Sedona Taphouse

Sedona Taphouse opened in downtown Fredericksburg a few weeks ago. Never wanting to go right away when a new place opens, we waited and finally stopped in for dinner this week. Colleen and I generally prefer to sit at the bar when we visit a pub, but the bar seating was full. Fortunately we waited only about 10 minutes until I received a text message our table was ready. We were seated and quickly approached by server for our drink orders.

I didn’t count precisely, but estimated we had about 50 draft selections and 250 500 [Ed., new count from other reports] bottled beers to choose from. We stuck with draft this time, but the bottle list had quite a range of styles and breweries giving us even more great optons. Happily we noticed that the bottled beers were being poured into glasses as they were served at the table, to be enjoyed as the brewer intended! Settling on Three Stars Peppercorn Saison and Ballast Point Grunion Pale Ale, we perused the extensive food menu in-depth.

Sedona Taphouse offers a variety of dining options; salads, pasta, tacos, flatbread pizza, sandwiches as well full dinner entrées. It’s great to see such a varied menu, especially one that includes lighter “pub” options. We ordered a Mediterranean Hummus appetizer, with marinated peppers and feta and served with warm flatbreads. The appetizer was very flavorful. The marinated peppers topping the hummus added bit of extra flavor to the generously sized appetizer plate. The flatbread was warm and wood-grilled.

For the main course, Colleen chose the wood-grilled Crab & Shrimp-Topped Tilapia drizzled with lemon caper butter, served with garlic whipped potatoes and asparagus. I opted for Fontina Marsala Pork Chop, topped with melted fontina cheese and house-made Marsala sauce with sautéed mushrooms, and garlic whipped potatoes. Our dinner entrées arrived in a timely manner after we finished the starter course. In fact, the service at Sedona was noticeably efficient. One of our laments about some of our favorite local haunts is that the food service is often quite slow, sometimes annoyingly so. Sedona seems to have the kitchen processes down, and we remarked on that several times during the evening.

Our dinners were well prepared and quite tasty. My pork chop was moist and the marsala sauce hit nice bite to it. Colleen enjoyed her tilapia plate as well. After enjoying our dinner, we convinced ourselves that we needed dessert; in order to do a proper review. We opted to split the featured Salted Caramel Cheesecake, a NY cheesecake topped with warm caramel, fresh ground sea salt and toasted walnuts. I am not typically a fan of cheesecake, but I took one for the team. Truth be told, I had no trouble devouring my half of the large slice. It was that good.

We had a wonderful experience at Sedona Taphouse. It was quite busy and a bit noisy. But not in a bad way; a lot of people out enjoying good food and beer in pleasant conversations. The service was efficient and friendly. The food was excellent. The beer list is extensive and demands further exploration in the future, and I look forward to doing that in the near future.