"Throughout the industry, restaurants are taking on a more casual approach due to the increased cost of making high-end experiences happen," Kearney said last month when outlining the plans for Bar Dumaine. "People still want high-quality foods on their plates, but time is of the essence."
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It’s not clear where Bar Dumaine or its successor will be following July 31, when Rue Dumaine’s 10-year lease at its current location at 1061 Miamisburg-Centerville Road (Ohio 725) expires.
“I’m exploring numerous options,” Kearney said last month.
Bar Dumaine’s menu and the makeover the restaurant undertook over the last three weeks will help “entice a new audience of diners as well as satisfy our regulars of 10 years,” Kearney said.
Here’s a small taste of the new Bar Dumaine. This is NOT the full menu, but rather, it is the “small plates” portion of the menu:
• Chicken Liver Pate: with green peppercorn Dijon, cornichons, salted butter, toast. $8.95
• Endive salad: with apple, blue cheese, walnuts, Banyuls vinaigrette. $10.95
• Dumaine Salad: Local greens (when available), balsamic vinaigrette, radishes, sunflower seeds. $8.95
• Mushroom Waffle: Sautee of mushrooms, goat's cheese smear, buttermilk waffle. $12.95
• Fried Blue Point Oysters: Rice flower-dusted oysters, Cambridge sauce. $10.95
• Peel-N-Eat Gulf Shrimp: with Remoulade. $12.95
• PEI Mussels: cooked in Chablis, shallots, butter. $11.95
• Roasted Marrow Bones: veal marrow, red onion marmalade, toast. $16.95
• Boudin Noir: Boudin (sausage), wholegrain mustard, apples & onions $11.95
The full opening-day menu is available on Bar Dumaine's web site.
The dishes and style of preparation of Rue Dumaine will live through the catering arm of the business, Kearney has said.
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Kearney is the Dayton area’s most highly credentialed chef, based on her recognition by the James Beard Foundation, whose awards are regarded as the nation’s most prestigious recognition program for the food and beverage business — the equivalent of the Academy Awards of the restaurant industry.
In February 2016, the Beard Foundation for the sixth consecutive year named Kearney a semifinalist for its "Best Chefs in America" competition for the Great Lakes region. Kearney was the only chef from the Dayton area, and one of only three in Ohio, to be named in 2016.
RELATED: Rue Dumaine’s Anne Kearney scores ‘best-chef’ nomination for 6th year running
The Beard Foundation recognized the restaurant itself in 2008, naming Rue Dumaine a semifinalist for the foundation’s “Best New Restaurant” in the nation. And Kearney was named a James Beard Foundation best-chef award winner in the southeastern U.S. in 2002 when she and her husband, Rue Dumaine co-founder Tom Sand, owned and operated the highly regarded Peristyle restaurant in New Orleans.
Kearney and Sand, both natives of the Dayton area, opened Rue Dumaine in 2007.
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