The Veranda

The Veranda Review

Restaurants come and go quickly as downtown reinvents itself, but this one has endured since 1978. A favorite of business and government bigwigs at lunch (the fried green tomato salad is signature), it serves imaginative Continental fare with a trace of a Southern accent for dinner. Notable are tournedos with smoky sour-mash-whiskey sauce, rack of lamb with rosemary-merlot sauce, herb-crusted honey-grilled salmon, and a grilled seafood sampler with saffron fettuccine, all served with homemade honey-drizzled bread and corn muffins with pepper jelly. The restaurant is a combination of two turn-of-the-20th-century homes, with a two-sided central brick fireplace, and sconces and antique oil paintings on its pale-yellow walls. Ask for an outdoor courtyard table when weather permits.