What if I told you there’s a fine dining restaurant on Davis Road, sandwiched between a shopping center and a garden center?
Cadwallader’s Café has long been off the beaten path, but it’s a delicious discovery for those who happen upon it.
Open since 1987 and under new ownership since 2020, the café itself is dark and intimate, with long wooden beams and gleaming dark wood tables draped in white table linen. The staff move softly and quickly, glancing every now and then at the tables to make sure all is well. The host is conversational, offering little tidbits like, “The bread here is baked fresh every day,” or “We’re featuring chocolate-covered strawberries with every dessert this evening.” Those are kind of the special touches that you expect with fine dining, and that’s what you get at Cadwallader’s.
My husband and I hadn’t been in at least a dozen years, but decided to visit Cadwallader’s again for Valentine’s Day. Not on the day of, as those reservations were long gone, but the host let us know that they were celebrating Valentine’s all week long. I was delighted that even though it wasn’t the actual day, they still made it special with a long-stemmed rose at every table for guests to bring home.
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The menu and specials change regularly, but you can expect salads like a Caesar or organic baby spinach salad, topped with local ingredients sourced throughout the state such as smoked pecans and apples, a soup du jour; and other starters that sound as though they could double as light entrees, including a jumbo lump crab cake with a petite artisan leaf salad and citrus remoulade or wild American diver scallops with cheese grits, smoked tomato compote, crispy bacon, and a sweet corn and scallion cream sauce.
Entrees feature everything from a vegan entrée (for example, a rice vermicelli with broccolini crowns, snow peas, pearl peppers, heirloom carrots and wild mushrooms in a ginger miso broth) or a risotto topped with shrimp and scallops to a rack of lamb in red wine jus or a 14 oz. chargrilled prime ribeye, both served with herbed crispy confit creamer potatoes.
I already reviewed the menu online and had decided on the risotto. But that was before I heard the specials. On service that day were a pumpkin swordfish as well as duck. My ears perked up, as duck is one of my favorite meats, but one that I don’t often get to order at restaurants, and my husband was intrigued by the pumpkin swordfish, so we ordered both.
While we were waiting for our entrées, we enjoyed some of that fresh baked bread with some sweet butter. It was a yeast roll, and it was incredible — a bit sweet, nutty and absolutely addictive.
When it arrived, my platter of duck was enormous. I’d asked the chef to cook it as he thought it should be cooked, and it was a medium rare, and the rosy pink flesh tasted almost like a pork tenderloin. Nestled next to it was a confit leg, deliciously salty and fall-apart tender. Golden-brown nuggets of potato flecked with herbs added some nice crispiness. But I have to say that perhaps my favorite part of the meal — because it was so unexpected—was the broccolini, which was soaked in the duck’s rich, aromatic juices, and which I ate with some of the tender roasted garlic. It was absolutely an incredible and totally unexpectedly fantastic side dish.
The pumpkin swordfish, which the host let us know is only available for a few short weeks every year, gets its color from a diet of shellfish during those weeks. I imagine the diet also gives the pumpkin swordfish its piquant flavor, which is different from the typical more mild white swordfish. it came served with the creamiest Gouda grits and some tender asparagus, which I didn’t sample, but my husband said was delicious.
We had deliberately skipped appetizers because I knew I wanted to try dessert. Cadwaller’s had six options that evening, including a crème brulee, a chocolate gateau and a NY cheesecake. Our warm berry cobbler was served in a jar and was really more like a berry bread pudding, topped by creamy whipped cream. It was served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with caramel sauce and sprinkled with smoked pecans that tasted almost like a candied bacon. It was also served with the promised chocolate-covered strawberry, which was bathed dark chocolate, my favorite complement to the strawberry’s sweet tang.
There were also fireworks that night — we ended our meal and raced down to Augusta University to catch the last few blazing minutes of their homecoming fireworks show. But the real show came Cadwallader’s. It was great to rediscover an old restaurant that is now a new favorite.
Make Your Reservation
Cadwallader’s Café
106-A Davis Road
www.cadwalladerscafe.com
Entrée cost: $25 to $72
