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Wade Anderson | Special to The Roanoke Times

Inside Horizon Bar & Grill in downtown Roanoke.

Horizon Bar & Grill is open at the old Wertz's Restaurant location on Market Street.

Wertz's Restaurant, a longtime establishment on Roanoke's City Market, has been replaced by a new eatery serving lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. Horizon Bar & Grill, operated by a mother-and-son team, opened in March.

My co-workers and I made a recent trip to sample Horizon's lunchtime offerings. A few friends and I then followed up with dinner a week later.

LUNCH

I made a point to order the mint-pea soup featured on the white board out front. Liking both mint and peas, I looked forward to an unexpected discovery. However, the mint was intense and overpowering. The aroma was so strong, my co-worker could smell it on the other side of the table. Only through sheer resolve could I hold the soup on my tongue long enough to make out the delightful earthy taste of fresh peas.

I offered to pick up the tab so long as my friends all ordered different entrees and let me taste. So here is my ranking of lunch entrees in order of favorite to least favorite:

The tomato mozzarella pesto pizza ($7) was sublime. The pesto was sweet and fresh, blending nicely with the mozzarella and tomatoes. The house-made crust was light and crunchy around the edges.

Ron's Steak Sandwich ($9) of thinly sliced strip steak topped with caramelized onions, tomato and melted pepper jack cheese melded into a juicy pleasure on delicious ciabatta bread.

Eric's Shredded Chicken Club ($8), served open-faced on Texas toast with onion rings, made the most dramatic entrance to the table based on sheer size. Its sweet and tangy mango barbecue sauce was flavorful.

Mike's Fried Hawaiian Chicken Cordon wrap ($7) was a low point. The grilled tortilla embracing fried chicken tenders, ham, swiss cheese and pineapple lacked excitement. The dry, flavorless chicken contributed to the overall blandness of the dish.

Lunch entrees (most of them named after the owners' family and friends) come with a choice of sides including fries, green apple slaw, fried pickles, fresh fruit or pasta salad. The thinly cut fries were delectable and crispy, while the green apple slaw offered an exquisitely sweet interpretation of the traditional side dish.

Splurging, we all ordered desserts. Instead of being dense and heavy as typical, the Kahlua cheesecake with hazelnut graham cracker crust and coffee sauce was light, fluffy and scrumptious. It was easily the best of the bunch.

A layer of macerated raspberries, which were surprisingly tart, blanketed the chocolate molten lava cake, which itself was moist and rich. On a minor note, the cake was slightly overcooked -- there was no "lava" to ooze from the cake.

My berry parfait consisted of mascarpone cheese, seasonal berries (raspberries, blackberries and blueberries) and walnuts topped with a Baileys Irish Cream mousse. While the parfait was good, there was no real sweetness to the dish and the clumps of mascarpone were unwieldy.

My least favorite dessert was the S'mores cake with its graham cracker crust and layers of unbaked chocolate silk pie and homemade marshmallow. The entire dessert, including the marshmallow, was somewhat solid and hard.

DINNER

Appetizers

Even with the mint-pea soup in mind, I ordered that night's appetizer special: wild boar chop with plum sauce and chocolate. Yes, you read that right -- chocolate. Whenever I see something like this at a restaurant, I try to keep an open mind and assume the chef knows something I don't.

Unfortunately, the dish confirmed my suspicions -- there's a reason Smithfield is not in the candy business. The grilled boar chop itself was deliciously gamey with a bold porcine flavor. The bittersweet chocolate reduced with red wine, beef stock and shallots was an unwelcome and unnecessary intruder on an otherwise palatable dish.

One of the best things about Horizon is the tapas menu. For those who don't know, tapas are simply small appetizers, though many restaurants let you choose a group of them for a meal. Horizon sells three tapas for $10 at the bar, but it charges $5 apiece in the dining room because the portions are larger.

Of the three I tasted, my favorite was the baked tart, a mixture of caramelized onions, apples and Brie in a small pastry crust. The pita stack -- made of thin pita chips, lamb, cucumber and mint -- was also quite good. The shrimp tempura on a skewer served with garlic teriyaki and sweet chili sauces was forgettable.

After we finished our appetizers, our server brought us outstanding slices of roast garlic bread containing whole cloves of garlic. This wonderful bread comes from Bread Craft, a local artisan bakery on Peters Creek Road.

Entrees

The chipotle-glazed salmon ($24) was perfectly cooked and sat atop a bed of spaetzle, a German dish of tiny dumplings, which I found to be a tasty alternative to the usual sides that typically accompany salmon. The delicious orange essence brown butter contained slivers of orange peel and enhanced the salmon, though there could have been a little more of it. The side of broccoli raab, a green leaf vegetable similar to spinach, was hot, bright green and pleasing.

When my friend ordered the pan-seared corn-fed chicken ($22), our server helpfully informed us that it would take a little extra time because it was an entire half chicken, which was fine with us. The chicken was juicy and flavorful inside while the skin was crisp and golden brown.

The chili and cocoa rubbed rib-eye steak ($27) was not a favorite. I could not discern any taste from the chili and cocoa rub, but the steak itself had a good beefy flavor. However, it was unevenly cooked -- partially medium, partially medium rare -- and there was an excessive amount of fat, even for a rib-eye.

The steak was supposed to be accompanied by grilled asparagus and a celery root risotto, but we were informed the chef was unhappy with the quality of the celery root and therefore my friend could choose from any other side dish on the menu. He chose the terrific gratin potatoes made with goat cheese, cream and thyme. We all raved about the grilled asparagus.

The sweet potato enchiladas ($17), a vegetarian dish, was the most intriguing but most disappointing entree. These two huge enchiladas were stuffed with a sweet potato puree blended with cumin, coriander, chili powder and more spices. It was served with a cinnamon mousse, black bean puree, sauteed spinach and a maple-arbol (chili) butter sauce. The strong, unpleasant flavor of cumin overwhelmed the dish, and the puree itself seemed unusually salty.

We tried the evening's dessert special: white chocolate baklava with a grilled peach. The ambrosial combination of phyllo dough, white chocolate, mascarpone, walnuts and honey combined to form a sort of rich, chewy granola bar. The grilled peach was simple, soft and sumptuous.

THE SERVICE

Our service was superb. We were waited on by the same woman for both meals, and she was friendly and knowledgeable about the menu. At lunch she impressed me immediately when, upon noticing that several of us wore dark pants, she promptly exchanged our white linen napkins for black, so the lint would not show -- a courtesy I don't recall experiencing at any restaurant. On both occasions the food arrived at a reasonable pace; we never waited too long nor felt hurried.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Horizon Bar & Grill's menus offer many highlights with only a few misses. If you'd like to expand your horizons, I encourage you to give this downtown eatery a try.