Sly Horse Tavern, Crofton

Proprietor Don Dey Ermand has been running Sly Horse Tavern for nearly 30 years, but the restaurant looks much, much older. That's because it was modeled after the 18th-Century elegance of the Raleigh Tavern in colonial Williamsburg. A fireplace spills warmth out into the room, where it is easy to imagine early American colonists warming their hands or whittling the extra corners off their hats. The flickering light wends across oriental rugs and merlot-red tablecloths. Atop them, waiters slide plates of cuisine that fuse modern American and European culinary traditions. Chefs stir steaming pots of cherry and bourbon sauce and craft lobster crème, destined to crown cuts of salmon, ostrich, and Chesapeake Bay crab cakes. Sparkling, white, and red wines pair with dishes such as stuffed trout, which the Washington Times said was “generous in size, exceptionally flaky and sweet, and was complemented with just the right portion of rich crab imperial.”