REVIEW

This review was provide by Matt Terl. click here to read Matt's Bio

This is a bizarre one, an upscale restaurant in Waverly. Let's be straightforward here: while Waverly has long been vibrant neighborhood -- great farmers' market, terrific used bookstore, top-notch crab shack, very good Thai food -- it's not the kind of area where you expect to step into a restaurant with white tablecloths, a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, and branded T-shirts and coffee mugs for sale. But that's what we've got, and -- shockingly -- it's off to a good start.

Chef-owner Casey Jenkins serves up slightly upscale twists on classic Southern cooking. Lots of frying when things are fried, lots of sugar when things are sweet, and collards cooked slow and low the way they are down South (where they know how to do such things). The menu bounces a bit between Southern classics and some attempts at traditional Maryland seafood; stick to the Southern stuff and you're likely to be pleased. Fried chicken is excellent; candied yams are sweet, but they're CANDIED, for god's sake, what do you expect; and the included cornbread and sweet potato butter are top-notch.

Prices feel a bit high for the neighborhood, but it's such a pleasure to have someone trying something like this there that it would feel churlish not to go. Try it out, skip the appetizers if you're on a budget, and enjoy Southern cooking in a completely unexpected place. You can bring your own wine if you want (as of this writing, they don't have a liquor license), but the house iced tea is tooth-shakingly sweet -- and excellent.