main courses. $22 to $125 (40-ounce porterhouse for two). Sound check: 84 decibels/Extremely loud. Accessibility: Wheelchair users can access the ground floor via a ramp near the entrance and the side of the building; restrooms there are ADA-compliant.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2023/08/25/salt-vine-restaurant-review-olney/