Vaughan Cheese Counter and Bar, North Beach, Calvert County, Maryland

I found myself alone at lunchtime in Lusby and decided to drive up to North Beach to try a restaurant up there. I’d heard of Vaughan Cheese as the purveyor of the duck pâté and other goodies at Barrel 9, our delightful local fine wine and spirits tasting room. And, in addition to offering cheeses and other specialty items, Vaughan Cheese has a restaurant at 4116 7th Street in North Beach. That was ample reason for me to head to North Beach.

I found Vaughan Cheese and a legal parking space in a lot around the corner. There’s a good bit of covered seating outside, but the hot day demanded air conditioned comfort. It’s a bright little space. There’s a front room with a cluster of arrangeable 2-tops,

and a bar area that shows off a portion of their wide selection of wines

and offers larger tables and high tops, and between is a large display case of cheeses. The staff was very cheerful and welcoming, and they keep up a light, fun chatter among themselves and with customers.
I wasn’t in the market for any cheeses. We were about to leave for a Viking River Cruise on the Danube, with pre-and post-trip extensions in Prague and Budapest. (See here and subsequent posts), but I was in the market for lunch. I looked at the menu and my eye rested on “Muffuletta.” I’d just written about a muffuletta at Manifest Bread, and had sent up a flare looking for others in the area. I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity.

The familiar New Orleans muffuletta is a monster of a sandwich. The well-traveled Dean Gold of the Hungry Onion food forum shared a photograph of a quarter of a muffuletta from Frady’s One Stop Food Store in the Bywater section of New Orleans.

Now Vaughan Cheese is not a monster sandwich type place. It’s a nice place with that same savor-the-food-and-drink atmosphere of, say, Barrel 9. Indeed, I’ve heard that they supply some of Barrel 9’s delicious food. Indeed, their menu puts Muffuletta in quotation marks to signal that it isn’t a classic.

My more manageable muffuletta arrived on a quality ciabatta roll.

Here’s a close look at the contents.

As with most non-New Orleans muffulettas there was a tilt towards ham as opposed to the salami and mortadella, but the key to the sandwich, the olive relish, was right on target. Much of the relish was finely chopped, but some larger chunks — you can see those carrots — produced a nice texture, and the green olives dominated, as they should.  The sandwich tasted good, and I certainly didn’t need a huge version.

Th wine also was good, and the setting and particularly the staff made Vaughan Cheese a delightful place to have lunch. You should stop by and treat yourself to a fine meal.

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