Wine and Duck (117 E. Main St., 540-636-1000), which opened for lunch and dinner just months ago. The menu, an all-day listing that includes burgers and other sandwiches for $8.50 along with elaborate entrees, was appealing. And the food? Terrific. One of two duck choices, juicy seared ovals of duck breast with vermouth-infused tamarind butter, served with chilled spinach and daikon radish salad ($23), was rich and ample enough to share. Praise, too, for Thai-inspired sea scallops with a spicy peanut sauce and roasted garlic ($19). Had this been dinner, we might have added any of four appetizers or three desserts, all of which sounded interesting.

NVM Review
http://www.northernvirginiamag.com/restaurants/info/968/the_wine_and_duck/

(February 2010)

By Warren Rojas

The first person I encounter as I stroll into the Wine and Duck is a beefy fellow with multiple piercings and a Misfits tattoo peeking out from his forearm.

This is my kind of place.

General manager Phillip Schuyler (he of the horror punk ink) is a jack-of-all-trades who knows his menu by heart, spins yarns about the restaurant’s food/decor/special events with genuine enthusiasm, and even educates guests about how/where to shop to duplicate the culinary feats paraded before them (a la the gents who seemed hard pressed to find Serrano chilies or crystallized ginger in rural Virginia).

And that’s exactly the type of community bonding self-taught chef/owner Paul Bakos was hoping for when he opened in March 2008.

Bakos nurtures that dream with approachable, seasonally inspired cuisine and an enviable beverage catalog.

The Main Street Mill (500 E. Main St., 540-636-3123) shares a parking lot with Front Royal's tourist information center. Alice Barnhart opened her restaurant in 1997 in a former grain mill: bare beams and wood floors, ceiling fans and tongue-and-groove wainscoting reflect the rooms' origin. Hearty shrimp-and-crab chowder served in bread bowls was $6.95. Customer favorites include the ribs, slow simmered and finished on the grill.

Breakfast also starts early at the Knotty Pine (801 N. Royal Ave., 540-635-3064). Locals have been coming here since the 1940s, when the soda fountain, still in use as a service counter, was new. Go for lunch: perhaps crunchy fried chicken, four pieces for $7, and choose two sides. Prices are low, plates are full and folks are friendly. You could keep to yourself, but it would be hard.

Wynn's (219 E. Main St., 540-635-5956) is a local landmark where "everybody knows everybody," Carolyn Willingham, co-owner with her sister Dolores Williams, told me. Breakfast is available anytime during the day; the restaurant is open from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. There are plates of homemade biscuits and locally made sausage in gravy for $3.75 and a $4.75 special of country ham and really fresh eggs with yolks as orange as black gum leaves in autumn. The decor: booths and bare tables, shelves of trophies, a rack of tractor caps, a case displaying Willingham's homemade pies, and hand-lettered admonitions ("Please keep your shoes, boots and feet off the seats"). The food: substantial, inexpensive and good.

Start planning your vacation and weekend escapes to the Shenandoah Valley! Enjoy one of our premier properties with rates from $75/night.