ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 1996 TAG: 9603060026
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FLINT HILL
SERIES: Taste of Virginia
SOURCE: KAREN LOEW NORTHERN VIRGINIA DAILY
It's a pink house with a lyrical name and a local band of regulars. It's a draw for big-city residents who long to escape to the curves of quiet blue mountains. It's a ``family'' of 25 who cook together and play together, with a couple of dedicated chefs at the head.
It's a Flint Hill restaurant called Four and Twenty Blackbirds, and it presents one pleasant surprise after another.
There's the food, of course, where golden raisins, goat cheese, olives and sweet peppers might meet on a grilled pizza ``agrodolce,'' or pan-fried trout may be accompanied by a spicy sweet potato, pecan salsa and grits, or poached eggs may top lemon biscuits along with prosciutto and asparagus.
Then there's the setting, where rural beauty blends with tasteful sophistication, lightly but thoroughly spiced with humor.
``I think that helps in anything,'' said Vinnie DeLuise, who began the restaurant with his wife, Heidi Morf, five years ago.
Setting the tone was a T-shirt DeLuise wore one morning as the restaurant crew prepared for lunch. It said, ``A waist is a terrible thing to mind.''
The artist was Jeff MacNelly, the nationally syndicated cartoonist and one of the restaurant's most dedicated patrons.
Humor peeps through the upstairs dining room's lace curtains with a ``no fishin''' sign in an aquarium. It cuts through the seriousness of large, gilt-framed, mid-19th-century engravings with ``Heidi's Hippie Days,'' a veggie burger that's on the lunch menu.
And humor, in some of MacNelly's framed restaurant-inspired cartoons, pokes at menu ``literature'' such as: ``grilled rib-eye steak with roasted potatoes and a fresh tomato stuffed with summer vegetables, apple-smoked bacon, and Vermont white cheddar'' and ``Italian sausage, shrimp and scallop saute with fresh fennel, portabello and shiitake mushrooms, served with creamy polenta.''
Diners get new descriptions to read every three weeks as the chefs draw up a new list of appetizers, entrees and desserts - every bit homemade - based on what's in season and what's on their minds.
DeLuise calls it new American cooking, where ``you're free to borrow from everyone. It pretty much frees you up to do whatever you'd like.''
The ingredients come from local farms and stores as well as deliveries, several times a week, from Washington, D.C. It's close enough to bring city dwellers to the country and to land the restaurant in guides to the capital area's best restaurants, which DeLuise said is ``great for business.''
Business rarely needs a push, though, with frequent group reservations and a thrice-weekly meeting of a dozen locals, including a federal judge, called ``the boys'' by restaurant staff. Nighttime brings more formal dining, truly ``a night out,'' DeLuise said, and live harp or guitar music.
DeLuise, a New York native and one-time lawyer, and Morf, a Virginian who studied horticulture and architecture, met at the nearby Inn at Little Washington, where she cooked and he waited tables. Eventually they joined forces and opened a bed-and-breakfast in nearby Amissville, but abandoned it for the full-time restaurant trade.
With upstairs and downstairs dining rooms, the restaurant seats 55. The couple used to live upstairs, but recently moved about a mile away to get some distance from the restaurant, where they often spend the entire day.
The couple borrowed the name Four and Twenty Blackbirds from the nursery rhyme, DeLuise said, because they love red-winged blackbirds, which are one of the first signs of spring.
And like most other things in their lives, he said, the name ``has to do with food.'' FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS' SOUTHWESTERN MARINATED SCALLOPS see microfilm for recipe
Name: Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Address: Route 522, Flint Hill Phone: 540-675-1827 Specialty: Changes every three weeks Price range: $13-$20 Hours: Lunch: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; Dinner: 5:30-9 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; Sunday brunch: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Reservations: For dinner or five or more for lunch and brunch Payment: Visa, MasterCard, personal check Alcoholic beverages: Full bar, beer and wine Non-smoking section: Yes Handicapped accessible: Yes Additional information: Live music Friday and Saturday (harp or guitar)
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. AP Vinnie DeLuise and Heidi Morf opened Four andby CNBTwenty Blackbirds five years ago. color
2. map showing location of restaurant