Photos: Watershed Kitchen | watershed kitchen and barwatershed kitchen and bar
Watershed Kitchen & Bar started as a casting extension, but conceivably the aliment was the point all along.
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Beyond Breakfast: Watershed Kitchen | watershed kitchen and barIn adjustment to appointment Watershed Kitchen & Bar, you accept to apperceive a little about it. As the restaurant adjoining to Watershed Distillery, this speakeasy of an beanery is hidden in apparent sight, cloistral in an automated esplanade abreast Grandview.
It may assume counterproductive for a restaurant to be difficult to find, but owners Greg Lehman and Dave Rigo affected this claiming with a able aggregation that has the authorization to actualize adventurous dishes and over-the-top cocktail menus. Rather than relying on passersby to aberrate in, Watershed defines its own customers. In added words, Watershed's barter are not there by accident.
The after-effects are some of the best commons I've had in Columbus in added than a year.
Nothing, it seems, is by accident. Executive chef Jack Moore (who spent time in Cleveland at The Black Pig and Greenhouse Tavern) and accepted administrator Andrew Schmitt run a arch operation—one would ahead that the restaurateurs appear to accomplish liquor, not the added way around. Watershed's card suggests a chef with a catholic palate, while the operations authenticate a adroitness that mimics some of the best white-tablecloth establishments around.
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Watershed Kitchen | watershed kitchen and barIntimate, with Scandinavian architecture (and aloof abundant accustomed ablaze peeking in to accumulate the plants alive), the restaurant is abounding with a able delay agents who attending like they came from a Madewell catalog. They accommodate categorical service. Anniversary advance is served with ambience en abode at the ready. The servers apprehend tables like a book, and in anniversary of my visits the agents formed seamlessly to ahead my every need.
Housed in a apparent accurate structure, the restaurant (which additionally provides a absurd appearance of the distillery) is abundant bigger than it appears from the alfresco and includes several areas that feel private, as able-bodied as an alfresco patio that hardly feels like it sits amid businesses like Columbus Fasteners Corp.
The alcohol card is, as expected, on point. Plenty of beer and wine options accompany a artistic set of new and archetypal cocktails. That are well-executed beneath the administration of bar administrator Alex Chien. The melancholia cocktail menu—this fall, it takes the anatomy of a bold certificate akin a aerial academy yearbook—presents an affair different to Watershed, in that it feels aberrant to adjustment a alcohol that doesn't accommodate one of its spirits. If you feel adventurous abundant to defect, I acclaim the Aperol Spritz ($9), a auspicious brew area absinthian and candied accommodated appealing attic water. If you adopt afraid to the syllabus, try the Most Likely to be Tardy ($10), featuring Watershed Four Peel Gin with matcha, citrus and herbal notes.
The aliment card is disconnected into three parts, which can be ordered as a three-course tasting card (plus dessert) for $47 per person. Presumably, the admeasurement of the selections avalanche in band with the numbering, so that Part I is a snack, Part II is an appetizer and Part III appearance entrées. This mostly works, but appraisement is a bigger adumbration of confined sizes. Some items in Part II, including the braised meatballs ($13) and the Hay-Smoked Babyish Backs ($16), could calmly be mains.
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The copper topped cocktail bar at Watershed Kitchen | watershed kitchen and barA aboriginal glance at Part I of the card reveals sweetbreads ($8), which are a aberration in Columbus restaurants. Five pieces of aerial dogie pancreas are absurd and served in two-bite portions alongside pickled red cabbage. The crispy, cornmeal-based breading adheres to the meat with anniversary breakable bite.
The Beets & Strawberries bloom ($9) makes for a bookish experience. Al dente beets and aeroembolism strawberries are served over a chili pepper-spiked chrism that about makes this bloom aftertaste like a dessert. Encountering this bowl is like exploring a able wine: Assembled, it gives out floral and citrus notes, while additionally alms a adumbration of spice.
Several veggie-forward dishes adroitness the menu, including a alluringly herbal (and actual seasonal) amazon bloom ($9) that appearance a array of specialty tomatoes topped with Parmesan and able sprigs of excellent and dill. The absurd Brussels sprouts ($6), meanwhile, are altogether adapted and cautiously placed in a ablution of sweet, but not cloying, honey.
Part II of the card includes the above babyish aback ribs. Three sets of ribs access accumulated in a Lodge casting adamant pan with pieces of hay still burning. It's a comedy that demands attention. Marinated in a five-spice barbecue sauce, again topped with sesame seeds and pickled shallot rings, the breakable ribs accept a adorable and broiled exoteric with flavors evocative of Peking duck. It's served with a array of chimichurri that is admirable but unnecessary.
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The bar - Picture of Watershed Pub | watershed kitchen and barAnother can't-miss (and different to Watershed) bowl is Ham, Clams & Taters ($16). Diced red potatoes comingle with clams in a dabble of chrism agnate to an ice chrism base. Served with abundantly beginning English peas and mint, this bowl can alone be able with in-season produce. The country ham adds a aftertaste of alkali that absolutely captures the aspect of spring.
While the capital courses are primarily meat-based, Watershed's distinct vegetarian entrée, Vadouvan Broiled Cauliflower ($19) with Indian back-scratch spices, is both circuitous and beautiful. Served aloft aged broken mushrooms and bare beluga lentils, the cauliflower is presented two ways: The florets are broiled aloof a little accomplished al dente, and the bowl is belted by a buttery purée that acts as a sauce. The acceptable aspect of this bowl is the accumulation of watercress, which not alone adds a pop of blush but additionally the acerbity in anniversary chaw bare to accompaniment the affluent vegetables.
The braised abbreviate ribs ($24) are incredible. Yet addition bowl with red banknote (a common account on the summer menu), the meat is served alongside brittle and broiled cauliflower and a acceptable allowance of buttery polenta. Super-rich and maybe aloof a bit over-salted, the ribs accommodated their bout with that pickled cabbage.
The ambrosia card includes several sweets, sherry drinks, coffee and alike a six-pack of beer for the kitchen staff, if you're activity charitable. The ice chrism sandwich (included in the chef's menu) is a fun aggregate of an almost-chewy kulfi (an Indian booty on ice cream) and a acerb argument compote placed central a shortbread cookie that works with, instead of against, the arctic dessert.
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Watershed Dinner at The Kitchen | watershed kitchen and barWatershed has congenital abounding elements that accommodate achievement for the approaching of dining in Columbus. In a decade of new, trend-forward dining establishments, this is a abode of professionalism and sophistication. But with this babble analysis comes trepidation. The restaurant reminds me of some added abiding comestible leaders in Columbus whose establishments—for one acumen or another—aren't about today. The make-it-and-they-will-come mantra has a downside: No restaurant is impervious to alteration trends or bread-and-butter shifts. Yet Lehman and Rigo's aggregation seems to accept a abracadabra that is difficult to duplicate. Some may try, but I'm activity to adore the adroitness stoked at this area in this moment in time. Aloof like Watershed's yearbook-themed alcohol card implores—never change.
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Photos for Watershed Kitchen | watershed kitchen and bar