The Red Hen

A great place to celebrate a special occasion. The menu selections were prepared using locally grown produce and meats. The chef certainly knows what a kitchen is properly used. Everything was excellently prepared, well served, and heartily consumed. Whether you live in the Lexington area or are visiting, a meal at the Red Hen should be on your agenda.

Amazing «tasting menu»…5 courses at a reasonable price! Excellent service and excellent food prepared with local ingredients.
Nice ambiance and bathroom !! Now our fav in Lexington!!!

I can’t think of a single thing wrong with the red hen…
The staff was very pleasant and helpful, the food was delicious…
I’m not a big squash guy but I went ahead and had the potato butternut soup as a starter and I loved it…
The pork chop was delicious (a little tougher then I like)

Food is consistently excellent and service is great. It is pricey though!

A truly memorable meal, the best we have had on our visits to Lexington. This is a small restaurant. Noise level, for one who has hearing problems, was low because of the very high ceilings. The wait staff has to do double duty as servers and bar tenders. They are well choreographed in the small space available. Food was uniformly excellent. I had a lam cassoulet that was a special. Great mix of meats and vegetables. A good and reasonably priced wine list. Early reservations are a must given the small size and excellent food.

Do I love this place. They use locally sourced food AND great technique. This is really the only place we recommend to anyone visiting, everything else is very ordinary. Sure loves Chef Adams fusion.

Nice place with good service. Food was excellent. We had the Trout and risotto which both were very tasty. My wife said the Risotto was to die for.

Four of us each ordered something different and each dish was excellent. Welcoming, efficient service. What more could you ask for! Just wish we had The Red Hen in our home town. An outstanding restaurant by any measure!

What more can be said. I tried The Red Hen after reading the excellent reviews and was not at all disappointed. The pâté en croûte was fantastic as well as the duck and the desserts. The lemon meringue & peach trifle were light and delicious. Even tried the French Gimlet and found it to be a very delicate cocktail. I’m so glad I found this gem for our local.

We always have a memorable meal when dining at the Hen. And we always overeat because we can’t make ups our minds. Luckily, everyone shares!
Last night was another such occasion. I had the roasted trout and the rest of the family had the short ribs, Adobo chicken, and the duck. The red pepper soup appetizer was heavenly and although my daughter didn’t want to try it, I made her and she kept coming back for more.
We should have passed on dessert but were unable to, they were delicious as well. Another great meal at The Red Hen.

The Red Hen continues to be our favorite restaurant in Lexington. The food is superb and much of it comes straight from local farms. The owner/​chef, Matt Adams, is a wonderful chef and brings out the best in any dish. We had his exquisite Halibut last night and thought it some of the best we had ever had!
The staff are all very pleasant and work hard to optimize the evening for you.
The cozy and intimate ambience enhances the experience as does the fact it is a small, twenty six seat restaurant so you never feel crowded.

What a wonderful dining experience we had here at the Red Hen. My wife and I had dinner here Saturday the 18^th of July while staying at a B&B in Lexington. We both started with the Carrot coriander soup which was simply delicious. The plant design that was layered onto the surface was a sight to behold and it used locally sourced honey to make the stem design. My wife had the risotto and roasted tomatoes and I had a Asian inspired halibut with tempera vegetables. My wife said that her risotto was the best she has ever tasted. The wine list was outstanding with decent price points too. The place is very small so reservations are suggested.

Love everything about this place, it’s the best restaurant in Lexington. Great food, knowledgable, humble staff, delicious drinks and its farm to table! We love it!

We enjoyed our meal here just fine but in the end felt like the food missed the mark. I ordered the duck and my partner ordered a fish dish. Everything was cooked properly and our proteins were nice and juicy. Gimlet and service were both perfect.
However, we felt the food was just under seasoned and a tad bland. It tasted a little too «earthy» to me with a lack of herbs, spices or salt. Our ham biscuit app was dry and we asked for grainy Dijon mustard to give it some kind of moisture. I almost always order dessert at places like this as I have a sweet tooth, but nothing caught my eye. Basically we just felt the food here was missing something… missing that final touch maybe. Not sure if we would recommend or not. We will likely not go back next time we are in Lexington.

Homemade corn bread to start delicious! Cheese plate beautiful & delicious, way above average for a cheese plate. Scallops for me, duck for him. Cute outdoor patio. Delish, quaint, worth the $$. Happy Anniversary to us!

Excellent meal and preparation! My husband and I had the tasting menu, which was a bit pricey but a great way to experience the menu. The sunchoke soup was amazing! The ambience was relaxing yet upscale. The only real downside was that it was an incredibly stormy night, and the front door wasn’t well insulated so our table got a cold draft every once in a while.
Be sure to make reservations! Seating really is limited.

When we lived in Lexington The Red Hen is where we would go for special occasions. The food is always delicious, fresh and inventive. It is pricey but in my opinion SO worth it!

Can now say I’ve had escargot! As a bonus, it was delicious! We had reservations here last weekend and the four of us were seated without any delay as well as given the choice of a 5 course dinner dictated by the chef his self.
Everything was great from the scallops all the way to the lamb. The service was superb and the atmosphere was just right for a great evening of good friends and good dining.
Highly recommend this place as it’s literally the best there in the area.

How I heard of this place: When making birthday weekend reservations, I came across reviews for the Red Hen and knew it was the winner for Saturday night.
Type of cuisine: «Inspired Shenandoah Cuisine», where the owners stand for «fresh. local. handmade.» in everything they create and provide their patrons. «The Red Hen is Lexington’s first farm-​to-​table restaurant, featuring the bounty of the Shendandoah region’s most talented farmers. Each day we create a new menu based on the freshest and tastiest produce and meat… This dedication to local food means each dish preserves the intricate flavors of the land. (It’s also good for the environment and our local economy.)»
Ambiance: «Perched between a proud historic past and an unknown future, one thing is for certain: Today, this „cool, small town“ boasts a very cool little restaurant with a big, green heart.» — Virginia Living
Bars on the white-​framed windows peek into the space known as the Red Hen, looking over the booths and onto the loft above the kitchen inside. The green awning over the white door and the metal hen hung off the side of the building make it known that you have found your fine dining eatery. A wooden paneled wall boasts a lone framed Founders Award from the Historic Lexington Foundation, presented to The Red Hen in 2009. We notice immediately that every inch is fully utilized as storage and display, with bottles of wine, both refrigerated and not, in shelving units reaching up to the ceiling. Inside, seating for 26 creates an intimate and cozy setting. At the windows, a wooden bench makes its way around the edge of the establishment, complete with cushion and a trio of pillows at each corner (red with white polka dots on a rectangular cushion). Bee-​lighting around the wooden panels reaching up the sides of the walls create the warmth of a booth, while seated in the midst of a bustling setting. Etta James playing in the background, the voices of our neighbors dining at the table to my left and laughter raining from the large ten-​person party ahead. The kitchen, open to our view is set in a cabin-​like space at the back, chalkboards with colorful hand-​written in chalk specialty cocktails and alcoholic beverages promoted. The steep, slim stairwell leads up to the two paintings of snow-​capped moutainscapes, highlighted with the mini track lighting pointing directly at their snowy peaks. No space unused, the shelves against the right wall hold cookbooks, a pig trinket, glasses, mugs, bowls, cups, plates and eating utensils. Bottles are kept in similar shelves in the kitchen, and plates stack up high at the counter between the kitchen space and the dining area. Dim lighting creates ambiance like none other.
What I ordered: To begin, a tall glass of tart cranberry juice ($ 3) and two starters: the Parsnip, Nelson County Apple & Onion Soup ($ 8) topped with baby chives and granola (a sprinkle of toasted, sweetened oats), and the Frisee & Belgian Endive Salad ($ 11 for the smaller plate) with thinly sliced red pear, two hardboiled, halved, local quail eggs, pecans, warm RH guanciale (bacon) with a sweet oyster mushroom vinaigrette. Main entrees: Grilled ‘Buffalo Creek Beef’ Chuck Eye Steak ($ 25) served with roasted yukon gold potatoes, sage, garlic confit, sauteed Brussels sprout leaves, and crispy onion rings, and Homemade Chive Spaetzle & Appalachian Cheese «Rosti» ($ 19), a crispy cheese-​crusted spaetzle with quartered scarlet turnips, carrots leeks, kale and a dusting of curry. Dessert equalled a Begian Chocolate Bete Noire ($ 8), a flourless chocolate torte, resembling a slice of decadent fudge, topped with homemade whipped cream and presented on a rectangular plate with toasted walnuts, halved red grapes and caramel drizzle.
What I loved: Each course, better than the one before, it is difficult to choose a favorite. The tender, juicy, flavorful beef, the perfectly smooth, roasted garlic, the fresh, large leaves of kale combined with the scarlet parsnips, the crispy cheese and cheesy flavor of the spaetzle, the list goes on. Each small plate kept us satiated without feeling stuffed or bloated, and the flavors continued to intensify with each bite. The freshness of the vegetables was immediately obvious, the preparation maintaining the integrity of each individual piece, combining the flavors onto one, delicious plate of harmony.
Why I loved it: I loved everything about the Red Hen! From the moment we walked up to the small establishment, to the cozy interior. From the friendly staff, to the warm setting and the pillows at our corner bench table. From the tall Austria meets Portland ceilings and loft area in the wooeden space, to the small kitchen where we could see our chef prepare our amazing dishes. From the first bite to the last, we were in love with and enamored by the Red Hen.
Cost: Average ($ 16-​$ 25 per main entrée)

So much potential, but…
My travel mates were very excited about dinner at the Red Hen. Unfortunately it turned out to be the only low point of our trip. The concept, décor, and ambiance were all great. The food and service left something to be desired. It was more of a bait and switch experience. As my friend said, it’s an attempt at fancy, but it’s just not up to par. There are a few pros too, so the remainder of this review will be organized in a pros and cons list.
Pros:
— The chefs take dietary restrictions seriously and even customized and presented individual menus to us based on our dietary restrictions since we called in advance. The server also approached the table and inquired a second time about our specific restrictions.
— The chef introduced himself and made an effort to engage with us.
— My entrée was delicious but very small. I ordered the buttered parsnips with pearl onions, parsnip purée, roasted potatoes (there were only three of them), and black summer truffles (I don’t recall these making it to the plate). The potatoes were very well seasoned but it was just a sampling and not an entrée portion. The dish price was $ 24 and it included a couple parsnips and a couple of pearl onions and a couple of tiny potatoes. I don’t eat much typically and I would consider this a snack. Still, it was a well executed dish.
Cons:
— The service was extremely slow. The process took FOREVER. We were famished after a long kayak trip and were seriously about to pass out and had to wait at least an hour for dinner to be served.
— The food servings were miniscule.
— The cornbread appetizer was dry.
— The antipasti appetizer was a joke. It was served with a piece of bread, a few tiny pepperoni pieces, some tiny gherkins, and a few olives.
— The Hemingway Daquiri was imbalanced and tasted too sour.
— The house made Gin and Tonic was average (per reviews the cocktails are supposed to be amazing).
— Some of the scallops were undercooked. The bacon was not particularly tasty.
— The food is overpriced.
— We had to make requests of the server several times to gain follow through.
— The server had a hard time organizing the bill and cashing us out. Two of us left during the wait. We intended to order dessert but were concerned about the wait times and the portion sizes.
— The food portions were so small that we went across the street for a second dinner and ate a full meal. Don’t come here if you’re hungry.
My friend doesn’t complain much, but she certainly complained about this restaurant throughout our trip at random times. It was a disappointing experience overall.