Burnt Hill Farm, the picturesque Maryland vineyard with golden, sweeping views, landed on one of wine and food's most exclusive lists last month.
Wine Enthusiast named the Clarksburg winery one of the Best Winery Restaurants in the World in a curated list of just 13 U.S. spots and 57 worldwide.
"Not just one of the best winery restaurants but also one of the best new(ish) restaurants in the country," wrote Nils Bernstein, food editor at Wine Enthusiast, of the vineyard's latest offering, Chef's Counter. The 12-seat counter, which opened to the public in May and is helmed by Maryland native chef Tae Strain, has sold out reservations in six minutes or less ever since.
But the Wine Enthusiast nod is just one of the latest headlines for the property, which Eater DC already named one of the 10 most important D.C. food stories of 2025.
I got a preview of the unforgettable Chef's Counter this spring, before reservations even went live. What I found was an intimate counter seating with a handful of friendly guests, all of us savoring Strain's Korean-influenced cooking sourced from Burnt Hill's 117-acre regenerative farm.
And the food was paired at every turn, of course, with the estate's intensely drinkable, low-intervention wines.
Three siblings built Burnt Hill on a former juniper nursery in upper Montgomery County, a decade-long project that grew out of their first venture, Old Westminster Winery.
Today, the 117-acre estate grows old-world and hybrid grapes using regenerative farming, and even claims (without any challengers) to produce the only Gamay made in Maryland.
A working apiary of 10 hives, an orchard, roaming sheep and Mangalitsa pigs make the property a true, functional farm. But it's also so beautiful, it's like it was designed to be toured with a group of friends at golden hour. (Guests even take home a Polaroid photo of their party gleaming from the mountaintop, snapped by a friendly, bubbly-bearing host upon arrival.)
Burnt Hill is "a place where we are actively learning to steward the land in a way that is thoughtful," said Ashli Johnson, operations lead, during our Chef's Counter preview.
As a diner, I felt as though I was learning about the land, too. Around me, twelve guests sat around an open kitchen with a front-row view of Sugarloaf Mountain at sunset, sheep and pigs occasionally crossing the window mid-course.
Best of all, I knew each pour came from grapes grown steps away.
If you're driving out to Clarksburg for dinner, you're not taking a gamble on an unknown chef. Strain arrived at Burnt Hill with a résumé that includes some of the country's most respected kitchens, including David Chang's Momofuku in Washington, D.C., and Michelin-starred The Progress in San Francisco.
Now he's brought his knowledge back to Maryland, where his flavors are elevating an already remarkable vineyard visit into a destination dinner.
The food is personal, too. Strain, a Korean American adoptee, uses the flavors, textures and ingredients of the Mid-Atlantic to explore his cultural identity on the plate. He began sharing experiences like these ideas through intimate pop-up dinners, and now he has a 12-seat kitchen and a working farm as his canvas.
Experiencing Strain's dishes, I realized there's fusion, and then there's a quest for understanding—food as a conversation starter and meaning-maker. His menu of Mid-Atlantic specialties imbued with the inspiration and flavors of Asian classics was exactly that.
Take, for instance, the Chesapeake rockfish on our group's menu—a local fish often served stuffed with jumbo lump crab meat and sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning. Strain evoked similar flavors, but with the restraint of a fine-dining menu. He used miso, shellfish butter and Japanese techniques instead of the usual Maryland seasonings. Yet, as a Marylander who grew up craving the taboo taste of crab "mustard" that comes from the crustacean's innards, I was instantly transported. (And, I wanted more!)
The same idea showed up in the duck, served with mandarin orange and New Jersey citrus and seasoned with star anise and five-spice. It was both familiar and global at the same time.
Even dessert got in on the conversation. Strain reworked the Maryland snowball, a summer favorite made with shaved ice and flavored syrup, into a refined dessert drawing inspiration from the halo-halo, a Filipino shaved-ice treat layered with sweet ingredients. Ours was flavored with fresh grapefruit and dusted with fine fig sugar. He has since named the signature snowball presentation "ggoma," which means "little one" in Korean.
The Chef's Counter menu changes with the seasons, but guests can expect a mix of comfort and surprise. Recent menus have included roasted carrots with a spicy Virginia peanut sauce, striped bass with a savory miso-crab blend and a hands-on Mangalitsa pork shoulder ssam, which guests construct themselves by wrapping tender, richly marbled pork in fresh lettuce leaves with flavorful accompaniments.
The 12-seat Chef's Counter runs Friday through Sunday at 5:30 p.m. The three-hour, seven- to nine-course tasting menu costs $250 per person, including wine pairings, and accommodates parties of one to four. Due to the highly intimate setting and seasonal menu, dietary restrictions and allergies cannot be accommodated.
Reservations go fast, so sign up for Burnt Hill's email list at burnthill.farm for updates as new seating is released. For another opportunity to visit, the farm's Tasting Room and Lounge also serves an à la carte menu from Chef Strain, with patio seating overlooking the vineyard and Appalachian mountain foothills. Book reservations for those here.
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Disclosure: The author was a guest of Burnt Hill Farm. Hosting organizations do not review or approve articles before publication. All observations reflect the author's independent review.
How this was made: AI assisted with structure, formatting, interview transcription and metadata. All reporting, product testing, research, interviews, fact-checking, writing and editing was done by Megan DeMatteo, an independent writer and editor who, like many solo creators, handles the full workload of a traditional newsroom team.