Star Chef: Dale Reitzer of Acacia Mid-town is known for his seafood dishes in particular, such as this grouper with caviar-butter sauce. He was named one of the country's best new chefs by Food & Wine magazine a decade ago, and is nominated for a James Beard regional chef award.
IF SUBTLETY is an art form, chef Dale Reitzer is a master painter whose plates frame a tenderly nuanced taste of nature. Reitzer's restaurant, Acacia Mid-town, has set a superlative standard in food, wine and cocktails that's serious without being intimidating, flavorful without assaulting the senses.
For these reasons and more, Acacia is Style Weekly's 2010 Restaurant of the Year.
We love that Reitzer is resolute and unflappable. His skills are nationally recognized (Food & Wine magazine and James Beard nominee), but his ego remains in check. “It's great to be nominated, but I don't put much into it,” he says of the James Beard honor. “It's not going to change who I am or how I do things.”
Five nights a week he's front and center in Acacia's open kitchen window, casting his team toward an ever-sharper performance. “It really tunes me in to what's going on out there,” Reitzer says of his kitchen's view into the mushroom-colored dining room. “For so long I cooked in the basement. Now I have more a sense of the timing, and it's good for the guys to see what's going on out there too.”
Sous-chef Philip Perrow is a protAcgAc and, like most of the staff, has been with Acacia for years. “When they're here, all they're thinking about is food, not the next party,” Reitzer says. “It's about cooking my food correctly, not taking any shortcuts. It's about me making them better. I want to go eat at their restaurants someday and be rocked. When it gets easy for them, I'm pushing them to the next level.”
Reitzer is a risk taker who's largely immune to trends, a professional who's in it for the long haul. He and his wife, Aline, met in the '90s when they worked for chef Jimmy Sneed at the Frog and the Redneck, a pivotal Shockoe Bottom restaurant that blazed trails in Richmond's culinary history. Style restaurant critic Don Baker considers that relationship a significant marker. “I now believe Acacia is not only the best restaurant in Richmond,” Baker says, “but the best since Jimmy Sneed was at his height at the Frog and Redneck — and the prices are amazingly reasonable.”
These aren't cheap eats, but diners get a range of options, including a three-course fixed price dinner, or appetizers at the bar, half-off wine nights, occasional to-go crab cake dinners for less than $20, and other moderately priced specials. Then again, splurges can and do happen most evenings with premium wines and full-blown feasting, but as critic John Haddad notes: “Just the other night I saw 20 VCU artist-hipsters snacking at the bar. The $23 prix fixe is an incredible deal and allows diners from all walks of life to enjoy. Day in and day out, Reitzer and his crew are turning out interesting dishes, using lots of local food, great service, great ambience, and I think importantly doing it at price points that are sensitive to the current economy.”
Chicken is unexpectedly succulent, served with bacon-studded mac and cheese.
Acacia, named after Reitzer's beloved mixed-breed retriever, reopened last year at Robinson and Cary streets after a 10-year stint in a challenging, high-rent space in Carytown. This time, Reitzer bought the building. It sits next to the newly vacated GRTC Transit System depot, soon to be developed into what Reitzer hopes will be a mixed-use community that will stabilize the neighborhood. With the May reopening of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts a few blocks away, Acacia sits in a prime opportunity zone, a fine-dining anchor on a cross street teeming with bars and cafes.
This place stands apart, beginning with the gentlemanly valets who greet guests, open doors, park cars and make a gracious first impression. Once inside, diners find a minimalist version of sophistication, with concrete floors, simple wood furnishings and largely unadorned walls. Lighting is best when it's low. Music is a modulated house-lounge background mix that allows conversation, enhanced by bartending finesse, an exemplary wine list, and the easygoing nature of servers dressed in brown shirts, aprons and jeans.
Aline Reitzer runs the front of house, often leading servers through game-show challenges to train them in menu, wine and service pointers. They're tested on Saturdays for their food knowledge and ability to answer a guest's questions, because “it's extremely important that the right message, the right tone, gets across,” she says. “The wealth of knowledge that Dale has and is absolutely willing to share with everybody, we work on that every day.” When the Reitzers take their young children to an aquarium, “Dale knows everything about the fish and can name every fish and talk to the kids about them,” she says. “He's very passionate about what he does.”
A server discusses wine with guests in the dining room at Acacia.
Seafood, quite naturally, is his strong point. Reitzer grew up a beach lover and considers a kayak trip in Hatteras to be an ideal getaway. He gave up lunch service in the new location not only to allow for family time but also because “it killed me to do lunch at the old place and people came and judged me on a turkey panini instead of coming for fish at dinner,” he says. The fish dishes define him: scallops on gnocchi, tuna seviche, white anchovies, grouper topped with caviar-butter sauce made with sea urchin tongues — “that's a true, great sauce,” Reitzer says without boasting.
Those who do boast for Acacia include Kim Bridges of the Central Virginia Foodbank and Meals on Wheels, who praises Aline Reitzer “for spearheading another great week of hunger relief — and for taking it to a new level of support even in a tough economy.” Aline helped raise $23,000 during Richmond Restaurant Week in October. It's a yearly project that carries the side benefit of major exposure and new guests for the two dozen restaurants that participate. Acacia has led the charge for eight years.
Acacia is unlike other Richmond restaurants not only in its deliberately understated tone and design but also in its taste. “I have found some of their food under-seasoned,” critic Tess Bosher says. “It's sort of a refreshing criticism to be making, as so often chefs tend to over-salt. So if we're offering advice, I think they need to get a little more generous with the salt and pepper, fresh herbs and spices.” Those who notice such things remark on the absence of salt shakers on the tables, or of servers wielding pepper grinders in what is often an act of overkill.
Acacia always has sourced and served local foods, long before it was a marketing strategy or a menu trend. “We're just doing solid food, fresh, and we're serious about what we do,” Reitzer says of the 11 years Acacia has been in business. The menu changes every night, depending on the harvest, but the high level of expectation — especially Reitzer's — remains the same.
