The Dogwood Restaurant

Location: Hampden

Price: pricey

How to get there: car, taxi

Service: very helpful! Gave good menu suggestions!

When walking down W. 36th in Hampden, you may have walked by the Dogwood Restaurant many times without noticing. Despite its inconspicuous facade, the Dogwood is a restaurant worth noting.

Irish Brown Bread with Mango Butter

Regardless of its good reviews, we were hesitant to try the Dogwood due to its slightly expensive menu. However, this week’s Restaurant Week menu (three courses for $30.13) provided us with the opportunity to sample many options from the Dogwood’s menu for a reasonable price.

Baltimore Crab Soup

Shrimp and Grits

The Dogwood’s walls, covered in whimsical, painted murals and ceilings, decked with strings of lights and paper stars, make for a cozy, casual dining atmosphere.  The menu consists of an eclectic mix of cuisine, including many Mediterranean and southern American-inspired dishes. For starters, we ordered shrimp and grits served with a tomato Creole sauce and a spicy tomato-based Baltimore crab soup.

                         

                              Slow Braised Liberty Delight Farm's Beef Brisket

For our main courses, we had Moroccan spiced lamb borek and slow braised Liberty Delight Farm’s beef brisket. The lamb, in phyllo dough with spinach and feta cheese, was served over salad with tzatziki sauce. The braised beef was covered in an ancho-chipotle barbeque sauce with sautéed kale and green chile cornbread.

Moroccan Spiced Lamb Borek

For our third course we split two desserts. A piece of salted caramel cheesecake and a chocolate pot de crème (it was like a very thick, fudgy pudding) provided us with a wonderful ending to our delicious meals.

Chocolate Pot de Creme

While the Dogwood’s menu is full of creative and unique dishes, the restaurant prides itself on showcasing the natural flavors of the food. By using seasonal ingredients from local farms, the Dogwood’s ever-changing menu features fresh food with incredible flavor.

Salted Caramel Cheesecake

Besides the Dogwood’s mission to serve great food, the restaurant has a social mission as well. The restaurant is home to the Dogwood Apprenticeship Program. This program aims to hire and train adults who have experienced addiction, incarceration, or homelessness. Therefore, the Dogwood works to better the lives of the people in the apprenticeship by helping them establish skills needed to obtain jobs in the food industry.