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Very Best Restaurants: Four & Twenty Blackbirds

Very Best Listing | Very Best by Cuisine | Very Best by Location

Four & Twenty Blackbirds **
Flint Hill, $

There are so many things to love about Four & Twenty Blackbirdshomey breads and biscuits, imaginative American food, even the quirky former general store the restaurant is housed inthat it seems churlish to complain about the tables for two. But with the better corners of the main dining room given over to foursomes and more, dining a deux is a wedge-them-where-we-can affair. The downstairs, though not as charming, may be a better bet for twosomes.

The beguiling food is likely to make you forget seating issues. This kitchen revels in contrasts, and with a menu that changes every two weeks, the combinations seem limitless. Recent starters ran from an onion-and-dill tart with Irish salmon and salmon caviar to a chili-pepper quesadilla with roasted butternut squash and Monterey Jack cheese, both delicious. Main courses may have been even better. Southern seafood piea piquant stew of oysters, red snapper, crab, shrimp, and scallopswas exquisite, topped with a jaunty round of corn-sage pastry. Another gutsy taste experience: organic calf's liver punched up with apple-smoked bacon, onion confit, currants, port, and roasted root vegetables.

Desserts were just as mouthwatering, especially the "molten" chocolate-pecan cake with house-made caramel ice cream and ribbons of caramel and chocolate sauce.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds , Routes 522 and 647, Flint Hill; 540-675-1111. Open Wednesday through Saturday for dinner, Sunday for brunch.

QUALITY: ****Excellent; *** Superior; **Very Good; * Good
PRICE RANGE: $$$= Very Expensive; $$ Expensive; $=Moderate; ¢=Inexpensive

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