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Rivage Atlantique http://www.rivageatlantique.com Pretentious names have never been a big draw for me. I would be more likely to mock a pretentious name than go in to eat at a place named Rivage Atlantique unless it was located on the Atlantic Coast of France. It is not in France, it is in Central Ohio. But one dark night in December, just before Christmas I found my self in the Rivage Atlantique for dinner. It is smack dab in the middle of Worthington, Ohio. Depending on when you go parking can be dicey. There is parking in back, which is not apparent from High Street. It is a ground floor venue but if you go in the back door there are some tricky and not well-lighted steps. If there are any mobility issues go in the front door. I had to laugh when I arrived and saw where the Rivage Atlantique was located. As I looked at the building I remembered a day in October of 1959 when my Mother and I were at the building to pick up her brand new 1959 Rambler American Station wagon. The Rigave Atlantique was the Central Ohio American Motors dealership. OK, on to food. I am from the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton VA, and was born about a half mile from the mouth of the James River and ground zero for great fresh seafood, Blue Crab, Cherrystone Clams, and Oysters, Oysters, Oysters. However, if you wish to be a true devotee of Oysters you must call them what the watermen call them. They are "Arsters". If you go to the Chesapeake Bay and order "Oye-Stirs" you will be revealed as an outsider and possibly as unworthy for the truly great Arsters available to the initiated. My friend and I both wanted to try the Arsters. I did not have great expectations; after all I was in Columbus Ohio. The menu listed four different Arster offerings. They said they had: What? They even spelled "Chincoteague" correctly. I expected generic Kroger Oysters and they throw four widely different varieties of Arsters at me. I will have to do some basic education here. All these Arsters are the same species, (Crassostrea virginica). But Arsters are a species where the local conditions where they lived can have a pronounced and very noticeable effect on taste. The three main environmental conditions that affect the taste of Arsters are water clarity, water temperature, and water salinity. As a rule the colder the water is the smaller the Arster. Some also say the flesh is a bit more dense. Poor water clarity can make a "muddy" or "grassy" taste. But salinity can also have a huge effect on taste. The same Arster harvested from the bottom of the James River with the light salinity is a different Arster than the Chincoteague Arster from the clear and salty water of the Atlantic. There are people reputed to be able to tell where an Arster "lived" by taste alone. I am not one of those people but I know good from tired, foreign, poor grade ones. Let us cut to the Arsters now. We ordered a three and three half dozen. We had Well Points and Chincoteague. They were presented with little embellishment. They were shucked, placed on shaved ice with some lemon wedges and they were wonderful. These Arsters were clean, cold and had a nice finish to the taste. The texture was spot on and I could have done a dozen more. I am going back for more. The availability of fresh Arsters varies. I have looked at the daily offerings periodically and I have also seen the following varieties offered: Malpeque Oysters Prince Edward Island I shouldn't spend all of the review on the Arsters. The restaurant has two menus, one for the back room that is more like a pub and one for the dinning room but you can order from both. The Back Room can be loud and crowded. It depends what you are looking for. The Back Room is for an upscale sports bar and the dinning room for a more relaxed dinner. I guess you could start in one and move to the other. We were seated in the dinning room. Service was quick and professional. The ambiance of the room was relaxed, quiet and well appointed. The room was rich woods, a wood burning fireplace and adequate but dim lighting. The menu is smaller than some places but it seems to be made based on availability. They had a number of things that I wanted to try but my wife and I settled on Low Country Shrimp and Grits that was described as "Gulf shrimp, andouille cream sauce served over Adluh stone ground grits". One of my dining partners had the Yellow Edge Grouper. It was brick oven roasted with Charleston gold rice perlou with buttered French beans. His wife had grilled shrimp with mango chutney over wilted spinach and a cup of Adluh stone ground grits. Everything was reported as good but my dining partner that ordered the Grouper reported that he would have liked a larger portion. Everything was good or excellent. The grits and shrimp were very good. They were creamy and thick and the savory andouille sausage disks gave a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of the shrimp. I want to go back and soon. There were other entrees that I must try. Looking at the menu it is obvious that the chief was strongly influenced by his South Carolina experience. It was obvious that the "Gullah" culture and cooking made an impact on Cheif Flagg. (Incidentally "Gullah" is both a language and a culture. In the Atlantic Costal Islands a unique culture and English based Creole language cropped up through isolation and the mix of English and Central African Languages adopted by the slaves that provided all the labor on the farms and plantations. It spreads down the Atlantic coast from Southern Virginia to South Carolina. Gullah greatly influenced southern costal cooking) The first indication of the Gullah affinity is the menu item "Low Country Chicken Perlou". The designation of rice Perlo is a dead give-away of the cultural influence of the Atlantic Islands. This is a much more complex and interesting restaurant then I originally expected. It is well worth a visit. It has no ruffles, no truffles and no hassles, just good food in a relaxing setting and with Arsters. In the Gullah language I will end with, "Lok Ya Wandem Arsters? Cause iz be 'tas’e ‘e mout’ ."
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