Virginia - Frederick County

[KeithA]

Middletown

I wanted to share a great place from last weekend. The Inn at Vaucluse Spring is in Middletown, VA about 20-30 min north of Front Royal and the northern entrance to Shenandoah Natl Park/Skyline Drive. While the Inn has very elegant and comfortable rooms in a beautiful setting, my wife and I were very pleasantly surprised at the wonderful meals we had there.

The innkeepers Barry and his wife Neil (who does most of the cooking) are very friendly and use great local and fresh seasonal ingredients to make 3 course breakfasts and Friday supper and Saturday dinner.

The breakfasts begin fresh squeezed OJ and a "bread" like blueberry scones or zucchini bread with cinnamon/sugar butter. Followed by a fruit course that included ambrosia mix of melons. Then a "hot entree" of gourmet crossaint with heavy cream and peaches or potato and cheese frittata. I'm not doing these entrees justice as they were very creative and presented beautifully.

The dinners began first courses like fresh corn and chipotle soup, mozzarella and tomatos from their garden, simple portabello mushrooms on spinach with balsamic dressing and red onions. The Friday main course was a nice grilled rare flank steak with corn seasoned with cilantro and paired with a homey, roast potato salad with scallions. The saturday dinner was almond crusted halibut with watermellon salsa (fresh dice, not gooey sauce) rice medley and another side I can't remember.

The desserts were great too taking advantage of late summer peach season. Individual peach cobblers topped with vanilla ice cream and a vanilla bombe with praline crisps inside drizzled with fresh peach sauce.

We stayed for 3 nights and we were upset when I found out they don't serve dinner on Sunday night (just friday and saturday). In addition to spectacular countryside only 2 hours from DC, these were great eats!