Inside the C&O’s big wooden door, it was cool and dark and reminiscent of lovely evenings spent there—some for occasions, others for a final drink on a night I wasn’t ready to end. Volumes could be filled with patrons’ stories, but it was those of proprietor Dave Simpson (who’s eminently quotable, but especially on the [...]
Crafty brewers Every month’s a good month to celebrate Virginia’s ever-growing craft beer movement, but this month it’s official. And what better way to commemorate Virginia Craft Beer month than with the First Annual Virginia Craft Brewers Fest on Saturday, August 25 (Sunday if it rains) from 2 to 8pm at Devils Backbone Brewing Company. [...]
Walking into Early Mountain Vineyards never having been to Sweely Estate in the five years that it stood as such before narrowly escaping two foreclosure sales in 2010, I couldn’t help but think, “No wonder.” Jess and Sharon Sweely clearly spared no expense when they transformed the 305-acre Madison County farm into a state-of-the-art operation [...]
05/23/2013 7:30 pm - 10:30 pm Maggie Edwards Durty Nelly’s, Charlottesville VA
When a burger craving strikes, little can be accomplished until you’ve got your hands around a bun with meat juices dripping down your chin. Here’re 10 big-league, non-chain burgers that satisfy (and inspire) the meanest of cravings. Boylan Heights’ Room 121 tops an organic beef patty with [...]
Buttermilk or brine? Floured or battered? Peanut oil or lard? Pan-fried or deep-fried? These are just a few of the secrets behind fried chicken so crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside that it’ll make you weep. Each method has its devotees, and nary a one of our 11 contestants spilled [...]
Garrison Keillor once said, “Sex is good, but not as good as fresh, sweet corn.” To which we add—especially when it’s slathered in lots of butter. Corn tastes like nature’s candy, but it loses 50 percent of its sugar in the first 24 hours after it’s picked, so start gorging yourself now on [...]
Those of you who lived through the ’70s probably have quite a bit you’d like to forget about the decade.
What grows together, goes together Local food and wine go together like a horse and carriage, or on Saturday, June 30 at Keswick Vineyards, like a horse and buggy. At 11am and again at 1pm, Keswick winemaker Stephen Barnard and Horse & Buggy Produce founder Brett Wilson will lead an [...]
Managing your portfolio is never as fun for the rest of us as it is for the wine collector.
Charlottesville’s power lunch scene’s a far cry from D.C.’s, but there’s still plenty of wheeling and dealing being done over the midday meal. Here’s where our town’s most influential go to [...]
Dessert trends come and go, but a good slice of pie stands the test of time—especially when it’s filled with seasonal fruit and served à la mode. Here’s a deep dish worth of local choices of America’s most classic dessert. The individual peach pies at Albemarle Baking Company might be small, [...]
Now that the markets are bursting with summer berries and stone fruits, it’s tempting to forget about ’dem apples ’til the fall, when they’re as crispy as they are prolific.
We lingered long after we should have. Tables had been cleared, the swoosh of the dishwasher had replaced the sound of sizzling proteins, and the bar was quiet, apart from the occasional clink of ice in a shift drink. Still, after a meal like the one we’d had at Zinc, we felt an unspoken urge [...]
Summertime’s all about indulging our whims and our desire to be a kid again.
Once relegated to a scattering around the rim of the plate, herbs have come a long way—especially in this season when fresh ones flourish. Find them on area restaurant menus—from cocktails to desserts—and get herby with it. Prime your palate with Tempo’s strawberry basil martini made with [...]
After 30 years, the annual Governor’s Cup competition, which pits Virginia wine against Virginia wine, got an overhaul, making it what the Virginia Wineries Association calls “one of the most stringent competitions in the U.S.” Improvements were made on every front—from the quality of the [...]
Someone with a 3,000-bottle wine cellar isn’t a likely candidate to also own a brewery, but last fall, Mary Wolf turned from Barolos to brewskis when she opened Wild Wolf Brewing
It’s that glorious time of year when the shelves of wine shops start to blush, giving drinkers an option beyond the usual bipartisan selection. But within the dozens of rosés that blossom between Easter and Labor Day, there’s a spectrum of colors and styles that vary as widely as whites do from [...]
There’s not much cuter than a row of tiny peas in their pods and these springy spheres taste as sweet as they look. Plus, as both a vegetable and a legume, peas contain a host of vitamins and minerals and are high in protein and fiber, yet more easily digested than their bean-ier cousins. Here [...]
As the economy limps along, restaurant trends embrace informality with a shift from the stationary to the mobile. In 2011, the food truck business exploded, with owners in search of more flexibility and less overhead. 2012’s the year of the pop-up—a temporary eatery that gives chefs or [...]
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A 100-year-old estate with a croquet lawn and a snooker room isn’t where you’d expect to be handed an iPad when being seated for dinner, but Keswick Hall’s gone new school, taking Fossett’s leather-bound tome of a wine list digital. Sommelier Richard Hewitt and his team started the project last [...]
Rhubarb, that ruby-stalked rhizome that adds a tantalizing tartness to dishes both sweet and savory, is among the handful of spring produce that, just like the blossoming flowers and trees, seem to vanish in the blink of an eye. That’s why we’re practicing scorpacciata, or the act of consuming [...]