It's not what it used to be, but Cotton Mill has its gems

When I think of hotel restaurants, I think of room service and big trays weighted with shrimp cocktail. I think of travelers: a solitary man at the bar, tie loosened, Mad Men style, flanked by Blackberry-wielding businesswomen. All nurse martinis. All are anonymous.

When it comes to the menus, hotel restaurants seem to focus on reliable standards, not inspired innovations. Some hotel restaurants are great. Many play it safe -- maybe because they have to be all things to all people. Or maybe because they don't need to bring people back?

Under Stephanie Tyson and Vivian Joiner, the Brookstown Inn's resident restaurant, the Cotton Mill, transcended the hotel niche. The menu had flair and oomph, and there were details -- from the well-stuffed biscuit- and cheese-straw-filled bread basket -- to whole-cooked fish and such pairings as pork-and-peanut sauce that made this restaurant feel like it was somewhere, not just anywhere.

All that wasn't enough to keep it open, though, and Tyson and Joiner closed the restaurant last summer to concentrate on Sweet Potatoes, their Trade Street restaurant. The Cotton Mill, Take One, was open less than a year.

Stephen Butcher, a manager with experience at the Twin City Chop House, opened the Cotton Mill in the same spot last year. Butcher left this summer, but Chef Mike McCann stayed on. The restaurant is owned by developer Don Angell, who also owns the inn, said manager Cheryl Gurski.

Through this all, the restaurant's name has stayed the same -- confusing, to be sure. The Cotton Mill, Take Two or Three, blurs both steakhouse and Southern. The restaurant doesn't look much different today, with the same ceiling fans that turn with old-fashioned-looking pulleys, the same dark bar and the same crisp white tablecloths. But the menu now has typical hotel-restaurant ambitions, down-graded to the expectable.

Cotton Mill, Take One, was a hotel restaurant worthy of locals' attention and credit cards. This time, I can't say that with as much certainty. There are plenty of places in Winston-Salem to find chicken fingers.

So, some reasons to come? Such appetizers as the delicately fried calamari with a sweet-and-spicy chili sauce, and chilly shrimp curled over a tomato-cucumber avocado cocktail sauce. Chicken livers with a fried-chicken kind of batter are the kind of dish you'll want more of as we head into fall. The liver's hot and earthy, salty and sweet from a rain of caramelized onions and bacon, richness kept in check with a mustard sauce.

Lamb chops and the rib-eye steak weren't anything special -- ours were properly cooked medium-rare but lacked the trademark steakhouse crust. What is special is the corn pudding, thick with the taste of nutmeg and sweet kernels.

We got off to a rough start on one visit. We lingered on the restaurant's threshold for what seemed forever before we finally wandered through two dining rooms and up to the bar to find someone who could get us to a table. But aside from the uncomfortable arrangement there -- a sign directing people to the bar would easily solve that -- service is polite, hovering on eager, not just prompt but vigilant.

Our server made a point of telling us that our entrees wouldn't be on their way until after the appetizers arrived -- maybe overkill by telling us what should obviously happen, anyway, but he understood pacing. He understood the pleasure in not rushing through a meal.

After all, it gives you a chance to eavesdrop on nearby tables, most of whom seem to be filled by hotel guests -- the couple here for a wedding, a family dropping off a student, a mother and daughter who brought their dinners back up to their room.

That's good, because a meal here is bound to be heavy. Factor in digestion time.

Thick sauce choked with onions oozed over shrimp and grits. Like much of the food, it's seasoned with a heavy hand.

And I wanted to delete the duck in the duck jambalaya -- it's rubbed with spices that veer into salty. But the Cajun stew is piquant, smoky, deliciously thick with peppers and andouille -- nuzzled next to creamy golden risotto, it makes and even saves the entree.

Shredded asiago cheese is showered on everything, including some dishes where it fits -- a refreshingly crisp Caesar salad with kalamata olives and cherry tomatoes -- and others where it doesn't -- creamed spinach, which is gummy and salty instead of smooth and creamy.

Desserts include bananas Foster, or better, an enormous wedge of bourbon-vanilla bread pudding and chocolate cake so dense and rich it is difficult to find the cake amid the frosting. They're very sweet, very big and like the rest of the menu, they don't take risks.