New Sammy's

Ashland, Oregon, March 28—

ONE OF MY ELECTIONS to the Five Restaurants: New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro, a few miles north of here on old highway 99, toward Talent. What elevates it to that company? The quality of ingredients, the literacy and resourcefulness of the chef, the loyalty to place, the consistency, the heart. Everything about this place speaks to Authenticity: food from the garden, meat and fish from neighbors, water from the well, wine from the great producers of the world.
Tonight I began with a sardine wrapped in a green leaf; I'm sorry; I can't be more specific than that. I love sardines. What I'd forgotten, until having a sip of the well-water, is how sweet sardines make a subsequent sip of water: it's like the effect of artichoke on milk. Indescribable, yet utterly familiar and entirely inarguable.
We then split a good-sized ricotta-stuffed raviolo in a buttery sauce, and I went on to a couple of lamb chops, rare, perfectly grilled, on a bed of spinach with just the right trace of cream, and three perfect gnocchi as accents. The lamb was Churro; don't ask me how Navaho lamb winds up here in southern Oregon. Delicious.
Single-malt Scotch ice cream, I kid you not, on a base of poached dried figs. Enterprising, interesting, driven by intellectual curiosity and a palate wide open but sharply honed. The chef, Charlene Rollins, is a great artist and, I think, a genius, and I would happily eat here every day of my life.

Rioja, "Castillo Rioja," Bodegas Palacio, 2007 (and, to begin, a nicely balanced Kir Royal)

New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro, 2210 South Pacific Highway, Talent, OR 97540; tel. 541-535-2779