By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009

Bacon tempura is not a typical bar snack. But then, Trummer's on Main, set in the Virginia countryside, is full of surprises, most of which are delightful. Thus we find a tomato sorbet, smoky and intense, in a salad of tomatoes; slender bars of foie gras terrine sharing a plate with a swab of pureed black beans and hot hush puppies; and pork and lamb presented multiple ways on their outsize plates. Chef Clay Miller could use a little editing here and there, but he knows how to catch a diner's eye. So does pastry chef Chris Ford, whose chocolate soup is both elegant and playful (who could resist warm melted chocolate pooled around chocolate cake, and sorbet set on marshmallow?). Former New Yorkers Stefan and Victoria Trummer left their restaurant gigs in the Big Apple to buy and revamp the former Hermitage Inn & Restaurant in her home town. Millions of dollars later, diners are the beneficiaries of the couple's instincts. The handsome bar and wine cellar lead to two main dining rooms on the second floor, the spare and arty Loft and the airier Winter Garden. Stefan Trummer was a bar chef in another life. That's your cue to order one of his liquid originals.

Historic Town, Worthy Addition
Clifton's Trummer's on Main has the potential to become memorable

By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 20, 2009

It takes about 45 minutes to get from downtown Washington to Main Street in Clifton. The drive captures beautiful houses, lush lawns and, toward the end, more twists and turns than Mark Sanford's love life. The last 60 seconds or so of the journey count among my favorites. That's when the road smooths out, the historic Virginia town announces itself, and Trummer's on Main comes into focus.

A year and a half ago, the couple behind the sign, Stefan and Victoria Trummer, decided to leave their restaurant jobs in New York and return to Victoria's home town, where they and their investors bought the former Hermitage Inn Restaurant and poured $2 million into what it is today: a very good reason to gas up the car and catch some intrigue.

Launched in July, Trummer's on Main is three floors of soothing style, starting on the ground level with a stone-walled bar and wine cellar, and climbing to a second floor with two dining rooms: the intimate and arty Loft and the larger Winter Garden, suggestive of a greenhouse, with a soaring glass ceiling and lazy circling fans. The top floor, reached via elevator, shows off the work of local artists and welcomes private parties.

Trummer's still smells new, like a car fresh from the showroom. And in these early months, the restaurant feels a bit hesitant, like a first-time party thrower. "Wine? Cocktails?" a server blurts out even before she has handed us the menus. The rolls that are brought out (continually, if you don't wave away their bearers) are warm and yeasty, easy to keep eating. The savory courses that follow are more complex than the few words used to describe them on paper.

Consider an appetizer of chilled oysters. Aside from the seafood, "avocado," "lime" and "celery water" are the menu's only hints about what you can expect. Not until the dish is presented at the table does everything make sense. The avocado, pureed with lime juice and olive oil, serves as a rich base for slivered celery, cucumbers, potatoes and those raw oysters, which become a sort of salad when tossed with sherry vinaigrette. Lime juice and juiced celery (the "water") are whipped to a froth and dappled over the assembly. The tongue has fun rolling all the flavors and textures around.

A less successful example of the menu's spare verbiage: "Rhubarb. Spinach. Grenadine." The three words support another first course billed as Vanilla Belly: pork brisket injected with vanilla paste, which is not as unappetizing as that sounds. Matchsticks of brined rhubarb and a verdant splash of pureed spinach help color the plate. So, unfortunately, does a pink fluff of whipped cream tinted with grenadine. The resulting tableau is odd, as if a dessert had mistakenly wandered onto an entree.

Clay Miller, 38, has cooked under chefs as diverse as Norman Van Aken (Norman's in Orlando), Joel Antunes (the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead, in Atlanta) and Thomas Keller (of the acclaimed French Laundry in Napa Valley, where Miller was a chef de partie for 11/2 years). The executive chef at Trummer's says his intention here in the Virginia countryside is to serve "something you wouldn't get anywhere else" while also offering "food people can understand." He mostly succeeds, although some dishes could use a tweak or two.

Miller's inventiveness pays off in a fetching first course of foie gras terrine cut into slender bars and stacked a la Lincoln Logs on a big white plate (outsize white plates are the canvas of choice at Trummer's). The creamy luxury takes on a Southern lilt thanks to a thick brush stroke of pureed black beans and a quartet of warm, fluffy-centered hush puppies. Nearby: bruleed bananas. It's a dish very much in keeping with both the restaurant's theme and locale.

Quiet surprises pop up here and there. A tomato salad glistening with basil oil teases diners with a tomato sorbet that's smoky and intense; as the scoop melts, it keeps the other elements cold and enriches the dressing. But the chef would do well to follow the fashion edict and remove an article or two from some dishes before sending them out to guests. I'm thinking now of ricotta-filled, pine-nut-garnished tortellini draped with crumbled lamb sausage and sweet bites of rock crab that could easily lose their Bing cherries. I wouldn't change a thing about the pan-roasted skate, though, which wears a fleshy crown of masa-dusted maitake mushrooms and sits on a puddle of smoked corn puree edged with vivid red pepper juice. The fish and its partners play well together on the palate. Routine as the dish is in this region, shrimp and grits appears new when the shrimp, lightly charred from the grill, and the grits, rich with three cheeses, are displayed beneath a canopy of Parmesan. Excess salt stole some thunder from the otherwise pleasing composition.

As at a number of high-end restaurants, meat is frequently staged multiple ways on a single canvas. Pork can show up as slices of loin, as a bar of suckling pig and in a hash made with cheeks (a porcine sampler that, on one visit, was held back by a swab of sweet potato puree that could stand in for pie filling). Lustier: lamb shank and lamb shoulder, their heartiness ratcheted up with olives, capers and sun-dried tomato. These abundant entrees fit comfortably on the restaurant's generously spaced black-walnut tabletops.

The Trummers quietly work the rooms like genial cocktail party hosts. One could easily picture the two in the sophisticated New York restaurants they once patrolled as managers: he at Bouley, Bouley Upstairs, Masa, Bar Masa and Citarella (where the couple met); and she at RM and Compass. Some of their charges need more practice; while appetizers and entrees were set down in unison one night, they all landed in front of the wrong diners. Either of the second-floor spaces is a treat to find yourself in, although one night's club music made for a jarring backdrop in the airy "garden."

Liquids are taken as seriously as solids here. A bar chef in Manhattan, Stefan Trummer created a short list of cool libations for his new project. Gin, lemon grass, ginger juice and club soda is a cloudy drink that lacks the punch you'd expect from that combination. But I'd be eager to reacquaint myself with an amber blend of bourbon, Grand Marnier and peach. The Titanic calls to me, too, not just because I interviewed a survivor when I was a budding reporter in sixth grade, but because it's clever and refreshing. The signature cocktail begins with muddled green grapes, vodka, verjus and elderflower liqueur swirling around a soft "iceberg" of champagne sorbet in a martini glass. More champagne is added at the table, animating the drink with its fizz. Meanwhile, wine guidance is provided by an amiable alumnus of the Inn at Little Washington, Tyler Packwood.

Desserts, created by Chris Ford, formerly of the popular Chikalicious Dessert Bar in New York, are sometimes weird, more often wonderful. Instead of strawberry shortcake, he gives us a red rope of strawberry gelatin -- the menu refers to it as a "torchon" -- that shares its plate with crumbs of yellow pound cake and underscores my wish to write the obituary for all things "deconstructed." Just bring me a whole whatever, no assembly required, darn it! Ford's chocolate soup, on the other hand, is elegant and entertaining. A little wedge of chocolate cake and a sorbet-topped marshmallow arrive in a bowl over which warm Callebaut milk chocolate is slowly poured, filling all the white space with dark decadence. Another draw, and a nice nod to what's local, is fresh peanut ice cream. It comes with a cocoa wafer and toasted marshmallow "fluff," a lot of fun for five bucks.

Trummer's on Main brings some of the big city to the countryside. Brace yourself for minor bumps but also the thrill of the new.