The musical chairs trio of Hamilton's, the Milton Inn and Savannah has been getting all the press lately; but the restaurant everyone is talking about is the new Oregon Grille.
When Ted Bauer, owner of the Mt. Washington Tavern, decided he wanted to open a fine-dining restaurant, he chose as his site the Oregon General Store, a 19th-century structure at the entrance to the Oregon Ridge Park.
After a long and costly renovation, the Oregon Grille opened a couple of months ago with former Milton Inn chef Mark Henry in charge of the kitchen.
The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Don't even try to get a reservation on the weekend unless you do it a couple of weeks in advance.
I went with three friends early on a weekday night. This gave me a chance to wander around the restaurant before the crowds arrived.
While the building is a little closer to the highway and the exterior looks less weighted down with its history than I expected, the renovations inside are beautifully done. Handsome, conservative rooms are at once opulent and horse-country clubby.
We were seated in a wonderfully cozy little room with just a few tables and a fire flickering in the fireplace.
In the planning stages, the Oregon Grille was a steakhouse a la the Prime Rib; but after Bauer brought in Mark Henry, you knew the food would be more elaborate. And it is, although the menu focuses on serious steaks and chops.
So the elements are all there: a superb chef running the kitchen, wonderful prime meats and the freshest of seafood and other ingredients, imaginative but not too imaginative choices. Still, our meal was oddly uneven.
Here was a beautiful little rack of lamb ordered "pink" and arriving well-done. The rack was carved in the kitchen, so the plate should never have made it as far as the table. There was no sign of its promised zinfandel sauce.
Here was a fine fillet of salmon roasted on a cedar plank, very fresh but without much flavor. I don't like overseasoned and oversauced food, but this needed something.
Ditto a fillet of rockfish with crab hash.
Here was a spectacular sirloin strip au poivre ordered medium rare and arriving rare to purple. The steak was coated with so much crushed black pepper it had to be scraped off. (Did I complain earlier about a lack of seasoning?) But the quality of the meat and its dark, winy sauce almost made up for anything.
