Family Meal

In Frederick, a diner for today
By Tom Sietsema
Sunday, August 12, 2012

Family Meal is the only diner I know that serves tuna tartare with shaved truffles. But then, the newcomer to Frederick was never designed to be a grease-stained page torn from a Roadfood book. All that celebrity chef Bryan Voltaggio promised before he opened the doors to his 86-seat restaurant, a former auto dealership, was “great food, produced here” and “a large parking lot.”

Applebee’s, you’ve been warned. Your commuter traffic is about to be diverted.

Voltaggio, who rose to fame in Season 6 of “Top Chef,” must be cooking on fumes these days. Not only does he head up the fashionable Volt and relaxed Lunchbox nearby, but he also plans to expand his empire with a fourth restaurant, Range, in Chevy Chase in early fall. Right now, though, his focus is on Family Meal and an eclectic menu that bows to diner tradition with burgers, breakfast for dinner and milkshakes even as it tempts sophisticates with duck-fat fries, sauteed rockfish and mezcal-fired cocktails.

You spy the boxy, window-wrapped building from blocks away. At a distance, it looks like the business it used be. Upon approach, a raised sign announces a place to eat, an idea reinforced by a plot of tomatoes to the side. Country-western tunes and trees of coffee mugs on the counter emphasize the diner theme; soaring green walls and concrete floors give Family Meal some edge (and, frankly, a noise problem).

Although I once spotted the top chef himself in the see-through kitchen, Adam Howard, 32, serves as the newcomer’s chef de cuisine. A former sous-chef at Volt, the Alabama native imbues the script with Southern charm. It was his idea, for instance, to add pimento cheese and fried green tomatoes to the roster.

He ought to consider a patent on his most clever design; miniature chicken pot pies have the power to knock pigs’ ears off the novelty pedestal. The bite-size squares don’t look like much when they come out, but each breaded cube of pastry delivers a concentrated rush of cream, carrots, peas and poultry that Swanson can only hope to emulate.

While that tuna tartare, another appetizer, would look more at home at Volt, the lush dish is praiseworthy for the cold egg sauce (gribiche) that frames it, and the house-made crackers for scooping.

Those dishes aside, Family Meal is that uncommon restaurant where entrees tend to be more fetching than the first bites. Crab cakes, for instance, are best for their herby coleslaw. And the cold corn chowder would be a sleeping aid if you took away its tiny island of corn relish.

The dish I would order every visit if my job didn’t require me to branch out would be Family Meal’s fried chicken. It’s a perfect spread: a half chicken joined by flaky buttermilk biscuits, a bouquet of pickled okra and green beans, plus a shot of stinging hot sauce, then crammed into a bright yellow ceramic bowl shaped like a bird. Every item is there for a good reason, and you’re a better man than I am if you leave a crumb behind. The trick to the chicken? A short soak in pickle brine.

Two other contenders for blue ribbons are Family Meal’s pork chop and rockfish. Celebrating meat from EcoFriendly Foods in Virginia, the first crowd-pleaser is inches thick and partnered with black-eyed peas and a peach relish that captures summer in every bite. Sauteed rockfish arrives with a frizzy cap of fried collard greens on a succotash of fava beans and tomatoes, a country dish spiffed up for city palates.

Yet another reason to come back: the chance to experience buckwheat pancakes paired with pulled pork and coleslaw, among the handful of all-day breakfast dishes here.

About those french fries: Family Meal lets you have 'em cooked in your choice of fat of choice: canola, peanut or duck, the food fancier's pick. The delicious potatoes are among a dozen shareables that include smoky baked beans; tarragon-laced cream corn; sauteed spinach with garlic; and macaroni and cheese updated with tubetti pasta, tangy goat cheese and a sprinkling of chive blooms. (It's from this list, by the way, that a vegetarian will have to assemble her meal at this meat-centric restaurant.)

Rye cavatelli is a sensual study in green, but don’t get your hopes up. What looks like a garden of herbs, flowers and curls of pecorino over pasta tinted green with broccoli rabe registers as a bunch of flat notes once it’s in your mouth. Plus, the cavatelli is undercooked.

The young servers are endearing, but more than a few seem to be on Red Bull highs. No sooner does your incisor hit food than a diner is asked how he likes his meal. Let me go on record: Servers should wait three bites before asking how things are.

Desserts need a lift. Eating the dense and slick lemon meringue is like gnawing on a stick of citrus-flavored butter, and the brick-thick coffee cake begs for a glass of milk to counter its dryness. Even Family Meal’s banana split is lackluster. The best ending is also the most original: Smith Island Cake, alternating layers of yellow cake and chocolate icing (and since 2008, Maryland’s state dessert).

Family Meal is, in part, a celebrity chef’s response to chain restaurants. Here’s hoping he goes forth and multiplies.