Of all his earlier gigs, chef Stephen Burke calls Three Blacksmiths in Sperryville, Va., “my favorite job,” a declaration that explains the similarities at his beguiling new restaurant, Alias, in Warrenton, Va., population 10,000 or so.
Like the intimate Three Blacksmiths, the 30-seat Alias serves a single tasting menu at a single seating. Like the Sperryville draw created by husband and wife John and Diane MacPherson in 2018, the Warrenton retreat is co-owned by Burke and his wife, Kelly, who oversees service.
Alias is a special occasion from the moment the first gift from the chef is set down.
“We like snacks around here,” says a guide who turns out to be Kelly. So do my pals and I — especially when they include a sparkling ceviche in a paper-thin pastry shell served on a scalloped gold plate as fetching as the cubes of yellowtail, chiles and Meyer lemon. It’s an amuse-bouche that does what it’s supposed to do, whet the appetite for more.
We open the silver menu to find a nice surprise; since it opened in late September, Alias has added a five-course vegetarian option. Priced the same as the regular list at $145, including 22 percent for service, it’s a splurge that welcomes a wider audience, like the six nonalcoholic drinks, including a sparkling “Cherry Lane” made with sour Italian cherry, lime and soda. A seat at the counter costs a Jackson more and comes with frills such as a welcoming glass of champagne, foie gras and other luxe accents. The upgrade also places diners in front of the top chef, 27, who finishes dishes started in a vast kitchen behind a frosted window with the restaurant’s name.
Burke grew up in Warrenton, where his early interest in food led him to a job in the prepared food department at Wegman’s when he was in high school, after which he moved to California to cook and met his future wife along the way. The couple subsequently relocated to Spain for three months and returned to Virginia in 2019, where both landed jobs at the esteemed Inn at Little Washington, and later, L’Auberge Provencale in Boyce, Va., and Three Blacksmiths.
The first course is grilled salmon burnished with a Calabrian chile glaze and a pale green puree of watercress and apples for some, a petite tower of whipped sweet potatoes layered with wilted spinach and a glossy crown of greens for others. Out of the gate, it’s clear that no matter which menu you’re eating from, the kitchen treats everyone as equals. A second course of sliced roasted chicken showered with earthy shaved black truffles fits a fancy feast, as do housemade ravioli stuffed with carrots passed through a meat grinder twice with mustard seeds, fresh ginger and other warm spices.
The pasta, sunny with aji amarillo, tastes as vivid as it looks. Stephen Burke says he has worked with everyone on the team before, which shows in the smooth culinary performances. One sous chef spent three years in Peru and another hails from Mexico, backgrounds that also explain the menu’s international flourishes.
It’s no longer a surprise to get bread midway through dinner anymore, not in upscale restaurants at least. Alias still manages to delight customers with fluffy hot rolls that suggest a marriage between French brioche and Japanese milk bread offered with butter churned behind the scenes. (Gluten-free sourdough focaccia is the alternative.) As with the opening snack, the mode of delivery — a shallow dish that looks like a tree stump — is as engaging as the occupant. The bread is put to good use on Burke’s sauces, including a spectacular sauce for rabbit coaxed from dried chiles, chocolate and kidneys for a pleasant mineral note.
The food is dropped off with a few words of explanation, not so long that the waiters sound as if they’re reading from a script or worse, that you feel the need for them to pull up a chair to deliver the speech. I know a few D.C. restaurants that could take the hint.
Look up from your plate and you’ll see an industrial black ceiling, old rugs to warm up poured concrete floors and yellow walls hung with black-and-white photographs of Vint Hill when it was known as a military intelligence base. Listen and you might hear James Taylor, the Eagles or Roberta Flack singing. Save for a barn door, little evidence remains of the former occupant, Cafe at Farm Station.
You might not share my recollections from January. The menu changes every few weeks. Too bad you can only read about the plump marinated lamb rack, ringed in a jus of pomegranate and sorghum, or the grilled oyster mushrooms, lounging on buttery pureed potato and surrounded by almond cream. Come spring, the bulk of Alias’s produce and herbs will be from the nearby Small Little Farm.
The misses are few. The third-course rabbit is a little dry, but I admire its haunting sauce and its staging: a green necklace of parsley pistou adorned with vegetable bites. Bars of salt-roasted celery root on the meatless menu are upstaged by whipped red lentils seasoned with cumin, clove and turmeric. But most of the evening is so lovely, those things are almost forgotten when we start texting friends the next day about this exciting discovery.
Dessert brings a choice between a selection of American cheeses and an ultra-moist molasses cake alongside wine-poached pears and vanilla ice cream. Bonbons appear. Pressed coffee is served with a charming little sand clock. The owners sweat the small stuff.
Not to take away from the work of pastry chef Brittany Davis, who previously cooked for salmon fishermen in Alaska, but the sweetest thing at Alias isn’t on the menu. Atticus — the owners’ 6-month-old son — makes occasional appearances whenever the kitchen door opens, offering a glimpse of the toddler on a toy John Deere tractor, or when Dad brings him out near the end of dinner to show him off to admiring customers. (Fear not: The Burkes have babysitters and staff keeping watch in the background.)
My posse leaves sated but not stuffed, with parting gifts of miniature flaky chocolate croissants (now chocolate mousse cakes) that are gleefully dispatched the next day. “The treats are great in the car, too,” says Kelly, who knows diners all too well.
Just like the restaurant that inspired it, Alias is a place we can’t wait to experience again.
7150 Farm Station Rd., Warrenton, Va. 540-422-0340. aliasvinthill.com. Open for indoor dining starting promptly at 6 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday and Thursday through Saturday. Prices: Five-course tasting menu $145 in the dining room or $165 at the chef’s counter. Optional wine pairings are $98. Sound check: 70 decibels/Conversation is easy. Accessibility: No barriers at entrance; ADA-compliant restrooms.