Sam Miller's

	Sam Miller's Address: 1201 E. Cary Street, Richmond, Va. Phone: 644-5465 Hours: Open 7 days: Lunch 11-5; dinner 5-10 (9 on Sunday); Sunday brunch, 10:30-3 Prices: $$$$ Website: www.sammillers.com

For a pricey restaurant that advertises itself as a “legend” and promises “quality, elegance and tasteful opulence,” Sam Miller’s reputation is endangered by a failure to attend to details that turn good food into a great dining experience.

At two recent visits, the Shockoe Slip mainstay served a crab cake sandwich without its signature sauce and its homemade bread was stale.

Those weren’t the only missteps. At lunch, Sam Miller’s had run out of three of the regular 11 sandwiches—an oyster poy boy, grilled burger and prime rib—by a little after noon. The waiter attempted to justify the situation by saying those popular items had been gobbled up by a party of 70 in the adjoining banquet room.

Although the meat in the crab cake was as fresh and chunky, one bite made it obvious that the sandwich contained little or none of the advertised Cajun Remoulade sauce. Called to the waiter’s attention, he nonchalantly explained that “the chef forgot to make the Remoulade today.” The accompanying fries were cold.

As for the bread, a different server acknowledged that it was two days old, negating the advantage of baking on the premises.

One fouled-up meal can be an aberration but two in a room may be a trend.
All of which is a shame because after 30 years in the same downtown location, Sam Miller’s continues to serve some of the best seafood dishes in Richmond, and now in enlarged and beautifully renovated quarters.

Entrees are $22 to $32 at dinner and up to $16 at lunch; appetizers cost $11 to $14 and luncheon sandwiches are $8 to $10. At the raw bar, oysters, clams, crab legs and lobsters are priced by the piece or pound.

The most expensive item, aside from a large lobster from the tank, is a broiled seafood combo, which consists of a fresh fish—mahi-mahi or rockfish, for example—plus crab-stuffed shrimp, scallops and half a Maine lobster, served on a large platter with rice and green beans.

Chef Rhian ==cq== Pryor, who has been in the kitchen off and on for 10 years, knows when to pull the different fish from the broiler, as all was cooked to produce maximum flavor.

Rustica can be any of a handful of fish, pan seared and served with spinach and wild mushroom grits. Although the menu says the fish are local, when our waiter recited the evening’s choices—salmon, tilapia, mahi-mahi, rockfish—it was noted that none of them were, to which the server owned up that “they never are.” The tilapia nonetheless was quite good, marred only by too much liquid from the grits.

Sam Miller’s reputation is tied to crab, and deservedly so.

The dining room serves a pair of crab cakes with a puree of roasted red pepper and corn with scallion crème fraiche and grainy mustard the bar offers a crab cake platter with Old Bay fries and coleslaw, and there are three versions of a crab cake sandwich at lunch.

In addition to the traditional method previously mentioned, Maryland style is golden brown, accompanied by green peppers, onions and cheddar, and a blackened wrap consists of crab imperial with spinach, dice tomatoes and red onions. Each was delicious, with just enough dressing to hold the chunks of meat together.

Crab soup and a crab dip are served at both lunch and dinner. The former, a bit bland, is full of meaty chunks swimming in a cream sauce.

An innovative appetizer is Oysters Five Ways, the best of which is a cornmeal crusted pancake.

A noteworthy dessert is chocolate molten cake with espresso cream.

Sam Miller, by the way, was a Polish immigrant who ran a grocery store and café across the street in the early 20th century. The restaurant’s owner, Tom Leppert, borrowed the name after seeing it on the building at the corner.

The renovation two years ago, designed by Helen Hayes, coincided with the expansion of Sam Miller’s into space previously occupied by the Bus Stop eatery.

The makeover, which qualified the building for a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, makes Sam Miller’s one of the lovelier places in town for fine dining. Now if the kitchen can only remember to make the Remoulade and discard the bread each day.