Red House Tavern, Chef Joel Valente in the Haymarket Hilton Garden Inn (?!?!)

[Keithstg]

What if I told you that there was a fantastic restaurant lurking in the suburban hellscape that is Haymarket? What if I told you that the restaurant had “Corduroy vibes”, from the old Four Points days?

I’m willing to bet you’d be as surprised as I was to hear and interested in checking out the Red House Tavern – Joel Valente’s new restaurant. Joel comes to Red House from the Inn at Little Washington. Good friends told us about the Red House on Saturday night, and we headed in after a hockey game in Haymarket on Sunday.

The space is beautiful – easily the nicest build out of a Hilton Garden Inn I have ever seen, and a real surprise. I don’t think anyone would have described the Four Points build out as “beautiful”, but the great food in an offbeat location had me drawing the Corduroy comparison, which is high praise.

The wine list skews industrial, but the restaurant just opened so here’s hoping that improvements will be made. We had a bottle of Primitivo, which was tasty enough and reasonably priced.

The menu is divided into small plates (to share) and larger fare (to share) – though we approached the menu more traditionally with each of us having an appetizer small plate and some larger fare.

Small Plates were Roasted Bone Marrow, served in the traditional St. John style with Parsley Salad – some citrus added acid and grated horseradish provided a nice bite. Charred Octopus was presented similarly to many charred Octopus dishes I have had before, with roasted potato, celery and lemon zest but was punched up by the addition of a peanut romesco sauce and giundilla peppers, which I had to look up. Mussels were also traditionally done with leek, garlic, shallot, and parsley with a slight departure in the cider making up the broth base. All were very well executed and plated with care.

Large plates included the Tavern Burger, made with beef from our neighbors at Ovoka Farm. The burger was large, well-seasoned and cooked to the specified medium rare. The burger does not come with fries, but rather a salad. Just an FYI as our hockey player wanted to add fries after the fact. Scallops came with a bacon broth, mushrooms and beans. Well seared, perfectly cooked. Pork Cheek included a sunchoke and cider puree. Carried out a pappardelle ragu – all the pastas are made in house.

We are in Haymarket quite a bit for hockey – very glad to add Red House to our rotation. I’d say similar to Corduroy in that it’s excellent food in an unexpected location (on two counts in this case), dissimilar in the wine list and cuisine (Corduroy was/ is more refined).

[Bob Wells]

I'm guessing they made Chef an offer he couldn't refuse.

Had a super date night dinner there with Mrs. W a few weeks ago, and our now college lad (GMU) tagged along and loved it too. He's pretty picky but he is a bolognese connoisseur and loved it. He even tried the goat cheese ice cream and deemed it tasty.

I recommended it to a friend who took his wife for their anniversary last week and they loved it too.

The word is getting out!

[Keithstg]

On 11/9/2022 at 6:31 PM, Bob Wells said:

I'm guessing they made Chef an offer he couldn't refuse.

Had a super date night dinner there with Mrs. W a few weeks ago, and our now college lad (GMU) tagged along and loved it too. He's pretty picky but he is a bolognese connoisseur and loved it. He even tried the goat cheese ice cream and deemed it tasty.

I recommended it to a friend who took his wife for their anniversary last week and they loved it too.

The word is getting out!

I hope that Chef was made an offer he couldn't refuse, AND that the word is getting out. Was pretty crowded when I swung into the bar last night. My son has declared Red House his Sunday post-game meal spot (for home games).