Dinner Belle: Plenty of good food here, but some details need updates

Old Salem is not all sugar cake and bonneted guides, a low-tech version of Disney World. It's also a leafy-green neighborhood and a college campus, populated with people who have more on their minds than a stop at the gift shops at the end of their tour.

Good news -- the food, at least at Old Salem Tavern, is real too. Sure, there are such touristy, Colonial-esque nibbles as chicken pie and warm gingerbread, but how about grilled skirt steak with roasted corn and pancetta relish, and duck breast spiced with ginger and chili?

The juxtaposition of new and old doesn't feel disjointed: May I suggest a salmon filet coated with a fine dust of pumpkin and sunflower seeds, brightened with tangy drops of blood orange vinaigrette?

Of all the food at the tavern, that salmon filet was probably my favorite. But some of the heavier, rib-sticking fare is good, too, with touches that nudge the dishes into the present -- tender short ribs with spaetzle and braised red cabbage and apples; a deeply flavorful salad of chopped red cabbage, apples and red onions, bound together with blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette and walnuts; another of mixed greens with blue cheese, dried plums, pistachios, Key-lime vinaigrette and half a pear coated with a hard caramel cap. I don't think that the Moravian settlers could have imagined Key-lime vinaigrette in Salem, not in their wildest dreams.

They probably didn't dream of crab wonton, either, a special appetizer of fried pockets of creamy shellfish on a bed of mesclun, nipped with a fiery chili mango sauce, or, one of my favorites, fried green tomatoes stacked with white-cheddar sauce and strips of salty ham.

Meals start with a basket of little pumpkin-raisin muffins (good) and plain white rolls (OK). The butter that comes with it is churned in-house -- I love that, but I'd love it more if it didn't have a faintly oniony aftertaste.

I was a little let down by the crab cakes -- thick with chunky, sweet crustacean but also heavy-handed on bready filler -- and the choucroute, a traditional Alsatian dish of apples, potatoes, sauerkraut, sausage and pork (this version includes a smoked pork chop). We found the sausage, in bits, but had to hunt for them.

The tavern is liberal with blue cheese, and a crispy slaw of cabbage, blue cheese and bacon is a decadent partner for the crab cakes, along with sweet-potato fries.

Rich, eggy lemon ice cream is a sweet but simple end and an ideal foil to warm slices of gingerbread. I've had it when it's been smooth and tart and another time when the texture was noticeably gritty. The palm-sized chocolate pecan pie was fantastic.

The current tavern was built in 1816 as an annex to the original tavern, which still stands next door. But there's no lack of creaky wooden floors, fireplaces, Windsor chairs and pewter chargers. A collection of tavern puzzles -- tangled metal loops and rings, the Rubik cubes of old -- hangs on one wall, and when it grows dark on the long back porch, servers in sweeping skirts bring out sputtering lanterns.

Candlelight can't hide the echoing dining rooms punctuated by a lonely-looking table of two, three or four here and there. The porch seems more popular in warm weather, but this tavern could play host to scores of rowdy revelers. It doesn't. Is it too gimmicky for the nontourist crowd in Winston-Salem? Does the atmosphere -- decidedly staid, old-fashioned, even formal -- get in the way? If so, it's a shame, because there's some fine food here.

The wine and beer list also doesn't fit the tavern tag. It's the least interesting part of the menu, a holdover, perhaps, from days when modern Americans weren't as adventurous with their libations. California chardonnay is so … 20th century. They've jazzed up the food menu while paying tribute to the past; it could also be done with the drink menu. I'd love to see more interesting white wines by the glass, a few craft-brewed draft beers on tap, and even some bottles of local hard cider (Wilkes County's McRitchie Winery and southern Virginia's Foggy Ridge come to mind).

The service, too, could use an update. Once, a server placed us at an outside table, only to have another server tell us that we had to move because that table seated four and there were just two of us -- never mind that we were surrounded by empty tables. I felt as if I was in school having my knuckles rapped.

During another visit, I heard a server breezily tell another table that she didn't know what was in the sauce that came with the crab cakes, because the chef changed it all the time. She didn't offer to check what might be in that night's incarnation.

By the way -- 15 percent gratuity is included, and thereby guaranteed, to wait staff.

But for all of that, I'd go back.

On a July evening, with the rustling arms of mature trees stretching for the cobalt-colored sky and the cicadas turned up to full volume, a seat on the tavern's back porch has to be one of the most peaceful restaurant tables in Winston-Salem.