The Wine Kitchen on the Creek

The Restaurant

The Wine Kitchen on the Creek opened in 2012 on the ground floor of the Carroll Creek Park residential building - a glass-walled storefront on the Carroll Creek waterfront promenade that runs the length of downtown Frederick. The dining room seats about ninety inside across a long banquette and bar configuration, with an additional sixty seats outdoors on the creek-side patio from late April through mid-October - Frederick's most-photographed dining terrace. The wine wall behind the bar - the room's design centrepiece - holds over four hundred labels in glass-fronted temperature-controlled cabinets.

The kitchen, led by executive chef Brennen Brown, runs a Modern American programme built around wine-pairing structure: smaller portions, lighter sauces, more cured-and-raw preparation than a conventional tavern would carry. Signature plates have included a beef-tartare crostini with smoked egg yolk and pickled mustard seed; a hamachi crudo with yuzu kosho and finger lime; the Bayou shrimp-and-grits with house-cured tasso ham; the Pennsylvania duck breast with stone-fruit mostarda; a porcini-dusted strip steak with bone-marrow butter; and a daily-rotating Chesapeake fish preparation that the kitchen sources directly from Maryland watermen. The dessert programme runs a chocolate pot-de-creme and a seasonal fruit galette that close the meal at a tighter, lighter register than the city's heavier tavern competitors.

The wine programme is the operating identity of the room. The sixty by-the-glass rotation is one of the deepest in the Mid-Atlantic, with serious depth in Pinot Noir from Burgundy and Oregon, dry Riesling from the Rhine and Mosel, and the unusual specialty of a fifteen-label Sherry pour list - fino, manzanilla, amontillado, oloroso - that no other Frederick kitchen attempts. The list rotates every two weeks; the staff is trained to flight-pour selections through the menu rather than recommending bottles. The Wednesday-night wine-pairing tasting menu - five courses plus five pours for ninety dollars - is the room's most-requested format and the value proposition that has built Wine Kitchen's reputation across the Washington-Baltimore corridor.