Oscar's continues to satisfy tastes of customers

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Oscar's of Summerville. No mean feat in an industry where restaurants frequently have the shelf life of a ripe fig on a hot August day.

Oscar's was established by Mark Deitch in 1982. The restaurant recently hired chefs Britton Good (Montana Big Sky Resort) and Sean Wren (Cork Neighborhood Bistro) as part of its kitchen team.

Its looks are deceiving. In the shell of what appears to be a 1950s ranch house is a clubby tavern, with an attractive and bright porch and a burnished dining room with brass wall sconces and plaid wallpaper with warm wood paneling that looks like a Ralph Lauren lifestyle set.

The menu provides the ecumenical appeal of hand-cut steaks, chops and signature Lowcountry dishes such as its shrimp and grits flavored with pepper-jack cheese ($17.95), Lowcountry fish fry ($14.95-$18.95) and she-crab soup fashioned from lump crabmeat and spiked with dry, aged sherry. The new toques in the kitchen get to strut their stuff on the specials menu: carpaccio of lamb ($10), wasabi tartar sauce, seafood ceviche and goat cheese polenta.

The classic Oscar dish can be ordered here, not as the namesake veal Oscar honoring the Swedish King Oscar II, but as chicken ($16.95) or steak ($26.95) Oscar topped with crabmeat, Hollandaise and asparagus.

There is even a wild card at Oscar's: a Southwest selection of burritos ($11.95-$17.95) and chimichangas ($11.95), courtesy of Deitch.

There is a bit of steakhouse melody humming through Oscar's with a menu rich with beef, steaks, roasts and rack of lamb.

The appetizers are on the heavy side, with bacon, butter and cheese finishing most of them. Although the signature soup is she-crab, we opted for clam chowder ($3.95, $4.95) and it was one of the better versions around town. A briny broth, chopped clams, minimal potatoes and enough thyme and salt to lift what passes for paste in most places to a tasty New England "chowdah."

The bread was unremarkable and the honey-butter rosette too sweet for my taste, but most of the other dishes tried here were cooked with skill. It is not the attempts at cleverness but consistent cooking that has kept Oscar's a go-to spot in Summerville for quite some time.

Sauces that have a tendency to "break" or separate are done well. A classic beurre blanc with dill was delicious and Hollandaise gets its day with all the "Oscar" dishes.

A shout-out to the fry cook. Four oysters were crusted with a "foam" of crumbs and cooked long enough to crisp their crust and short enough to maintain their briny succulence. They surrounded a salmon filet ($18.95) served on a bed of fresh spinach wearing a mantle of shoestring potatoes and a drizzle of dill beurre blanc. The fish whisperer needs to make an appearance as the salmon was overcooked but the other elements of the dish were well-seasoned and prepared.

Macadamia-crusted grouper ($30) fared better in its cook time but the carrots that accompanied it were a snap too hard.

Generous portions are the norm. Steaks wear halos of onion strings and mashed potatoes get scooped a la ice cream onto plates. A bowl of pasta is layered with cutlets of chicken Parmigiana ($15.95) and a "smother" of provolone cheese.

I sure hope they keep the "crack pie" on their dessert menu. This is the signature dessert creation of Christina Tosi of Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar (NYC). It has a cult following and sells for $44 a pie from the bakery's website. When I saw it on the dessert menu, I reserved my slice at Oscar's before I ordered anything else.

It's like a chess pie, which plays well here in the South. It sports a crunchy oatmeal cookie crust, a caramel- butterscotch toasted custard filling and it is finished with sea salt. And this is where your dessert high begins: crunchy, soft, sweet and salty assaulting your tastebuds. And it would be the perfect 30th anniversary dessert for Oscar's.

During the course of our dinner and a short wait in the lounge, service was polished, polite and well-informed. Oscar's deserves a culinary statuette for 30 years of dedicated service and satisfying the appetites of its customers with typical Lowcountry hospitality and charm.