The Dining Room at Ford's Colony

	The Dining Room at Ford’s Colony Address: 240 Ford’s Colony Drive, Williamsburg, VA 23188 - Map Phone: 757-258-4107 Website: www.fordscolony.com Manager: Adam Steely; Chef David Everett Hours: Dinner only, 6-9 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday Price Range: $40-$60 per person plus drinks, tax and tip. Liquor: Full Bar Children: Not a good idea Credit Cards: Yes Dress: Jackets required for men Smoking: None Handicap accessible: Yes Reservations: Recommended. 757-258-4107 Directions: One hour from Richmond vai I-64 east to Exit 234, east on Rt. 199, right onto Longhill Road, then three miles on the left. Lodging: Marriott time share on grounds, when available. Plenty of motels in area. Nearby: Colonial Williamsburg, theme parks, outlet shopping.

Casuals Fridays, and even casual summers, are fine, but it is refreshing to find a formal restaurant that still expects its customers to be nearly as well dressed as its staff.

A requirement of jackets-for-men (ties optional) at The Dining Room at Ford’s Colony establishes a fair bargain: You dress for the occasion and its staff will reward you with a great dining experience.

Despite the dress code and its country club setting, in the midst of a lush golf and retirement community outside Williamsburg, the Georgian-style dining room isn’t a stuffy place. What it is, is a serious eating and drinking.

The food is as good as any in the region (chef David Everett is in the league with Jimmy Sneed at the Frog and the Redneck, whose culinary talents I have long regarded as Richmond’s best) and the atmosphere is unparalleled. Its closest competitors in style are LeMaire at the Jefferson Hotel and the venerable Le Petite France.

And the wine list, all 1,000 different types, is world class.

The tall-ceilinged, carpeted dining room, expanded this summer by 25 seats to accommodate 115 diners, has floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides that overlook the golf course. A large floral piece in a center table and fresh roses on every table are supplied daily by Everett’s wife, Kathryn. The china is Villery and Boch (and not from the nearby outlet) and the stemware is by Reidel.

With the bearded and balding Everett in the kitchen, the dining room has earned a number of awards, including the elusive five diamonds from AAA, a honor shared in Virginia only by The Inn at Little Washington and Lemaire. (While I don’t quarrel with those rankings, I have found AAA to be an often unreliable guide when it comes to restaurants. It does much better with lodgings.)

A three-course dinner for two, with a modest bottle of wine ($40), tax and tip, runs $150 to $200.

Appetizers cost from $6 for a green salad to $12 for "French toast," which is truffled brioche with foie gras and raisins glazed in maple syrup. Entrees range from $26 to $36.

But If you really want to go over the top, when you arrive tell maitre’d Felix Vlad that you want the Chef’s Table, a seven- or eight-course extravaganza that is served and eaten in the kitchen, in the midst of a frantic scene that will make you feel as if you are starring in a Fellini movie.

The Chef’s Table costs $85 a person, plus another $35 if you want a glass of wine with almost every course. (There is a Marriott timeshare building on the property that may have room for overnight guests.)

Most guests will settle for something less, especially when they find out how hot it can get in a commercial kitchen, even in cool weather.

A good compromise, selected by about one-third of the diners, is the Chef’s Tasting Menu, which is served in the dining room. The five-course meal is $56, or $68 with two glasses of wine.

A typical offering may begin with a sautéed soft-shell crab with buttered corn-tomato relish, served with a 1998 Edna Valley Chardonnay. That is followed by a soup, perhaps Vidalia onions with reggiano parmesan. The main course may be a grilled Virginia bison hangar steak with Stilton potatoes, brandied apples, shittake mushrooms and a cabernet sauce, accompanied by a 1997 Vranac, Montenegro. Then comes a selection of cheeses (more about that later) and a dessert of, say, fresh cherry clafouti (custard) with drunken cherry ice cream and a cinnamon-kirsch sauce.

Tempted though we were to go for it, my wife and I opted to order from the extensive a la carte menu (this is, after all, a not-for-profit magazine). For appetizers, we shared the soft-shell crab ($10), seared ocean scallops on a corn fritter with fresh black truffles and pancetta butter ($11) and, our favorite, veal sweetbreads on asparagus risotto ($7).

Other starters include grilled barbecue shrimp filled with mozzarella and wrapped in pancetta ($8.50), smoked salmon with leek salad, fingerling potatoes, chive crème fraiche and salmon roe ($8).

Other salads come with duck confit, foie gras, and beets and goat cheese. Other soups were red pepper bisque with shittakes, black truffles with potatoes, sweet corn and jalapenos and lump crab meat, and salsify root with onions, bacon and shittakes.

For our entrees, we chose halibut wrapped in a potato skin ($26) and a rack of New Zealand lamb ($29).

The lamb was a version of surf-and-turf, with a rack of eight ribs topped by half a dozen clams, all of which sat atop a mound of polenta. The meat was cooked to medium perfection, as ordered, and was complimented by a side of asparagus.

But the halibut, alas, was totally bland. It wasn’t because it wasn’t fresh, or cooked properly. It looked great, white and flaky, and had no fishy odor, which is a sure sign that it’s not fresh. But there was just no taste. The serving was saved, however, because of flavors provided by the potato skin, a cabernet-beet reduction and shallots and garlic.

Asked about it on a subsequent visit, Everett conceded that he had heard similar complaints, about both halibut and turbot. His conclusion: "Sometimes when it’s very fresh, there is almost no taste. It’s like there’s nothing there." In the future, he said, instead of just sprinkling the fish with just sea salt and pepper, he may also brown it, to get a slight crust, as is common with scallops.

The next time we’ll try a different fish, though. Other offerings that night were salmon with white truffle potatoes, leeks and spiced cashew-spinach sauce; rare tuna with spinach, onions, yellow pepper and foie gras; grouper on couscous with mussels and snow peas; blackened lump crab cake with diced yellow-fin tuna, and scallops in Parmesan flour with pureed spinach.

Meat entrees, in addition to the bison, were a veal loin with risotto in a mushroom sauce ($33); pork loin with a vegetable tart and portobello mushrooms ($26); breast of duck with squash, rutabaga-potatoes and kale ($25), and a New York strip steak with gnocchi and mushroom ragout ($36).

Although the menu changes daily, one constant is squab, or breast of pigeon, which Everett has been preparing, and trying to convince his customers to try, since the start of his "commitment to the bird" 15 years ago at the Imperial Hotel in Chestertown, Md.

For desserts, we chose a frozen hazelnut soufflé with truffle and chocolate sauce, one of 10 sweet choices for $8, and an international mix of cheeses ($9.50), which we selected from about a dozen offered on a tray.

It was a classy end to a classy evening.

Another nice touch, especially when every pretentious corner eatery tries to get its customers to drop an extra $5 or so for bottled water, was free-flowing bottles of San Benedetto, served without cost.

Where Ford’s Colony leaves all of its competitors behind is its wine list. Its 1,000 different offerings—not total bottles but different labels—ranging in price from $16 to $875, and for connoisseurs willing to spend a few minutes scanning the list, some are real bargains are to be found.

The restaurant’s manager, Adam Steely, 37, who moved to Ford’s Colony in April after seven years as dining room manager at the Frog and the Redneck, discovered a cache of fine wines when he began an inventory of the restaurant’s cellar, which over the years had been amply stocked but otherwise given little attention.

"Some Bordeaux that were bought 15 to 20 years ago and are listed for $40 would sell for up to $550 at auction today, but we’re still selling them at the price we paid for them," said an amazed Steely.

Everett, 40, was born in Germany, into a U. S. military family, but grew up in Melbourne, Florida, where he divided his time between surfing and playing tennis. In junior high school, to keep himself in boards and rackets, Everett worked at a local restaurant, peeling shrimp, making garlic bread from leftovers and picking mangos from a giant tree.

After high school, Everett bounced around colleges, from Arizona State to Colorado State, where he helped coach the women’s tennis team, and then returned to Florida, where he earned a teaching degree at Rollins College.

He taught for three years, but when he couldn’t get a full-time contract he joined his sister and brother-in-law, who were working in hotel management at Disney World. After two and one-half years there, he was invited to teach American cuisine at Johnson and Wales College in Rhode Island. While he was in Providence, Everett was recruited by Colonial Williamsburg, to become its chef of special events, and subsequently the chef at Campbell’s Tavern. While there, he created a chicken and leek pie that still is its number one seller, and also is on the menu at Ford’s Colony.

From Williamsburg, Everett went to Chestertown and then to Washington, where he was chef at the Chardonnay Restaurant in the Park Terrace Hotel, where one of his co-workers was Bill Scalley, whose talents at Eastville Manor on the Eastern Shore were reviewed in the January issue of 64.

Everett made two more stops, in Red Bank, N. J. and at the Georgetown Inn, in D. C., before returning to Williamsburg 10 years ago.

Diners who appreciate Everett’s cooking can thank John McEnroe and Jimmy Conners. By age 16, Everett’s tennis talents had landed him a spot on a professional tour for juniors, where those two budding stars were among his opponents.

Did he ever beat them, Everett was asked. "Nah, that’s why I’m here," he laughed.

This review originally appeared in 64 magazine in September, 2000.