Exte­ri­or of Her­itage 485.

We were mak­ing an after­noon and evening of it in Calvert Coun­ty on Sun­day, July 16, 2017. First we stopped at Fri­days Creek Win­ery and bought a cou­ple bot­tles of their Chardonel. Then it was on to Scor­pi­on Brew­ing, where we tast­ed three beers, and got a growler of their HMS St. Lawrence. From there we head­ed to din­ner at Her­itage 485 (click here to see their full list­ing in our Food & Drink Busi­ness Direc­to­ry), in Prince Fred­er­ick, MD, the Calvert Coun­ty Seat. We were sort of work­ing our way from north to south along Rte. 4 down the mid­dle of Calvert Coun­ty.

The tricky part was jug­gling the hours on that day, giv­en that Fri­days Creek Win­ery was open from 11 AM until 5 PM, Scor­pi­on Brew­ing from 1 PM until 5 PM,  and Her­itage 485 from 4 PM until 8 PM for din­ner. That meant an ear­ly din­ner for us, so we had planned accord­ing­ly, eat­ing ear­li­er and more light­ly than usu­al. Arriv­ing about 4:45 PM at the restau­rant, they told us they didn’t start din­ner ser­vice until 5 PM. Per­fect! Time for drinks.

History

Opened ear­li­er this year, Her­itage 485 takes its name, in part, from the address: 485 Main Street. It occu­pies a house built in 1891 by Judge John Par­ran Briscoe. His nephew, Dr. Ever­ard Briscoe, even­tu­al­ly acquired it, and used the house for his med­ical prac­tice from 1927 until his death in 1944. Briscoe’s wid­ow lived there until 1981. The house orig­i­nal­ly sat by itself on a hill with land­scaped grounds. (Note: This his­to­ry was gar­nered from the Mary­land His­tor­i­cal Trust Deter­mi­na­tion of Eli­gi­bil­i­ty Form, filed in 2014.)

The Wolchick fam­i­ly acquired the house and opened the Old Field lnn restau­rant in 1984. That restau­rant, if online pho­tos are to be believed, had an inte­ri­or influ­enced by Hal­loween as much as any­thing else, with salmon col­ored walls, black nap­kins and fire­place, along with white trim. It lat­er became the Saphron Restau­rant at Old Field House, which appeared to have used a much lighter and brighter col­or scheme.

Heritage 485 dinner

Giv­en we were so ear­ly, I think we may have been the evening’s first cus­tomers. They asked if we want­ed to sit at the bar or at a table. We chose a table, and were escort­ed to seats near a win­dow look­ing out toward Main Street. It was a good sized room, with a num­ber of tables of var­i­ous sizes. I did peek at the bar, which was quite love­ly, and emp­ty.

Her­itage House 485 bar.

Our wait­ress gave us each a drink menu, wines on one side, cock­tails on the flip-side. We also got din­ner menus. After the wait­ress left for waters, we looked things over — the menus and the decor. The walls were splashed with ran­dom patch­es of paint in shades of brown, tan, and cream, some with a bit of metal­lic sheen. The over­head lights looked like 1960s’ star­burst chan­de­liers. Navy blue is used as an accent col­or in var­i­ous spots around the restau­rant, and is seen on the tables in the nap­kins and can­dle hold­ers.

Din­ing alcove.

When she returned, the wait­ress (who remind­ed me of Cara Delev­ingne), took our drink order: Chardon­nay for Cindy, Maker’s Mark Man­hat­tan for me. She also told us what the day’s spe­cials were. I had made up my mind and the spe­cials didn’t inter­est me, but Cindy did switch her entrée to one of the spe­cials. The wait­ress depart­ed to place our orders for starters and mains.

Chardon­nay and Man­hat­tan.

Drinks & Breads

It didn’t take too long for our drinks to arrive. Nice­ly chilled and well-pre­pared, we were quite hap­py to see them. We toast­ed to hav­ing a pleas­ant after­noon. We relaxed and enjoyed the music play­ing on their sound sys­tem: clas­sic soul music, or R&B if you pre­fer that term. With­in the first five tunes, we heard The Temp­ta­tions, Bill With­ers, and Cur­tis May­field. Who­ev­er is select­ing the music for Her­itage 485 is doing a great job in my book.

Soon after we got our drinks, a young man deliv­ered bread for the table. The bas­ket had sev­er­al pieces of house-made focac­cia and corn­bread, served with olive oil. The focac­cia was tasty, but I think could have been baked just a shade longer, to give it a bit more crusti­ness. It went per­fect­ly with the olive oil. The corn­bread was tasty, and not dry or crumbly. I’d nev­er had corn­bread with olive oil before, and was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised at how well they went togeth­er. Not that I wouldn’t have pre­ferred but­ter or hon­ey, or hon­ey-but­ter for that mat­ter, but olive oil worked nice­ly.

Bread bas­ket and olive oil from Her­itage 485.

Starters

My wife Cindy got the apri­cot and brie appe­tiz­er, described in the menu as “Grilled Apri­cots, Triple Cream Brie, Pis­ta­chios, Charred Onion, Black­ber­ry Brandy Vinai­grette.”  She said the apri­cots were just about per­fect, and if there was any prob­lem at all with the dish, she would have liked more brie. It was a nice pre­sen­ta­tion and very tasty. 

Shrimp and grits doesn’t need tails in it.

One odd thing, though: if you look at the pho­tos above and below, you’ll see the menus used as place­mats. They nev­er seemed to think to pick them up. We final­ly moved them to the emp­ty table next to us, just to get them out of the way.

Apri­cots and brie.

I got the shrimp and grits: “Shal­lot Cream, Tas­so, Shal­lots, But­tery Grits,” which was creamy and deli­cious. The shrimp were per­fect­ly cooked. My one gripe: they left the darn tails on. Real­ly? Shrimp and grits doesn’t need tails in it. That’s just extra work for the din­er. In a shrimp cock­tail or fried shrimp — fin­ger food — the tails pro­vide a nice lit­tle han­dle. But you don’t eat shrimp and grits with your fin­gers. C’mon, get rid of the tails.

Anoth­er odd thing kept hap­pen­ing. Once they brought the starters, they want­ed to take away the bread and olive oil. Why? We hadn’t fin­ished them. This hap­pened a cou­ple more times, and I kept telling them no, we want to keep the bread. Or, rather, I, who enjoys bak­ing and eat­ing bread, want­ed the bread. I guess some­one said the bread should be cleared away as soon as pos­si­ble or some­thing.

Shrimp and grits.

Main courses

For her din­ner, Cindy got the soft-shell crabs spe­cial, which includ­ed two of those beau­ties with toma­toes and grilled-yel­low squash. Every­thing on the plate was deli­cious. The grill-marks on the squash were just about per­fect.

Soft-shell crabs with toma­toes and squash.

My main course was a top sir­loin steak, cooked medi­um, served with whipped Yukon Gold Pota­toes, grilled green beans, and a port-wine sauce. The steak was def­i­nite­ly at medi­um — a bit pink in the mid­dle with a nice sear on the out­side — and the port wine sauce went with it quite well. The grilled beans had just a bit of crunch and smoke from their time over the flames, so were also very good. The whipped pota­toes were fine, and the sauce went nice­ly with them as well as the beef.

Steak, pota­toes, and beans.

Heritage 485 conclusion

The food we had was more than enough, so we didn’t order any dessert. As it turned out, though, the wait­ress men­tioned that there were free cook­ies avail­able in the hall­way on the way out. Wrapped in wax paper, they appeared to be house-made thin-and-chewy choco­late chip — an excel­lent fin­ish to the meal.

Our gripes were few:

• not remov­ing the menus
• leav­ing the tails on the shrimp, and
• repeat­ed­ly try­ing to take away our bread.

The hits far out­weighed the miss­es:

• the decor was love­ly,
• the drinks were tasty, and
• the food was gor­geous and deli­cious.

If you’re any­where near Prince Fred­er­ick, you need look no fur­ther than Her­itage 485 for a very good meal. ♦