Enjoying a Crazy Drop Dead Fabulous Meal with Vermillion's Tony Chittum

Photo by John Arundel/Local Kicks  In June, Tony Chittum stepped onto the stage at the RAMMYs, hosted by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, and picked up "Rising Culinary Star of the Year."

Tony Chittum hasn’t strayed too far from the sparkling Chesapeake Bay coastal waters, where he was raised on local foods from boyhood, to carve out his niche in Old Town.
 
Over the past two years he has crafted a highly original menu, drawn from his years of study with the likes of Donald Link and Todd Gray. He has been visiting farms and growers and discovering and sourcing local ingredients for Vermilion Restaurant on King Street and in June it finally came to this.
 

Photo by John Arundel/Local Kicks The Rammys' Rising Culinary Star at work in Vermillion's kitchen.

Chittum stepped onto the stage at the RAMMYs, hosted by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, and picked up “Rising Culinary Star of the Year.”  
 
Vermilion itself was nominated for “Fine Dining Restaurant of the Year,” a pretty neat trick for a little neighborhood bistro with a 32 year old chef.
 
In the end, the award went to his restaurant neighbor up the street, Restaurant Eve.
 
But Chittum has listened, learned and interned under some of the top toques here and in San Francisco. His decision to focus his attention on this charming outpost, has drawn quite a following among locals and those seeking the farm gate to dinner plate experience.
 
His menu features Bruce Wood’s Dragon Creek oysters from Nomini Creek on the Eastern Shore; my favorite, Virginia ham from Wallace Edwards and Sons in Surry, Va.; produce from Davon Crest Farms in Hurlock, Md.; poultry and meats from the Amish farmers of Path Valley in Pennsylvania and the finest beef from Roseda Farms -- where every cow has a certified traceable ancestry.
 

Photo by John Arundel/Local Kicks Over the past two years Chittum has crafted a highly original menu, drawn from his years of study with the likes of Donald Link and Todd Gray. He has been visiting farms and growers and discovering and sourcing local ingredients for Vermilion Restaurant on King Street (pictured).

Chittum’s interpretations are inspired.  I particularly loved a chilled green pea soup that cradled nubbins of gulf shrimp and floated dill, toasted pine nuts, Greek yogurt and a drizzle of olive oil; and as an accompaniment to a Pocono sourced trout the agnolotti “al plin,” holding single lumps of succulent crab, disappeared all too quickly.
 
A brandade-crusted halibut was perfectly rendered and paired with cippolini onions and hand-smashed fingerling potatoes in a beurre rouge, but his version of a beef entrée, a petit filet of Roseda beef coupled with an in-house cured short rib “pastrami,” its aromatic juniper berries discernible, was crazy drop dead fabulous.  
 
How my dinner partner and I craved the tender meat piled high on toasted marbled rye with a side of coleslaw and Russian dressing!  It’s not on the regular menu so one might have to beg politely.
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You can find out more at www.vermilionrestaurant.com.

Contact the writer at Jordan@whiskandquill.com.

Photo by John Arundel/Local Kicks Tony's scallops, grilled to perfection.

Photo by John Arundel/Local Kicks Vermillion is an untapped gem of a restaurant.