Dining at The Orchard

Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: 2018/10 - October

I met this assignment with a bit of trepidation.

Five years ago, I was asked to review The Orchard, that signature Cashiers place that’s known for well-prepared meals, paired with a selection from its exhaustive wine cellar or a perfectly blended drink. It’s all served up in a rambling 110-year-old cabin that’s filled to bursting with mountain charm, nestled in the midst of, yep, an old apple orchard.

Well, we’d had a fine old time that’d unspooled at a languid pace, unhurried and indulgent and rich in conversation. Through some alchemical magic, the combination of The Orchard’s food and wine and setting invites its guests to relax and talk, really talk. We didn’t want to leave, but we left happy and vaguely sleepy and deeply satisfied.

So what were we to expect upon our return? We had this shadow box idyll carefully preserved in our memory and who’d want to tamper with that? I’ve noted here before that I’m essentially an optimist. It’s a pretty good strategy for getting through life and its constant reversals, yet it leaves you more susceptible to disappointment and its attendant emotional wallops.

Would this visit reveal an institution five years past its sell-by date? Would it be like attending your 20-year high school reunion and discovering that the homecoming queen is sunken and brittle and predatory; and the star jock is puffy, and laughs a little too much, and leans in a little too close?

To keep the experience honest and fair, we invited a trusted friend to share our table. Sarah is careful and discriminating and would be experiencing The Orchard for the first time.

Tricia and I needn’t have worried. The place is still its old, rustic self – renovated and restored and jutting off in unexpected directions like a rabbit’s den. It’s marvelously decorated and chock-a-block with art and ephemera.

And the menu, and the on-point kitchen staff who deliver on its promises, is

still vibrant.

Tricia once more enjoyed the Glenville Fried Trout. This is a rainbow trout that only a few hours earlier had been swimming happily a couple of miles away, pecan breaded and served with stone-ground cheese grits and a black-eyed pea/corn relish and a honey-Dijon mustard sauce. She proved to be incredibly selfish about sharing.

Sarah embraced her inner predator and ordered the Found Forest Ribeye. The kitchen started out with a well-marbled prime ribeye and then drenched it in a choice bourbon, sorghum and worcestershire marinade and chargrilled the cut. The resulting portion was sealed with a wild mushroom demi-glace and topped with crispy fried Vidalia onions.

For me, I was seduced by a duck. Now the last time I enjoyed a duck coming out of a kitchen was a 1934 Donald Duck cartoon when Donald was helping Mickey bake a cake. Donald exploded out of the kitchen with arms a-flailin’, covered in batter and topped with a cherry.

Thankfully, my Fairfield Breast of Roastes Duck wasn’t wearing a sailor suit, nor was it covered in batter. It had been pan roasted with an orange demi glace, embedded upon Southern toasted almond jasmine rice and nestled alongside a generous helping of baby kale and crystalized citrus apple marmalade. The subtle blending of flavors and sensations was sublime.

All of which proves that my beloved Thomas Wolfe, so wise and so vigilant and so careful with his words, got it all wrong – You can go home again, and you can have a marvelous meal, just like you remembered it.  

Reservations for The Orchard are a must. Call (828) 743-7614.