Annapolis Underground Article -June 2014

CUISINE
Farm-to-VIN 909
STORY BY MATTHEW BUCKLEY SMITH / PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS IATESTA
Alex Manfredonia wants to find the wine for you. “People love talking
to me about wine, and I love talking about it,” he tells me on the cozy
back patio of his Eastport restaurant, VIN 909. “I might not hit it right
away, but I sure as hell can bring you three tastes of something, and of
those three, you’re going to love one of them.”
Wine is, appropriately, one of the house passions at VIN 909, but the
selection is neither impoverishing nor obscure, and at no point during
my visit does anyone don an accent for the sake of pronouncing a foreign
vintage. There are three basic categories on the menu: the $6 glass,
the $8 glass, and the $12 glass, and some of Manfredonia’s favorites
are in the $6 section. He doesn’t want anybody to feel intimidated.
“Arrogance with wine, it’s just not necessary,” he says. That seems to
echo the philosophy behind the restaurant as a whole. “It’s creating an
environment that we would want to be in,” he invokes with a gesture
his business partners, Justin Moore and Chuck Manfredonia, the latter
a long-time D.C. restaurateur and Alex’s father. Their partnership
has been a fruitful one. People don’t go to VIN 909 so much as they
frequent it.
On April 18, the restaurant celebrated its third anniversary. Housed
in a converted residence on sleepy Bay Ridge Avenue, VIN took over
number 909 from the Wild Orchid Café and in just three years has
established its own distinctive atmosphere. The dining tables are
modest but elegantly dressed, watched over by jaunty paintings that
neither draw a stare nor offend a glance. The place feels a little like
the rental of your thirty-something bachelor friend, if that friend also
ran the neighborhood bar and had studied culinary arts at an affiliate
of Le Cordon Bleu. Come to VIN 909 and you can savor the wild boar
meatballs over a bottle of Duckhorn Migration Pinot Noir, but you
probably can’t find a sports coat in the house, let alone a tie.
Manfredonia grew up in Annapolis, working at his father’s restaurants,
but when he left home for college, it was with the aim of becoming a
DJ: “I tried to separate myself from the restaurant world all through
my twenties.” Happily, though, he got pulled back in, and when he and
his father decided to open a wine bar in Annapolis, he was able to bring
along Moore, an experienced fine dining chef who sets the menu at VIN
909 today.
“For a non-Italian kid from Connecticut,” Manfredonia laughs, “he
really knows how to make pasta.” Guests often encounter transitory
specials like Moore’s black uni pasta—handmade with sea urchin and
squid ink—as well as perennials like the classic margherita pizza. But
even the simple stuff requires attention to detail. “Sometimes it’s just
a shot of salt, or sometimes it’s just a squeeze of lemon, and those
little things can just really,” Manfredonia snaps his fingers, “pop it,
and really make a difference.”
By design, VIN 909 is a restaurant for Annapolitans, though non-locals
are always welcome. Just come early because reservations are not
in their vocabulary. And don’t be intimidated by the line that starts at
4:30 p.m. and soon stretches out the front porch onto the sidewalk.
Manfredonia says people constantly ask why they don’t add more seats
and tables since they have access to the whole property. The answer:
the owners would rather preserve the homey ambience they’ve worked
so hard to create, one in which diners can take their time, split a few
plates, and linger over wine and conversation. In this way, they have
merged European traditions with their mélange of offerings.
Along with years of restaurant experience, Manfredonia and
Moore brought to the restaurant a commitment to environmental
sustainability. They’ve built their business practices to conform to
both local and national green standards—going so far as to recycle
their oyster shells, produce their own mozzarella, and purchase
twenty percent of their power from certified green providers. At VIN
909, “farm-to-table” is more than a buzzword. The farm in question is
Groundworks Farm—a free-range, compost-fertilizing, herbicide-free
venture owned and operated by Kevin and Margaret Brown across the
bay in Pittsville, Maryland. Margaret is an old family friend, a boon
Manfredonia doesn’t take for granted. “Justin and Margaret have the
sort of relationship where Justin’s like, ‘I’d really like to see favas, can
you grow me favas?’ And she’s like, ‘sure, I’ll grow you favas.’” With a
sigh, Manfredonia tells me he wishes the faddish designation “farmto-table” could simply go without saying. For now, he’s happy that the
mainstream is starting to catch up. “Hey, if it takes money or financial
reasons for people to do farm-to-table—whatever it takes—if they’re
still doing it, that’s pretty awesome.”
When Moore steps out onto the patio in his apron to remind Manfredonia
that it’s time to open the restaurant, I ask the two men––old partners
and friends—what it is they hope people hear about VIN 909, if they only
hear one thing. They laugh for a moment and then, opening the door to
head inside, finally agree on an answer. “That it’s worth the wait.”