Nestled in the back corner of the old Open Air School on Neil Avenue is Understory. A relatively new restaurant to Columbus that has been on my radar since opening in 2022. Immediately as you get there, the area around the restaurant is beautiful. It is a brick building, which you enter into via a staircase. The staircase can lead upstairs to the inside of the restaurant or downstairs to another smaller seating area. In the summer the restaurant has a beautiful patio area overlooking Olentangy Park. However, since I went in the winter, I sat inside on the bottom floor. When we got there I noticed there were insulated igloos set up on the outside of the patio, which I am sure would have been fun to sit in. The other thing I immediately noticed was the hilariously strong comparisons between Understory and the “millenial burger restaurant.” The inside was decorated with brick, metal lamps and plants covering almost every part of the room.
However, the real importance of a restaurant is the food. Looking at the menu it was a classic modern-type restaurant, with a shareables section and sandwich section being the main attractions of the menu. My table decided to order two sandwiches: “The Classic” and “Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese,” which were $18 each. “The Classic” was, as it states, a classic cheeseburger. This was definitely the better of the two. It came with a pile of different toppings: fancy lettuce, tomatoes, onions, a sauce, cheese and of course the burger, all on what the menu said was a challah bun. It was amazing, the flavors all mixed really well and it did not fall apart too badly like most fancy burgers do.
The “Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese” was slightly underwhelming. It was not bad, but it certainly was not what I was expecting. It came on wheat bread, which to me is already a bit of a bad start, since I feel grilled cheese should never attempt to be healthy. Then, when I took a bite I immediately noticed the lack of cheese on the grilled cheese. It was more of a pulled pork sandwich that happened to have some cheese on top rather than, as advertised, a grilled cheese. If the name was removed, it was a decent sandwich. The pulled pork was amazing, and certainly piled high on the sandwich. The cheese that was there held the sandwich together well, both physically and taste-wise. The bread, on the other hand, I could have gone without, or at least had a different type. Overall, the “Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese” was not terrible, it just was not exactly what I had expected or wanted.
Outside of the sandwiches, both meals also came with a side of french fries. The fries were absolutely phenomenal. They were crispy with just the right amount of spices. Understory is also a bar, so, an important part of their menu is typically cocktails, which no one at the table could have tried. Given that, I do feel we left a big part of what the restaurant had to offer unexplored.
Overall, Understory was a really good experience, millennial burger restaurants and grilled cheese sandwiches aside. The atmosphere was amazing and the food was good, with much more to explore. It was certainly in a bit of a higher price range for just a sandwich and fries, but the food was good quality. I would definitely recommend trying Understory, especially if you are someone who likes “food and talking” restaurants like Panera. I enjoyed my experience at Understory and would go back, although I would order something different.
