Southern hospitality begins at the front door of Savannah's in Barrington, where diners get a warm welcome. It makes no difference whether they are first-timers, return visitors or former patrons of the restaurant when it was based in Aurora's Fox Valley Mall.
The new location is a historic one-time stucco schoolhouse whose previous tenants included Global Eclectic Eatery and others. Dividing the space into four tidy rooms promotes intimate dining, though the overhead lighting needs toning down. The entire place probably seats less than 50.
Savannah's opened in early summer and was granted a license to serve wine and beer in early October.
Its dinner menu brings out the best of Southern cuisine, and there's no better way to start dinner than with an order of fried green tomatoes and the accompanying garlic aioli. Other popular appetizers include crab cakes with a remoulade sauce, pecan shrimp and pan-fried oysters.
Entrees come with a respectable mixed-greens salad or soup (asparagus or clam chowder on a recent Saturday).
Unfortunately, the waitstaff can be stretched and inexperienced. Our waiter only had three days on the job, and it showed. The wine we chose, a Sauvignon blanc, was poured in champagne flutes and bread plates weren't provided until requested. To get replacements for removed silverware also took prompting. The server skipped a few of the salad-dressing choices.
But the kitchen performed admirably. Smoked and blackened prime rib ($26) -- the size was not listed but it was big enough for leftovers -- was perfectly executed. It came with a tasty horseradish cream sauce and crisp-roasted fingerling potatoes. Spinach was missing in action because of the nationwide scare, but no substitute vegetable was offered.
Another entree of note was the Copper River salmon glazed with a maple spice sauce and plated with mashed yams and a serving of roasted zucchini and yellow squash. The fish was moist and fresh-tasting.
Still other choices were the barbecued pulled-pork platter, Lexington lamb chops, pepper-crusted filet mignon, shrimp and grits, and chicken Chardonnay.
Desserts are made from scratch, a big plus. They include rum raisin bread pudding, flourless chocolate cake and lemonade pie. Caramel apple pie with cider caramel sauce ($8) -- more of an apple crumble than pie -- ate well, even though the pastry chef took a surprising shortcut by not peeling the fruit.
On the whole, Savannah's succeeds admirably when it comes to food. But it needs to work on bringing its staff up to white-tablecloth speed -- and maybe do something about tempering its shocking red paint job.
Thomas Witom is a local free-lance writer.
