11 minute read
Farm & Table
Country Flavors The Crest in Columbus gets a new look and approach, presenting a menu of Appalachia-inspired fare that highlights an overlooked American cuisine.
The Crest in Columbus’ Clintonville neighborhood has lived several lives. For decades it was a dive bar with dim lighting and dartboards. Then in 2013, local restaurant group A&R Creative transformed it into a gastropub. Now it has taken on another life under A&R, with a stunning renovation and a focus on modern Appalachian cuisine.
Co-owner Justin Wotring describes The Crest’s updated menu as “what your grandma cooked but with the eye of an executive chef.” That would be Jon Gruseck, who developed the restaurant’s dinner and brunch fare.
COURTESY OF THE CREST GAME PATE ON CROSTINI
Food Fun: These three festivals across the state this month provide delicious summer diversions filled with entertainment, family fun and flavors of Ohio. Wooly Pig Farm Brewery: This Coshocton County
brewery makes great beers and offers a place where visitors can enjoy the inviting farm atmosphere.
Wotring directs newcomers to Gruseck’s pierogies, which align with the chef’s Polish heritage (the pierogies and hand pies are both crafted using his grandmother’s recipes). The Crest’s menu also includes several unique offerings: quail and dumplings, rabbit hash, country ham.
The hearty burgoo is a rich stew made with a rotating selection of local meats simmering in gravy and topped with a buttermilk biscuit. The Crest’s walleye dish balances the delicately seasoned fish with a refreshing crisp of redbud capers, lemon and rhubarb pickle. The Crest’s menu is rounded out with familiar favorites: burgers, Reubens, pork chops, eggs Benedict and pancakes. True to its origins as a dive bar, the spot maintains a solid beer list and Instagram-worthy cocktails.
Large windows flood the space with natural light, showcasing the cool greens and natural woods, the intricate tiled floor and the U-shaped bar in the center of the space.
In line with The Crest’s focus on rural Appalachian fare, Wotring and his team are building out a greenhouse attached to the restaurant. They are also partnering with the agricultural school at Hocking College for a seed-saving program. So, despite the restaurant’s big-city location, it brings much-deserved attention to the flavors of the country.
“A big part of Appalachian fare is overlooked but amazing,” Wotring says. “It’s a lost piece of cuisine that no one was focusing on, but everyone is familiar with if you think about it.” — Nicholas Dekker
2855 Indianola Ave., Columbus 43202, 614/261-7128, thecrest614.com
Food Fun
These three food festivals across the Buckeye State offer delicious summer diversions.
Troy Strawberry Festival June 4–5 Head to Miami County for the Troy Strawberry Festival, which routinely draws over 150,000 people to the city for this sweet celebration that was first held in the 1970s. Browse works by more than 100 arts and craft vendors, and sample fare from more than 60 food stands that feature the festival’s star fruit. The lineup of events includes a car cruise-in and a strawberry-pieeating contest with categories for kids and adults alike. troystrawberryfest.com
Pork Rind Heritage Festival June 10–11 Go ahead and pig out at the Pork Rind Heritage Festival in the Allen County village of Harrod. What started as a summer centennial celebration for the community in 1989, became an annual event after local snack-maker Rudolph Foods signed on to sponsor it and keep it going. Today, the festival has grown to include a parade, cruise-in car show, live entertainment, a princess contest and, of course, the chance to sample its star food. porkrindfest.com
Versailles Poultry Days June 10–12 Dig into barbecue chicken at this annual Darke County festival, where the birds are slow-cooked over charcoal for two hours and basted with a secret blend of spices every two minutes. (Plus, dinners are just $10 and include a drink, chips, applesauce and roll.) Versailles Poultry Days sold 35,000 dinners last year and has served a total of more than 1 million dinners since 1952. The event also includes two parades, a car show and more. versaillespoultrydays.com
Wooly Pig Farm Brewery
The rural property that Wooly Pig Farm Brewery calls home is draped over wooded hills not far from Coshocton in eastern Ohio, molding itself to the land rather than clearing and flattening it for convenience. It’s an apt picture for the business philosophy of this lager-focused brewery that is about a 90-minute drive from both Columbus and Cleveland.
The families that run the brewery have learned to live and work in harmony with their rugged yet picturesque setting, raising farm animals and brewing some of the best German-style lagers in the country.
The farm setting isn’t a gimmick. Wooly Pig is a working farm, raising a herd of Mangalitsa pigs — a Hungarian breed known for their thick, wiry hair — and feeding them the organic waste from the brewing process. Eventually, the pigs are butchered, and the meat is sold at the brewery. This closed loop allows the business to be both ecologically and economically sustainable.
“How can small farms continue to contribute instead of being outcompeted for their ag products?” asks Jael Malenke, who co-founded the brewery in 2017 with her husband, Kevin Ely, and her brother and sister-in-law, Aaron and Lauren Malenke. “We have a lot of assets that people don’t necessarily see as assets.”
Despite the whimsical livestock adjacent to the large outdoor seating area, beer is still the star at Wooly Pig Farm Brewery. Ely crafts excellent rustic German lagers like the crisp Keller Pils, quenching Rustic Helles, and hearty Rye Dunkel, as well as more esoteric options like Coffee Pils, Pawpaw Pils, and Maple Baltic Porter.
There is a small taproom at Wooly Pig with a larger all-weather enclosure attached, but if it’s a nice day, the beer is best enjoyed on the brewery’s grassy beer garden, with tables, a fire pit and plenty of room for the kids to play. For cold weather, there is a row of heated wooden huts — called salettl — hemming the lawn.
“We have a modified Bavarian beer garden atmosphere,” explains Ely. “There’s lots of space to enjoy beer outside. Being a farm with animals, a lot of people come just to enjoy a beer while watching the pigs.” — David Nilsen
23631 Township Rd. 167, Fresno 43824, 740/693-5050, woolypigfarmbrewery.com
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1. Adventures in NE Ohio 2. Akron/Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau 3. Armstrong Air & Space Museum 4. ArtsinStark 5. Belden Village Mall LLC 6. Boardwalk Village 7. Carlisle Inn, Amish Country 8. Carroll County Convention & Visitors Bureau 9. Central Portage County Visitors & Convention Bureau 10. Champaign County Preservation 11. Chateau Tebeau Winery 12. Chautauqua County CVB 13. Cincinnati Museum Center 14. Clermont County CVB 15. Columbia-Montour Visitors Bureau 16. Columbus Arts Festival 17. Coshocton Visitors Bureau 18. Dayton CVB 19. Dayton History 20. Decorative Arts Center of Ohio 21. Defiance Development and VB 22. Destination Mansfield 23. Destination Toledo 24. Dutch Creek Winery 25. Erie, PA Composite Co-op Shell 26. Experience Columbus 27. Experience Hartville 28. Fayette Travel and Tourism 29. Fayette County Chamber of Commerce 30. Gervasi Vineyard 31. Gillig Winery 32. Great Lakes Beach Glass & Coastal Arts Festival 33. Greater Grand Land Visitors Center 34. Great Miami Riverway 35. Gunton Corp./Pella Windows 36. Guppy’s Tavern 37. Heineman Winery 38. Hocking Hills Tourism Association 39. Hocking Hills Winery 40. Holmes County Chamber & Tourism Bureau 41. Homestead Furniture 42. Hope Clinic 43. Hotel Versailles 44. Huntington Area CVB 45. Kingwood Center Gardens 46. Knox County CVB 47. Lake County Visitors Bureau 48. Lehman’s 49. Leisure Time Winery 50. Lilyfest 51. Lincoln Way Vineyards 52. Majestic Oak Winery & Neon Groundhog Brewery 53. Marblehead Lighthouse Historical Society 54. McKinley Presidential Library & Museum 55. Medina County Convention & Visitor’s Bureau 56. Merry Family Winery 57. Miami & Erie Trading Company Ltd 58. Miami County VCB 59. Mother Angelica Tour 60. Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District 61. MVP Dairy 62. National Comedy Center 63. National Museum of the U.S. Air Force 64. North Canton Chamber of Commerce 65. Office of TourismOhio 66. Ohio’s Appalachian Country 67. Ohio Grape Industries 68. Ohio History Connection 69. Perrysburg Area CVB 70. Plum Run Winery 71. Portsmouth-Scioto CVB 72. Red Fern Inn 73. Ross Chillicothe CVB 74. Sauder Village 75. Scott Enterprises 76. Spring Hill Historic Home 77. Steubenville Visitor Center 78. Taft Museum of Art 79. The 720 Market LLC 80. The Boathouse at Grand Lake 81. The Farm Bell 82. The Winerie 83. Travel Butler County, OH 84. Traverse City Tourism, MI 85. Trumbull County Tourism Bureau 86. Tuscarawas County Convention & Visitors Bureau 87. Vermilion Valley Vineyards 88. Vinton County CVB 89. Visit Canton 90. Visit Cincy 91. Visit Dublin Ohio 92. Visit Findlay 93. Visit Greater Lima 94. Visit Grove City 95. VisitErie 96. Warped Wing Brewing Company 97. Wayne County Convention & Visitors Bureau 98. Webb’s Captain’s Table Restaurant 99. Western NY Composite Co-op Shell 100. Winans Chocolates + Coffees, Maria Stein 101. Wright State University 102. Youngstown/Mahoning County
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