Meg Roussos / The BulletinThe e Bar Grill in Redmond fills a casual fine-dining niche.

Eric Metzel has been a restaurant owner for more than three decades, 18 of those in Central Oregon.

Yet he took a break — of 4½ years — to reconnoiter after closing the Coyote Creek Cafe in Sisters in late 2009.

Now Metzel is back. And his new Redmond restaurant is better than what came before it.

The e Bar Grill adds a dimension that had been missing from the dining scene in northern Deschutes County. The city has attracted several upscale restaurants in recent years, including Brickhouse, Red Martini and Diego’s Spirited Kitchen. But noticeably missing have been the kinds of moderately priced spots that can provide a casual fine-dining experience even while welcoming families and sports-bar lovers.

The e Bar Grill has something for all of these styles of restaurantgoers. It has a bright and spacious dining room with handsome wood decor, welcoming both children who come for burgers or pizzas, or couples in search of a good steak dinner. It has a lovely deck for outdoor dining and a modern lounge area with a half-dozen TVs tuned to sports events.

It has servers who are at once friendly and professional, happy to engage in conversation even as they efficiently take and deliver orders in a timely fashion.

And it has chef Jennifer Wilson’s gourmet, home-style cooking, which with rare exceptions has been excellent at each of my visits.

Creative flair

I like that Wilson — whose résumé, according to Metzel, includes the Pine Tavern and Brand 33 at Aspen Lakes — has a creative flair to complement her epicurean skills.

That was immediately obvious when I arrived for dinner with my regular companion on one recent evening.

We chose a starter that I haven’t seen on any other local menu: blue-corn griddle cakes. A bit like buckwheat pancakes but lacking their coarse graininess, they were topped with pieces of grilled chicken and drizzled with a zingy chipotle cream sauce. A slaw of white cabbage, broccoli and shredded carrot, seasoned with toasted cumin, accompanied. As delicious as they were unusual, we look forward to reordering the cakes on a future visit.

We next shared a house salad, called the “EBG salad.” Leaves of romaine and green leaf lettuce were tossed with slivered carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and house-made croutons, and served with a sweet honey-mustard dressing combining tarragon.

My companion had “the best meatloaf,” as it was headlined on the menu. While I won’t confirm the adjective, there’s no doubt it was excellent — an equal blend of Terrebonne-raised bison with Oregon beef. Chunky garlic-mashed potatoes were sandwiched between two slices of the meat, which was topped with a rich gravy made with Bend’s own 10 Barrel S1nist0r Black Ale and topped with fried haystack onions. Sauteed green beans came on the side.

For my part, I was similarly pleased with a seared, 14-ounce New York pepper steak. Perfectly cooked medium-rare, as I like it, it was covered in a demi sauce of crushed green peppercorns, rendering the spicy bite of a good pepper steak. French fries and sauteed green beans accompanied.

Fish and salads

The fine dining continued at a subsequent lunch. I was inclined to order a halibut sandwich until my server noted that the day’s special was a rockfish sandwich — the same preparation for $5 less.

Prepared in an egg batter and deep-fried just to crispy, with no residual oil, the fish was served on a lightly toasted ciabatta bun with melted white cheddar cheese and house-made tartar sauce. It was topped with two slices of tomato and crispy lettuce.

At least as good as the fish was a scoop of quinoa salad, blended with bits of broccoli and red pepper and served on a bed of mixed greens with cucumbers, carrots and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. I could be convinced to order a larger portion as a meal in itself.

My companion had a chopped chicken salad, which she also found to be delicious. Grilled chicken, prepared with an herb marinade, was served upon a blend of field greens with additional vegetables, plus goat cheese, toasted hazelnuts and dried cranberries. The dressing was a creamy balsamic made with yogurt.

So good was the food that we ordered a pizza to go, to later enjoy for dinner. But we didn’t find the EBG Rodeo pizza to be of the same standard as most of the other plates. Perhaps it was the crust, which was not as light as we prefer. Perhaps it was the marinara sauce that made it taste a little heavy. There was certainly nothing wrong with the toppings — a generous blend of meats (pepperoni, Italian sausage and apple-smoked bacon) and vegetables (mushrooms, red onions, green peppers and black olives).

Good wine list

Another bonus of dining at the e Bar Grill is its excellent selection of beers and wines. All but two of the 29 wines on the vintage list are priced under $40 a bottle, and Metzel has put together a nice variety of West Coast choices.

The restaurant has seating for as many as 140 patrons. The main dining room seats about 80 beneath ceiling fans and old-school chandeliers. There’s room for another 24 on the deck and 36 in the lounge. There are greenery accents throughout the restaurant, while top 40 classic rock sets a background mood.

Metzel, who was raised in the restaurant business in Southern California, arrived in Central Oregon in 1992 after 12 years in Sun Valley, Idaho, where he owned the Silver Creek Saloon. He and a partner operated the Coyote Creek Cafe for 18 years until November 2009.

But he never lost his love of the restaurant business. Metzel said he was working at Sully’s Italian Restaurant earlier this year, tending bar and waiting tables, when owner Peter Seitz announced his intention to retire. Metzel offered to lease the space from Seitz and open his own establishment.

“I had this vision,” he said. “I took a wall out, opened up the booths, redid the kitchen and the whole restaurant.”

Metzel took over on May 1 and reopened only 12 weeks later, before the end of July. His Coyote Creek chef of five years, Janette Sinclair, assisted in creating the menu, which Wilson has fine-tuned and executed with perfection.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com