Epping's on Eastside

The Story

The first thing you see at Epping's isn't the menu or the bar. It's the floor. Set into the terrazzo at the entry is a circle that reads JOHN G. EPPING, EST. 1863. Nobody put that there for Instagram. It came with the building, which once held Epping Bottling Works, and the restaurant that moved in had the sense to leave it alone and take the name.

That tells you what the place is about before anyone hands you a napkin. This is downtown Lexington's Warehouse Block, and Epping's sits in a renovated piece of it under executive chef Cole Arimes, whose group also runs Coles 735 Main and Poppy & Olive. Small, local, chef-owned. They cure meat in house, bake their own bread, and name their farms on the menu: Compart Farms Duroc pork, Gerber Farms chicken, Capriole Farm goat cheese, Kenny's cheddar, house sourdough, house ricotta, house bacon.

The Vibe

Industrial modern, and committed to it. White brick, exposed steel trusses painted out, skylights, polished concrete floors, tall windows with the original red brick left showing at the surrounds. It's clean and it's square, and a room like that can go cold in a hurry.

It doesn't here, because they softened the lines on purpose. Floor-to-ceiling sheer curtains break up the hard verticals. Warm wood carries the color: plank tabletops, a wood-toned bar face, the driftwood orb chandeliers hanging over the front bar. Add hanging ferns and big potted rubber plants and the whole thing lands somewhere comfortable instead of somewhere you're afraid to lean on anything.

The front room is the airy one, under the skylights with a marble-topped bar and a geometric tile wall. Walk back and the bar deepens, with bourbon shelves lit from behind and screens running whatever's on. When I was there it was the World Cup and a NASCAR pit interview at the same time, which is a very Kentucky combination. Same design language throughout, just a little more evening in the back.

The Food

The New York strip tataki is the reason to come. Sliced thin, cooked to just light medium-rare, sitting in ginger ponzu with smoked chili oil beading across the plate, crispy garlic chips and chive over the top. It melts in your mouth, and the flavor profile has just enough pop. If I drive back to Lexington, I'm ordering it again before I look at anything else.

The vegetable spring rolls were the other side of the coin. They come blistered and finished with flaky salt over bibb lettuce with a tamarind sweet and sour, and they look terrific. They could have been crisper, and they ran a little bland. The dipping sauce is fine, though I'll be honest, I liked it better scooped up with a spoon than as a dip.

The house rolls arrive warm in parchment with a scoop of soft butter, pull-apart style. Very good bread.

The chef's special that day was a skirt steak braciole, and I wasn't skipping that. It came out in two big sections under a sauce so dark it had gone brick red-brown, buried under a heavy fall of grated hard cheese and what looked like toasted breadcrumbs. Here's what got my attention: skirt steak has nowhere to hide. Cook it fast and it eats chewy and grainy, and you know exactly what you're chewing. This ate nothing like that. It came apart with a fork. It tasted like somebody had rolled it, tied it, and given it hours in a wet braise, and the sauce it came to the table in tasted like it had cooked under beef rather than getting spooned on at the pass. I didn't ask, and I wish I had. But you can taste the difference between a sauce that cooked with something and a sauce that met it on the plate.

The rest of the table went looking for familiar things, and that's where the night got interesting.

My wife ordered the asparagus risotto and added shrimp. What she pictured was risotto with asparagus in it and shrimp across the top. What came out was smooth and intensely green, with the asparagus worked through it rather than left in pieces, peas and pine nuts throughout, and the seared shrimp laid over the top. The shrimp were cooked right. But she loves risotto, and this wasn't the risotto she loves, and she didn't finish it.

Same story with the soup of the day, a cream of mushroom in a little crock with chives. She wanted cream and mushrooms. She got mushrooms blended into cream. Blended further than she wanted them.

My daughter started with the blue crab bisque, bright orange under charred poblano and chives. Her read was that there wasn't much crab in it, and I was too far into my own plate by then to referee it. Then came the chicken Parmesan, which the menu lists as pecorino crust, marinara, buffalo burrata, a wedge of crispy polenta underneath, arugula and basil vinaigrette. She was expecting the chicken parm she knows. This isn't that dish and isn't trying to be. She tried a few bites and set it down.

I want to be careful here, because not one of those is the kitchen getting something wrong. Every plate arrived exactly as written. The menu says asparagus risotto with pistachio pesto and peas. It says the Parm comes with burrata and polenta. Nobody was misled by a word of it. What happened is that three dishes with familiar names showed up as this kitchen's rethinking of them, and two people at my table wanted the versions in their heads.

Espresso martini to close, proper foam and three beans on top. That one was good.

The Bottom Line

Here's the read. Epping's is very good, and the room is a particular style that I really enjoy. But it is chef-forward straight through, and that's the thing to know before you book it.

The tell isn't the tataki or the braciole. Those announce themselves. The tell is that the safe-sounding orders got reinterpreted too. Risotto, cream of mushroom, chicken Parmesan: three of the most familiar names you'll find on a menu, and all three arrived as somebody's idea rather than the standard. If you like that, and I do, it's the entire appeal. If somebody at your table orders chicken Parm because they want chicken Parm, they're going to be let down, and it won't be anyone's fault.

I'd go back. The other two at my table wouldn't, and I don't think either of them is wrong.

That makes the rating harder than usual. Worth the Drive is a short list around here, but Epping's earns it. The tataki alone gets it close, and a kitchen that runs a braise like that braciole as a one-day special is not a kitchen you drive past. Just know what you're getting into. Go for the cooking, not for the versions of these dishes you already have in your head.

Bring the person who wants to be surprised.