Magical Gustatory Delight: winedown café and winebar

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Is it possible to simply enter a doorway and totally escape from all that’s ordinary and boring? When it comes to fine wining and dining, that’s precisely the magic that Ben Franco delivers at his winedown café and winebar in the heart of trendy downtown West Reading. Sharing his penchant and obvious skills for the intricacies of wines, whiskeys, and artistically stunning food-glorious-food, Franco has created an unusually unforgettable, intimate, comfortable and refined dining experience that sets the bar high — in a most delicious way.

Select first from an easy-to-follow wine list or the beer and cocktails list, perhaps starting with a “big & bold,” full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon (Waterstone ’12, Napa Valley), fruity and deeply red with blackberry, cassis and vanilla notes that linger and fill your nostrils with love at every sip. If dry is not your style, go for a sweeter taste with Dornfelder from the Rheinhessen region in Germany. Chew it like a pro and a raspberry-plum fruit party emerges in your mouth.

Cheese and Salumi (Palates, Start Your Engines!)

Selecting a starter flat-platter of cheese and Italian cold cuts from a sophisticated list of choices is made easier with winedown’s super-helpful servers. Here’s an excellent combination to consider: creamy Delice de Bourgogne cheese, paired with a gorgeous peach chutney that’s infused with a gentle heat, served simultaneously to enhance and cut through the rich Delice butteriness; an earthy Gorgonzola Dolce from Italy — the blue cheese to delight ALL blue cheese lovers — sitting next to an inviting, well-grounded fig jam for a sweet touch; plus thin sheets of speck, spiced and smoked pork exuding a backstory of herbs and juniper berries, enhanced by a dipping side of capers in mustard. Tall breadsticks and toasts sit in a separate cup. Also included are finger foods for additional fun and flavor — some chewy, sweet figs in a baby hill; crunchy, cinnamon-sugar-encrusted almonds; and a superb red onion marmalade. Taken all together, this plate says, “Slow down! Enjoy! Wind down already!” So…take your time. Drink a little, eat a little, talk a lot…repeat!

What’s duly evident is the intense care with which winedown prepares every morsel, even down to individual slices of perfectly toasted, oiled bread. No detail is too small.

Pesto Beyond Pesto

Many toasts are yours for the asking — such as luscious Brie Cheese with Amarena Cherries — but pesto lovers can sing aloud with the Sautéed Spinach Toast, a to-die-for combination of the freshest basil flavor on a semi-thick layer of lovely, soft-firm sautéed spinach resting on perfectly thin and crusty toast, generously snowed upon by piave (Italian cow’s milk cheese) with its subtle, elegant tang. Garlic lends heat. With wine of any color, this appetizer lifts all the senses and carries the soul abroad.

On an enticing Snacks list are Shoestring Duck Fries, Cheese Steak or Vegetable Eggrolls, and Castelvetrano Olives.

Passion and Purpose in Entrees

The Spinach Salad with Chicken is light, super-healthy (high in protein, vitamin C and iron), berry-sweet, and slightly peppery; it fulfills a yearning for bright green leaves coated with its fruity-citrusy raspberry vinaigrette. Leaning like a teepee on top are select slices of delicately prepared white-meat fowl, with whole pecan pieces and cut strawberries strewn below. Long croutons grace the dish. A sumptuous salad to pair with that second goblet of fine wine.

But winedown’s Beef Short Ribs entrée is indescribably addictive, served deboned and presented in layers like clusters of pine needles, echoing the piney-scented rosemary sprigs (a bit charred for flavor release) that you can crumble at your preference. Served with red potatoes — flavorful skins intact, texturally engaging with their soft insides and lightly crusted edges — and prime fresh asparagus, it’s then counterpunched with that red onion marmalade. Wow. Just wow. Love the portion sizes and plating, too: winedown café masters the concept of “just enough” to be both dinner and a picture to behold.

True Grits

That concept reemerges in a totally different dish — Shrimp and Parmesan Grits, which goes south for texture and taste inspiration. Here, Chef Michael Heinle has developed an experience that’s beautiful to behold — and even better to partake. Five large, grilled, slightly charred shrimp are kings of the buttery, oh-so-cheesy land of grits. The grits (for those who have never had grits or think they’re actually gritty) display the sensory feeling of whipped potatoes or risotto in smoothness, but with that classic wholesome cornmeal flavor. Shaved cheese enriches every biteful for a very filling entrée that lingers long in gustatory memory.

Diners will quickly figure out that all these offerings are carefully chosen and prepared with genuine passion — even reverence — for the great adventure that dining can be.

Ready for dessert? Try the Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake (ask for two forks). It’s just not something you’ll find anywhere else — sheer chewy, caramel-gooey flavor.