Although the walls of Meadowlark Restaurant feature brilliant hues, they are nothing in comparison to the eatery's contemporary American cuisine. The trio of chefs at the restaurant's helm starts with high-quality ingredients, including locally grown oyster mushrooms, sustainably farmed steelhead trout, and naturally raised beef. Then, using everything from a Vietnamese dipping sauce to Italian and Spanish cheeses, the chefs elevate the classic American flavors. The result is a rotating seasonal menu that is both familiar and creative.

Culinary Passion that Shows

At Meadowlark Restaurant, the chefs make no effort to conceal their pride in their cooking. The menu's entree descriptions span paragraphs, providing rare insight into the chefs' unbridled enthusiasm. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Roast-chicken thighs with Jamaican sweet spices

• "I learned this recipe from a Cuban cook when I spent a season cooking in Key West. I felt like I had found my food soulmate. [. . .] The burnished chicken emerges from the oven crisp and heady with the smell of citrus and spices, and the juices are to die for."

Chicken-sausage cavatappi

• "Have you tried DLM Italian chicken sausage? It is the best chicken sausage I’ve ever had. The taste, and perhaps more astoundingly, the texture, is almost indistinguishable from pork sausage."

Blackened salmon with shrimp-corn butter

• "When considering new menu items, we often talk about what we’d like to eat at this moment in the season. Two out of three of us said we were craving blackened fish, and so, throwback to the '80s, here it is."

A Well-Tended Bar

Maintaining a curated selection of drinks from craft breweries, small-production wineries, and artisanal water factories is only part of the bartenders' jobs. They also squeeze fresh fruits and vegetables for juices, prepare ginger, hibiscus, and black-pepper syrups from scratch, and make bitters in-house.