Dining Reviews	Lunch Counter	Restaurant Guide

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A restaurant you will 'Relish'

What's not to relish about a restaurant the colors of chocolate — milk, bittersweet, dark and white? Located in the space of the former Central Grille in Summerville, Relish Downtown is what every neighborhood deserves: a chef/owner operating out of a manageable space with enough tables to generate income but not so many to compromise the integrity of what is coming out of the kitchen.

Chef Tim Armstrong left the Old Village Post House in Mount Pleasant to strike out on his own as the chef/owner at Relish Downtown. The Maryland native was trained at the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, N.Y. He had the good fortune to work with Michael Lomonaco at the famed Windows on the World in New York and Noche, also in New York, and the Shore House Restaurant in Stamford, Conn.

Maryland roots have stood him well in South Carolina — two food cultures that love the seasonal and the local and share common bonds in oysters, crab, soft crab, corn, tomatoes and sweet desserts.

One can easily make a meal of the soups, salads and variety of small plates making Relish the kind of place you can pop into often. The main menu is heavy on seafood but offers grilled chicken ($16) and a New York strip steak ($23) along with an early bird nightly special served 5-6 p.m. that is priced at $15.

The soup is a Maryland-style crab soup ($3, $6) and is tomato-based with lots of vegetables and crab; a soup of the day also is featured, and this summer has seen its share of chilled soups du jour.

Who could resist crab cakes ($9) from a Maryland son? Two generous, crab-filled rounds share a plate with gently dressed greens and avocado remoulade. With minimal filler and maximal crab, the cakes are keepers. The remoulade, however, out-muscled the avocado for flavor, and its generous seasoning with coarse-grained mustard trumped all.

Cornmeal-crusted Gulf oysters ($9) served with a chipotle tartar sauce seem to have traveled north from the Old Village Post House; a fried green tomato stack ($6) served with a creamy goat cheese dressing appeared to be the "leaning tower of tomatoes" as it was presented to a neighboring table.

The marinated vegetable flatbread ($8) is served on a grilled flat bread, which also serves as the restaurant's house bread complemented with a pool of fragrant and fruity olive oil. The flatbread is topped with a smear of pureed eggplant, slow-roasted tomatoes, asparagus spears, green and black olives, and a crumble of feta cheese. It strikes all the right notes, and partnered with the arugula salad ($6) that combines local watermelon, fennel and a tomato-based vinaigrette, you have a $14 dinner.

The same crab cakes ($19) are served as a big plate with the greens being replaced by a roasted corn salad, a side of purple potato chips and sweet tomato butter. The grilled salmon ($18) was served with local butter beans, bacon bits and roasted red potatoes, all in a fragrant basil broth. The cooking was timed right, but the dish was oversalted. This was the only weakness in a dish where the quality of the ingredients and the competency of the kitchen blossomed.

The herb-crusted local flounder ($22) did not fare as well. For starters, there was no herbed crust and the fillets were twirled in a misshapen turban over a bed of white beans (too al dente), prosciutto, roasted Roma tomatoes and arugula pesto. The latter was a bright green puree that lacked the nutty, peppery integrity of this leafy green. It was a dish that worked on paper but not on execution.

The side dishes can easily make a meal, such as mac and cheese with gruyere and truffle butter ($6), risotto ($5) and sweet potatoes fries with goat cheese and honey ($6).

Desserts are made in-house and feature a blackberry-peach cobbler, blueberry cheesecake, banana chocolate Napoleon, sorbet of the day and chocolate pots de creme with orange whipped cream. The cobbler will delight (though we wished for more caramel-bourbon sauce over the vanilla ice cream).

The banana Napoleon, stacked as it was on crisped rounds of chocolate Oreo cookie crusts, layered with sliced bananas, vanilla pastry cream and semi-sweet chocolate sauce, was difficult to eat. It would be a delicious dessert if it were true to its namesake and used pastry over cookie crumbs.

Our server was attentive, gracious and checked back frequently to be sure of our satisfaction.

We had some missteps, but Relish is the kind of restaurant that can easily correct. Armstrong seems to have a good handle on consumer appetites, a disciplined palate, ingredient-driven menu and commitment to the local "wardrobe" of seasonal foods.

Relish Downtown is a beacon in Summerville, lighting the way to good eats, long on flavor at Short Central.