Start Your Own Story: the bar at Epic is the perfect place to begin a love affair with one of Columbus’ premier restaurants
“A lot of people don’t seem to know you can come in and just enjoy the bar,” Adam Icard explained one Monday evening at Epic Restaurant (1201 Front Avenue, Columbus) where he works.
This is Adam’s story: Adam has spent most of his restaurant career behind a grill, but over the past year has transitioned to baking and pastry work. He compares baking, now his primary passion, to chemistry, and enjoys the challenge of experimenting until a recipe is just right. When I asked how he came to baking, Adam said it was a chance event. A co-worker was losing interest in the work, so Adam jumped in to take the reigns. Adam says he is largely self-taught, with a little help from Jamie Keating along the way.
“Jamie wants us to fall and get back up,” Adam says, stressing restauranteur and chef Jamie Keating’s belief in tenacity. As Jamie pointed out later that evening, after I’d sampled desserts, small plates and a couple of choice cocktails, he keeps a poster in the kitchen which reads, “failure is not an option.”
Even as high-end dining options in Columbus expand, Epic, the chic center of fine-dining tucked away on the riverside end of the Eagle and Phenix building in Uptown, remains the flagship venue for choice eats in the area. But every foodie in search of exceptional and innovative fare already knows they can find it at Epic. Though we are long-time celebrants of the dinner menu—which, with the continued service of their $35 prix fixe menu from Restaurant Week during the first hour of dinner service, is an experience perfect for those Mondays when cooking at home is an impossible chore—Adam had another story in mind for our visit.
We began with dessert “Mac-n-Cheese,” intriguingly described on the menu with “Blueberry Lavender/Strawberry/Grapefruit.” The Mac, Adam’s innovation, is not macaroni pasta but French macaroons, each paired with a cheese. Adam explains his deserts often tell stories, which follows Jamie’s vision of the restaurant as a kind of sprawling narrative that unfolds a little more with each visit. For example, the blueberry lavender macaroon is a lavender cookie with blueberry filling, and as he experimented with the cookie, Adam began to imagine goats grazing in fields of lavender and blueberry, a kind of dreamscape inspiration that’s provided an experience totally unique to Epic. The strawberry champagne macaroon is paired with pear syrup and whipped cream cheese, and the grapefruit cookie, though a flavor notoriously hard to pair with cheese, has found a soul mate with brie and honey from Stockton, Ga.
In addition to the desert menu (and we recommend taking a chance on the rhubarb berry cobbler, a dish that screams summer), the Bar Snacks menu is likewise loaded with unique treats. We sampled the crispy pork spare ribs, an Asian-American fusion sous-vide for 24 hours before being flash fried and tossed in bar-be-que sauce. The result is a palate-pleasing balance of sweet and salty underscored by a satisfying umami delivered first by a hearty crunch and then by a fall-off-the-bone tender pork. The Asian steam buns, offered with bulgogi or octopus (or enjoy one of each, if you like), are honest and pure—they may not be a departure from the classic, but, as the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke”—and these steam buns will have you dreaming of them at night.
Of course, if you’re going to sit at the bar, you won’t be able to help yourself. Just watching Epic’s speciality cocktails being prepared is an adventure. The Grapes of Wrath (which has a local connection, as Columbus native Nunnally Johnson wrote the script for the 1940 blockbuster film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic novel) features raspberry infused Ciroc and pickled bleu cheese grapes served in a coupe will lift you out of any dustbowl funk. For the real show, however, order The Old Fashioned Girl. While the featured spirit is bourbon, don’t let the name fool you: pineapple and thyme contribute to the fresh take, but the most theatrical element is the orange smoke cloud, which gives this drink a mellow, harmonizing conclusion.
Jamie Keating encourages people to come in, to “dip your toes.” Epic is a story with many narratives running through it, from the Chapters of the menus (13 Chapters in the phenomenally curated wine list alone) to myriad details in the restaurant’s design we will not spoil by giving away here—better to dip your toes in at the bar and discover the story for yourself.