Randy O’Dell has a posse. The co-owner of Get Tight Lounge, and owner of En Su Boca, and beloved bars and restaurants of RVA legend, has always known how to attract incredible talent in his kitchen and behind the bar. He’s joined forces with Drew Schlegel in keeping the vibes fresh and the menu fresher.
They’ve just invested a lot of trust and confidence in the two newest leaders of his Harrison and Main based Fan establishment, Get Tight. This month, the Fan staple is introducing a new menu.
Someone needed to get the early scoop. Sometimes it’s tough being a writer. I’ll take one for the team and check it out. Hehe.
Lily Burnam and Dalisa Campbell, behind the bar and in front of the range, respectively, have made their mark on Get Tight. The already stacked menu is being updated with new dishes, with suggested paired cocktails. I was presented with each dish alongside the curated drink intended to complement the flavor profiles on the plate. I did not hate this at all.
First out was the new and improved pit beef sandwich, wearing the signature Get Tight BBQ sauce, of course, but heightened by a Maryland-style tiger sauce, bringing the creamy horseradish heat to the lateral margins of your tongue. The soft, pink brisket pulls with a satisfying yield, leaving room for the crisp, raw onion to delight as a countertexture. The fries are always on point, but the sandwich is formidable. They’d have to wait.
Paired with this initial offering was one of Lily’s anachronistic cocktails. I would describe the entire new menu of drinks as a rebirth of 60’s cool. A list of drinks seemingly lifted from a 1963 edition of Playboy’s Bartender Bible. When’s the last time you’ve seen a Cheerwine Float? Never? That’s because you’re 26.
The cocktail has two distinct layers. Cheerwine soda, armed with Amaretto and Belle Isle vodka, nestled under a cloud of macadamia milk. It’s playful, sweet, creamy, and worth a shot. It’s definitely a conversation-worthy drink.
I was tearing into the Pit BBQ with little regard for how much food I needed to eat in this sitting. Obviously, I could have just taken a few bites of each dish, but c’mon, this is an event that called for some light gluttony.
My hands full of sandwich, and my mouth distended to meet it, my eyes went sideways to see Lily arriving with a heaping plate of chicken wings. Okay, you can get chicken wings damn near anywhere. They’re a crowd pleaser, and it’s kinda hard to fuck ’em up.
But these were different. The aroma hit me first. Garlic, dill, something sweet and vinegary. I was taken back to my roots in the very kosher South Brooklyn neighborhood of Boro Park. Unconventional choice, to be sure. And a great choice, because I had to let out a litany of expletives upon biting into one. Golf claps for Dalisa. She delivered a whole new flavor exhibit in the Chicken Wings Museum with this one. They were perfectly charred and balanced in savory and sweet notes. I will be having these again.
This course was married to a tall pint glass of Midori Sour. You know the dusty bottle in the back row of most bars’ stadium-seating bottle display? The Midori that no one ever uses? Idiots. This shit was delicious.
The Japanese melon liquor was rounded out with sour mix and some Sprite to finish, creating the most refreshing drink I’ve had in ages. For someone who regularly drinks a whiskey neat or on the rocks, it was the difference between chewing leather and biting into a ripe mango. What a great reminder to step outside the box and dance with a wallflower every once in a while.
I knew the wings would keep, so I restrained myself from finishing them. Oh, yes. I’m totally getting to-go boxes. I’m not fancy.
Before I could pat myself on the back for showing restraint, Lily pops up again with the pièce de résistance, a 6 oz, marinated for three days, flatiron steak that melts in your mouth very much like the herbed butter chapeau melted on this sizzling cut of beef. This cut was remarkable for its delicate texture and easy yield to the knife.
The steak was en entourage with brussel sprouts in a citrus vinaigrette and house recipe mac and cheese. They did not pass go and collect 200 dollars. They were devoured.
A steak this good showed up with two dates on its arms, a sweet vermouth and soda, and a Lily’s Lounger. Vermouth and soda pretty much sells its recipe on its sleeve, of course, but is worth embellishing on for its cultural anachronism as well as its classical simplicity. Not a lot to say about it, but I’m sure it goes well with a tuxedo and an arched eyebrow.
Lily’s Lounger was closer to my heart. I love a good Old Fashioned. This variation on the theme started with the always-good base of Knob Creek, but diverted from expectation by subbing in maple syrup and a chocolate bitters nip. This remarkable exchange for the more citrus sweet smoke one tends to expect from the cocktail required some thoughtful swishing to really embrace and understand it.
I drank the whole thing. I’d say both of these were acquired tastes, but no worries, I successfully acquired them.
I was thinking I could possibly, maaaybe, have enough of a dessert to say that I did, considering the mountains of food I’d already had. Of course, Lily sidled up with a heaping plate of some of the best, flakiest Virginia-caught catfish in a crispy shell of savory breading.
I love catfish. I give a lot of room for different recipes of fried catfish to be whatever a chef decides they should be. This one required no asterisk of explanation for its direction. I’ve only ever had two others that I’d put in the same category of amazing, The Roosevelts’ and Croaker’s Spots’. Come at me with claims of hyperbole, but you’d best try this first before contradicting me.
The coconut rice it came with wasn’t disappointing, but I don’t think any rice could keep its dignity next to this catfish. The hush puppies hiding under the piled filets should be their own dish. (Psst, they are. Look at the “sides” on the menu.)
I was distracted enough by the catfish that I didn’t even start on the Cazadores Reposado and lime dropped into a dewy-cold Topo Chico that came with it until I was full to the gills. Tart, a little spicy, and refreshing af, this drink looked as good as it tasted.
This is summer in a bottle, and I’m sure it’s going to be a big hit.
Mercifully, Lily came back with a number of boxes to contain the leftovers I would be selfishly guarding and nibbling on for the rest of the day. Once we were all packed up and considering the waddle back to the car outside, she drops three more drinks and a crème brûlée cheesecake on the table. I’m considering just coming back again the next day because there is no chance trying to finish this meal is a healthy decision. I figure I’ve never let that stop me before, so I went in on it.
First, the drinks. The Irish Espresso Martini is a honeypot of a cocktail. It tastes too good and could get a guy in trouble. Rostov’s coffee and Lily’s homemade Irish crème complement the Cirrus Vodka base too well. I could see Lily’s pride in her concoction and my predicament.
She thankfully gave me a sidecar of the Irish crème by itself to brag on its ganache-quality, silken consistency and warm, rounded flavor.
The cheesecake was tall, generous, and paned with a skylight of bronzed sugar shell. It swam in bourbon caramel on a whipped cream pediment. It boasted a purely cream cheese body, eschewing competing traditions of ricotta and mascarpone for the direct approach. It was dense and balanced in tang and sweetness.
I’m a cheesecake nerd and can argue for way too long about Veniero’s vs. Eileen’s vs. Ferrara’s. While those spots have decades of consistency to add to their supremacy in quality, Dalisa’s offering could emerge as a legacy choice amongst Richmond’s offerings.
To cap off the afternoon, we toasted adieu with a classic Grasshopper digestif, a thin mint in a cup. These ladies gave excellence where ‘slightly impressive’ would be celebrated. My compliments to the whole team involved in preparing these dishes and drinks, to their crew that makes it possible for them to make it happen at scale, and the management that just ‘lets them cook’.
It’s at this point that I figured gluttony pairs very well with an Uber home. We can get the car later…
Main photo of Lily Burnam and Dalisa Campbell by Christian Detres
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