There are lots of places to get a good meal. There are fewer places that offer great meals. But, what exactly is it that takes a meal from good to great?
Of course there are the flavors – it has to taste exceptional, and likely beyond what the patron could make themselves.
It helps when the ingredients are fresh – there’s a clear difference between something made-from-scratch that day versus something pre-made and frozen.
Presentation is important, too. We eat with our eyes first. So the food has to have an appeal before it ever hits our tastebuds.
What all of these things add up to is a great story as told by the author, in this case the chef. Great stories, like great meals, make you feel something. They make you experience something. Maybe it’s something new or something familiar. Maybe it’s both.
Chef Dale Reitenauer has been writing the story of the Riedenau House for three years. Originally he had planned to open a restaurant in the former Oley Valley Inn, now the Inn on Main. When those plans fell through, he persevered, working and learning in kitchens across Berks County.
This spring, he wrote the latest chapter in his story, an eight-course fine dining pop-up dinner to be held at Friedens UCC, just a few doors down from the Inn he never got to cook in.
I was very surprised to see Berks County Eats tagged in a Facebook comment personally inviting me to the event. Of course I accepted – an eight-course tasting menu is something Julie and I couldn’t miss.
When the menu was revealed four days later, I was even more excited. The meal was going to showcase two proteins throughout: pork and rabbit.
The first time I had rabbit was at Ralph’s of South Philly, an Italian restaurant that once was inside the Sheraton Valley Forge. That night, it was rabbit Bolognese with the rabbit featured in a traditional meat sauce over rigatoni.
Chef Dale pointed out that rabbit is still used often in Mediterranean cuisine, but that his dishes were more French-inspired.
“Inspired” was a good word because every dish felt inspired, each one building on the previous to tell a story.
It started with a delightful amuse-bouche, just a little taste of what was to come. It featured a buckwheat cracker topped with bacon jam, rabbit and shaved vegetables that was a nice sweet-and-savory snack.
The official first course was pork primal terrine, a medley of ground pork shoulder, pork loin and pork tenderloin, bound together with spring onion ash and served with apple butter and mushroom reduction. I didn’t know that mushroom and apple would work together, but they did. The best bites were the ones that had both sauces.
As good as the first course was, the second course was the first to blow me away. This was the rabbit consomme, a bone broth served with dehydrated mushrooms, fried carrot, spring onion nest, fondant potatoes and bacon lardon. Julie commented that the bowl looked like the forest floor, and it certainly felt like a forager’s feast. But it was the bacon lardon – chunks of bacon with beautiful smokiness – and the potatoes that shone. I would love to see a plate of those potatoes accompanying an entree someday.
Of all the things we tried, the pork and rabbit pate – course three – were the most out of our comfort zone. Surprisingly, the rabbit pate was my favorite of the two. It was served on a crispy potato chip with carrot powder. Perhaps it was the salty chip that played better than the sweet apple chip did with the pork pate.
The rabbit croquette was our fourth course. It had a buckwheat crust and was served atop carrot puree and charred spring onion emulsion. Again, two sauces that played perfectly together. The croquette was soft, not hard-crusted like a deep-fried chicken croquette I’m used to. Like the rest of the menu, it had a pleasant earthy flavor to it.
Following the croquette was the pork ravioli, Julie’s favorite item of the night. The mushroom pasta dough was filled with braised pork cheek and topped with puffed buckwheat, and a rabbit au jus. The pork cheek was so tender, and the little bits of buckwheat were like crunchy popcorn. It was a big hit.
So, too, was the pork and rabbit hotpot. It was a hearty bowl of pulled pork and rabbit with mushrooms, carrots, buckwheat, and scallop potato topping. It was a mini feast in a bowl, meatier than the consomme but still very much rooted in the local produce.
My favorite course came next: rabbit and waffles. This non-traditional take on a traditional comfort food favorite really shone. The waffle was a potato and spring onion waffle which was more like a delicious hash brown. The rabbit thigh, which was glazed in honey, was perfect. Yet again, Chef Dale had played with sweet and savory and toyed with the traditional, and once again it was a success.
Dessert was also a huge success. Bacon ice cream atop an apple tart with buckwheat crust. Prior to the course, Chef Dale told us more about his journey, which saw him start with baking and desserts before gaining the skills of a well-rounded chef. That background was fully evident in this unique closing dish. It harkened back to the amuse-bouche with the buckwheat and bacon. The addition of the apples and change from bacon jam to bacon ice cream (which did have pieces of candied bacon inside) took it from good appetizer to great dessert.
But it still held to the throughline of the meal, nine cohesive courses, each one building upon the next in creativity and flavor.
The meal really told two stories: first, the story of Pennsylvania and our food producers. PA Preferred ingredients were used throughout, from the meats to the vegetables to the dairy, even down to the drinks which included a selection of Reading Draft sodas and other locally produced non-alcoholic drinks. Some of the producers were even in attendance, and even they were trying their products in new ways.
But it was also the story of Chef Dale and the Riedenau House. It was his food, his concept, and his continued commitment to bringing a completely different experience to Berks County.
At the end of the night, we learned of the ongoing plans for the Riedenau House, which includes more pop-up dinners (look for a surf and turf meal coming in June), a food truck that will have more familiar items, and a meal prep service.
Ultimately, the goal is a restaurant. But there are more chapters in these stories to be written. And I look forward to watching them unfold.
BCE Rating
Food: Excellent
Service: Excellent
Ambiance: Good
Price: $$$$
The Riedenau House will continue to hold scheduled pop-up meals throughout the year. They have also debuted a new food truck, We Are PA Proud, that can be found in and around Berks County. Check their Facebook page for the latest information.
