Blue Hill Tavern

I decided to try the Blue Hill Tavern the other night because it looked really different and exciting for Baltimore. For one, the space is impressively large; the restaurant spans two floors and each floor is much larger than the typical Baltimore rowhouse. The atmosphere is very sleek and the layout is designed using elements of minimalism. I was very excited by photos I saw of the restaurant on-line and was not disappointed when I walked through the door. The space in Blue Hill Tavern was impressive and innovative.
The food however was a different story. Before I discuss my disappointment with the food, I will say that the meats I enjoy were excellently prepared. Nonetheless, there was some disappointment after I received my dishes from what was a well-described and delicious looking menu. I decided to start with fried oysters Rockefeller. I love oysters Rockefeller and thought the dish looked intriguing. The oysters were deliciously hot, fresh, and well cooked. I also had a salmon sandwich for dinner, which was perfected cooked.
Despite the excellent preparation of the meats however, the flavoring in all of the dishes however was surprisingly bland.The oysters Rockefeller I had as an appetizer did not resemble any oysters Rockefeller I have ever had prior. The oysters were fried in cornmeal, which was creative, and sounded delicious, but actually very bland. The oysters were accompanied next to spoonfuls of spinach which was wilted, bland, and somehow managed to look sad and helpless on the plate, which I have never said about spinach before. There was also an odd tasteless sauce drizzled on top of the oysters that I had hoped would provide some flavor to the dish, but the sauce disappointed nonetheless.
The salmon sandwich I had was also relatively tasteless. There was another odd tasteless sauce on the sandwich (described on the menu as aioli), along with lettuce and other relatively tasteless vegetables, all of which surprisingly exuded almost no flavor. Even some salt could have brought out the natural flavors of the salmon and would have been a welcome addition. I did end up salting my food, which helped, but the disappointment had already set in. Perhaps the fact that the menus described the dishes well and made the cuisine sound new and exciting actually caused me to be even more disappointed than I would have been if the menu had described the food the way it came out to the table. Nonetheless, the meal left something to be wanted, particularly at the price the restaurant was charging.
All in all, I was very impressed with the atmosphere of the restaurant and the preparation of the meats, but felt that a salt shaker and some inventive seasoning to accompany the food and menu descriptions is desperately needed. The menu was a little small and lacked a plethora of options, so I'm hoping that the chef is simply trying some things out and will perfect the menu with time. I would certainly be willing to give Blue Hill another chance ... oh and they have a really cool looking bar!
On the upside, the atmosphere is lively, modern, and stylish; ont he downside, the food lacks a great deal of flavor.