Photos by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Sean Demarest makes a pizza at Fork in the City, which also serves sandwiches and generous entrees.

The Fork in the City Jefferson Dog is a half-smoke sausage covered in cheese, chili and coleslaw.

The restaurant's interior features earth-tone browns, from the polished pine floors to the rich wooden tables, chairs and trim.

In April, Roanoke restaurateurs David and Ann Trinkle opened a cozy outpost in the western environs of Roanoke's downtown. The former Gary's Bar & Grill has been transformed into a warm, inviting enclave tucked amidst the evolving neighborhood.

Fork in the City is the sister restaurant to Fork in the Alley, a popular South Roanoke eatery that opened in 2005.

The vibe

When you step inside Fork in the City, you first notice the wonderful earth-tone browns, from the polished pine floors to the rich wooden tables, chairs and trim. The light emitted by the appropriately dimmed fixtures combines with the natural light shining through the large windows to bathe the pumpkin walls in a soft, warm glow.

The open kitchen, with its large stone oven, reassures diners of good things to come, but the glowing, multicolored jukebox seemed a little out of place.

Even though there was a large lunch crowd on my first visit, which fell on a federal holiday, the clatter never interfered with our conversation. On my second visit (for dinner one weekday evening) I encountered a more subdued crowd.

The food

For lunch, my guests and I started with lightly breaded chicken tenders soaked in Fork's buffalo sauce ($8.95). I appreciated the light breading, which kept the delicious tenders from feeling heavy.

Although I have enjoyed the thin-crust pizzas at Fork in the Alley, I decided to try something different and shared a 10-inch "Chicago-style" deep-dish pizza ($12.95) with one of my colleagues. "The Big Event" boasts herbed ricotta, rib-eye steak, mushrooms, green peppers, onion, garlic and mozzarella.

The thick and deliciously doughy crust formed a hearty pizza with velvety ricotta and tasty vegetables. Most of the mound of shaved rib-eye covering the top of the pizza was tender, though some had been overly crisped and dried by the stone oven's open flame.

The only real disappointment at lunch was my guest's Black Bean "Y" Burger ($7.95), a thick patty formed from black beans, red onion, red bell pepper, herbs, spices and garlic sauteed in olive oil. The patty was too mushy to eat like a sandwich (my friend ended up resorting to a fork) and I found the burger, which had been rolled in cornmeal prior to frying, distractingly gritty.

Also distracting was the program on one of the restaurant's televisions that showed a deer being killed while we were eating lunch.

The highlight of the meal came at the end when we shared an awkwardly named dessert called the "Grills With ... " ($4.50). This pot of warm beignets (balls of deep-fried, sweetened dough) topped with vanilla ice cream, cinnamon and powdered sugar is easily one of the better desserts in town -- simple, yet satisfying.

In addition to the beignets, Fork also offers select cupcakes from Bubblecake, a bakery next door to Fork in the Alley.

Not long after my lunchtime visit, I returned to Fork in the City with friends for dinner. Although the menu is the same all day, I wanted to taste some of the entrees referred to as "Fork Fare."

First, I asked for some spinach-artichoke bruschetta, only to be told it was unavailable. Unfazed, I ordered the three-cheese crab dip ($9.95) containing jumbo lump crabmeat suspended in a rich, creamy blend of Swiss, mozzarella and asiago cheeses melted by the wood-burning oven. The dip was thick with generous portions of tasty crab, but I found it to be underseasoned. The accompanying toasted foccacia bread topped with garlic and olive oil was good enough to eat by itself.

Wanting something more substantial than the array of pizzas, hamburgers, hot dogs and sandwiches offered on the menu, I decided to try the Chipotle Chicken con Crema ($16.95). This dish offered sliced chicken breast sauteed with tomato, garlic and mushrooms in a chipotle white wine cream sauce served over linguine. The dish was spicier than I anticipated, but pleasing. The pasta was soft, cooked only slightly past al dente. The portion was large enough for lunch the next day.

For the salad that came with my entree, I chose the house dressing, an avocado-lime vinaigrette. I highly recommend it.

I also tried a slice of my friend's thin-crust Florencia pizza with Alfredo sauce, spinach, mozzarella, tomato, basil, garlic and onion topped with bay scallops and shrimp. The garlic did little to cut the sweet richness of the scallops and Alfredo sauce, but I enjoyed it. Maybe it has something to do with the seafood but, like the crab dip, I felt the pizza needed salt.

The service

On both occasions, the servers were pleasant and cheerful, but while I was pleased with the service overall, there were a few hiccups. Although the menu described the tenders as being topped with blue cheese crumbles and accompanied by a side of blue cheese dressing, we had to request both. I'm not sure if this was a kitchen issue, but the server should have caught it.

Our entrees arrived just minutes after we received the blue cheese for our appetizer.

At dinner, our appetizer arrived nine minutes after placing our order -- a laudable achievement. However, our entrees arrived a short time later, before we'd had time to finish our salads or the crab dip. Also, our salad plates, once emptied, remained longer than they should have, and my glass sat empty on several occasions.

The bottom line

Fork in the City's food is not haute cuisine, and I think it is safe to say it's not meant to be. Instead, Fork offers flavorful, familiar foods executed competently (much of it cooked in the wonderful wood-fired stone oven) in a warm and casual environment.

Fork deserves to be commended for expanding downtown's food offerings beyond the city center. I look forward to future visits.