Echelon Wine Bar — Restaurant in Richmond

Echelon Wine Bar holds regular themed tastings and I'm so glad they do this locally in Richmond. There's no better way to get your bearings in the wide world of wine than tastings that don't just pour a bunch of bottles and ask you to remember them, but focus on specific regions or grapes so you can feel the variation within a style and start to pick out the fine-grained differences. It also gives you a much better benchmark for what a Spanish Tempranillo should taste like, or a French Marsanne-Roussanne blend, or the wines of the Loire Valley. Echelon sends out info about these themed tastings and dinners via their newsletter, and I highly recommend checking them out if you've been looking to get a foothold in understanding regionality, terroir, and typicity.

The food can be amazing, though it's been a bit of a mixed bag for us. The oyster mushroom dish pictured was rich, umami, and absolutely stellar. The fish with sorrel was also insane: a perfectly cooked, flaky white fish set in a silky parsnip purée with a nest of sautéed leeks and chard, topped with crisp root-vegetable chips and bright, lemony red-vein sorrel leaves. Simple, clean flavors that really came to life with the wine.

That high was dampened on a later visit when some of the food, most notably a pork rib, was much, much too salty. Food so salty you actually have to send it back is a serious bummer. Out of six dishes we've had so far, two were over-salted and one had to be returned because it was the kind of saltiness that starts to burn your mouth.

Long story short: we love this place and the way it cares about wine (and often food), but a couple of spotty experiences keep it at four stars for now. When the kitchen hits its mark, it's...

I’d take these reviews here at Echelon of Richmond with a grain of salt. I think it’s very corny and unprofessional that the manager here entices the employees to leave positive reviews in exchange for a glass of wine, just to boost their reviews. And YES. This is actually a thing here I don’t wanna hear a comment from management saying it isn’t because I know for a fact it is.

Along with the owners having secret shoppers and their friends attend the restaurant in hopes of more positive reviews. And secretly critiquing the employees. It’s a very lame business model if you ask me.

I’ve had a glass of wine here and the Parmesan grits, which were okay. They have a seasonal menu w/ not many food options. It’s not really a problem but more so for your information. The ambiance is nice. Food is mid. Servers are nice. BUT management and owners are shady people. Let your business thrive on honesty. Not bluffing your reviews to increase...

We had 3 different glasses of wine, a chardonnay, cab franc, and merlot, all were good. The restaurant was quiet, only 4 other patrons during our visit. The young woman that waited on us did a good job but did not know the wines yet. The sommelier was helpful, he opened the cab franc for us which they normally do not sell by the glass. His voice was very loud. We had a charcuterie board with only cheese as one of us is vegetarian. Everything on it was flavorful. We had the seared scallops which were a little under cooked on the bottom and were expensive for 4 of them. We had the mushroom appetizer which was rich and unusual. We also shared the corn cake dessert which was innovative though it was missing the corn ice cream that was advertised. Our bill with an additional basil Hayden was $179 plus tip. It would be more enjoyable if there were more patrons present. We ended up taking a box home so could have done 2...