Voltaggio!

For those who have watched Top Chef on Bravo this year, Bryan Voltaggio is a familiar face. We recently had lunch at his restaurant, Volt, in Frederick Maryland. In typical fashion, I did not know about this restaurant until I saw the show, but Leslie has been wanting to go there for more than a year since she first read about it. As part of our anniversary celebration this year, we made a day of traveling up to Frederick (about 45 minutes north of DC), exploring the downtown area, and having a later lunch at the restaurant.

Volt is in a large, stone town-house in the downtown area, near all the kitschy shops and restaurants. This is fine dining with a slight hip twist (if you consider all the servers wearing chuck Ts with their suits hip). And the lunch menu is a bargain -- three course for about $20, and not skimpy courses at all. Add $15 and you get wine pairings, including with dessert. I decided to test the kitchen's mettle by ordering... roast chicken. I think Jacques Pepin said once that a true test of a chef is making the simplest thing (omelet, roast chicken). I was not disappointed. It was flavorful, moist, and perfectly seasoned, with crispy skin. Dessert could have been better, however. We had the baked pear with crumble and ice cream, but the pear was still very hard and crunchy -- probably not ripe -- and the crumble was slight. Despite that, it was a wonderful dining experience, and the waitstaff were excellent. Definitely worth the trip.