Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so we’ve compiled a list of ways for you and your boo to celebrate with what we all know everyone wants: food and booze.
I love brew
Three local breweries make it possible for you to spend the hours leading up to Valentine’s Day enjoying a pint (or two), plus a good meal and some sweets.
On Wednesday, February 10, Wild Wolf Brewing Company chef Chris Jack serves up a five-course meal for $50 featuring “fabulous farm-to-fork cuisine” and seasonal beers.
Down the street the next day, Blue Mountain Brewery offers a beer dinner of its own with a winter kale salad, root vegetable gratin, barrel-smoked salmon and dark chocolate raspberry trifle. Cost is $55, and each course is paired with a beer.
For something a little sweeter, head to Three Notch’d Brewing Company on Saturday, February 13, for Bitter Sweet, a chocolate-and-beer-pairing event. Five bucks gets you three Gearharts chocolates along with pairing suggestions of Three Notch’d brews.
Wine about it
Whether you love Valentine’s Day or hate it, you might as well drink some wine.
On Saturday, February 13, Veritas Vineyard & Winery hosts a Valentine’s Day winemaker’s dinner. The five-course, wine-paired meal features pan-fried gnocchi, kale and spinach salad, sweet potato bisque, chocolate and coffee chili-braised pork shank and double chocolate pot de creme for $140 per person.
To celebrate the day associated with the color pink, Pollak Vineyards releases its new rosé on Sunday, February 14. Pair a glass of the pink stuff with a mint chocolate torte or a crawfish étouffée.
What more could you possibly want on V-Day than wine, cheese and chocolate? Feast! hosts a $45 cheese class on Tuesday, February 16—wine and chocolate included.
Wine Loves Chocolate has the perfect heart-shaped box of chocolates to pair with your wine, but there’s a twist: The box is edible. A box of six chocolates is $26.
Hard love
On February 13, Virginia Distillery Company hosts A Dram of Love, which features local music, Spiked Food Truck, Gearharts truffles and malt whiskey for $10 for a flight.
What’s cookin’?
If you’d rather cook for yourself for the holiday, check out the Charlottesville Cooking School’s Valentine’s Day events.
During Dinner in Paris, Tom Whitehead will teach you everything you need to know to prepare a delicious, romantic French meal. Cost is $125 per person.
The next day, at Soledad Liendo’s Valentine’s Day dinner, you’ll make crispy shrimp, pancetta-wrapped filet mignon, scalloped potatoes, spinach-and-mushroom salad and white chocolate mousse. Price is $110 per person.
Prix fixe
If you’re feeling indulgent, treat yourself to one of the many multicourse meals that restaurants around town are preparing for V-Day.
Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar offers a $50 prix fixe dinner on Saturday, February 13. Seatings are at 6 and 8:30pm, and menu items include lobster bisque, Timbercreek filet mignon and white chocolate cheesecake.
All weekend, Old Mill Room at Boar’s Head has a special four-course Valentine’s dinner for $100 per person (plus tax and gratuity). The menu features venison carpaccio, cream of apple and celeriac soup, saffron tomato seafood risotto and passion fruit panna cotta. And on Sunday morning, the brunch menu will include omelets and eggs to order, banana bread French toast, a seafood station, a salad station, a carving station and a selection of desserts.
Valentine, schmalentine
Not inclined toward the romantic-for-two dinners? We get it—and so do some others around town.
Kick off the weekend on Friday, February 12, with a speed-dating event at Commonwealth Restaurant & Skybar. Spend five minutes with each eligible local and enjoy cocktails and a $5 Skybar coupon.
Check out Firefly’s Lonely Hearts Club Singles Night starting at 8pm on Saturday, February 13.
Beginning at 11am on Sunday, February 14, Jack Brown’s Beer & Burger Joint encourages fellow curmudgeons to help drain a keg of AleSmith My Bloody Valentine and tape pictures of their exes to voodoo dolls at its Stupid Cupid Anti-Valentine’s Day event.