Sedeo Cafe

Sedeo Cafe, another of the panoply of fine dining establishments in Powell, is named for an Old Latin word that means to sit, relax and enjoy. While the food was delightful, some aspects of the service sat and relaxed a little too often, preventing me from fully enjoying the experience.

The restaurant is a little off of the main drag in Powell. I ate there close to when the place opened, and had a very good experience. The fare consists of American classics with impeccable presentation.

The Web site touts Sedeo's ability to prepare food based upon vegan or vegetarian dining requirements. The printed menu is fairly limited in vegetarian options. It might be advisable to call one day ahead of your reservation in order to allow Chef Alonzo Horn to prepare the best possible options for your vegetarian dining pleasure.

Sedeo Cafe has gotten fairly good reviews from Columbus Monthly (Columbus' best new restaurants), the Columbus Dispatch and ThisWeek News. The reviews were excellent in highlighting Sedeo Cafe's high points and equally adept at showing off its flaws.

I started with the spring salad (pictured above), which was made from mesclun, dried cranberries, candied pecans, Maytag blue cheese and a shallot-balsamic emulsion. The dried cranberries, cheese and dressing provided an excellent foil to the greens.

The main course was a chef's special. It was a tomato stuffed with rice on top of a bed of barley with sides of carrot, seered zucchini and green beans. The barley was so delicious that it might have been a better tomato stuffing then the rice, which was rather plain.

The service was friendly and attentive. The wine list was decent if short of spectacular. There was a big problem with serving temperature of the vino. The malbec, pinot noir and syrah were all excessively chilled, and the Australian muscat (which I ordered as an after-dinner drink) was definitely not made to be drunk before dessert.

Sedeo is a fine establishment that needs to iron out a few of its problems before they are considered to be the best of the best (or even the best of Powell). Check out the pictures below.

Sedeo Cafe