My Visit To Domain Hudson

[maxnharry]

Earlier this week I was traveling past Wilmington, DE and decided to visit Domaine Hudon, the wine-bar of our fellow LL member Cuffthis (aka Tom Hudson).

Finding It
I had made a point before leaving my office this week to print directions from my final appointment on Tuesday. As I reached in my briefcase on Tuesday afternoon, I discovered that I had left my directions on the printer in the office. I did remember that an earlier post here placed it across the street from a hospital in Wilmington. I decided to hunt a little before calling for directions and found it right away.

The Restaurant
The outside of the restaurant is well done but a little non-descript and certainly nothing like the great interior photos that Cuffthis has shared. I walked in and immediately saw Tom behind the bar. I introduced myself and he graciously offered a tour of the place. The restaurant is very handsome. The interior is dark wood, merlot paint and very cool wool chair upholstery. The men's room has great prints from Esquires of old and Lauren wallpaper. There is also a very nice private dining room that is crying out for a special LL event.

The Wine
Tom is a serious guy. He seems serious about clothes, about cufflinks, about old houses and unsurprisingly, he is serious about wine. When I arrived he was sampling wine with a sales rep and during our tour he proudly showed off the wine cellar. The thing that really stuck with me was his policy of not buying wine from any distributor that didn’t keep the wine at proper temperature throughout the transportation process. Now that is serious! Before you get the idea that this place is a temple to wine snobbery, its not. The wines I saw were great value wines and exactly at the knee of the price/value curve and if you like wine, you'll love to be able to taste many great selections throughout your meal. I was able to taste three great reds with mine.

The Food
I immediately wondered if they took food as seriously as they took wine at Domaine Hudson. I am happy to report that they do. I had their delicious jumbo shrimp stew, spinach salad and the raspberry sorbet. All outstanding and well above the quality of most restaurants that I have visited. The shrimp were plump and in a great soup, the spinach was very fresh and crisp, served with an excellent Roquefort and the sorbet was outstanding. One thing that got my attention was the perfect raspberries that accompanied the sorbet. With attention to detail like that I knew that everything on the menu would be fresh and very good.

The Verdict
Domaine Hudson seems to be well received by Wilmington. I loved it an plan to stop whenever travel takes me nearby. It’s a place for great wine and food and I really recommend stopping by the next time you're near Wilmington.

[cuffthis]

Thank you for the kind words. It was truly a pleasure to meet you.

We are still pinching ourselves everyday that we are open. It is not everyday you get a chance to live your dreams. Summer time is definately a slow down period for this part of town but we have many reservations for post Labor Day already. In fact, we are booked up for a couple weekends in September already. I wish we could say that about this weekend