Author: restaurantarama

When economic times are tough, morals often go out the window. Think of the repeal of blue laws, for instance. Well, with the current cash crises, it’s now a little blue house that’s going to the dark side, so to speak. Martha’s Café on Elliewood Avenue is getting ready to join in the debauchery of the Corner late-night scene, and owner Mike Payne has knocked through a wall and added a beautiful wood built-in bar to accommodate the coming heathens.

No longer setting the bar soft: Starting in mid-March Martha’s Café owner Mike Payne (left) will be offering a full bar, in addition to later hours.

“We wanted to stay out of the chemical dependency business as long as possible,” Payne says to the question of why Martha’s has offered a much more subdued atmosphere (beer and wine only) in comparison to surrounding Corner bar haunts, the Biltmore, Coupe DeVille’s and Buddhist Biker Bar—as well as much earlier hours. Currently, lunch is served daily and dinner is served Wednesday through Sunday until 9pm. Starting around mid-March, however, Martha’s plans to offer a full bar of drink options, in addition to later hours. 

“We used to be a house with two rooms where you could get some food. But now we’re a restaurant,” Payne says of the renovations to the cozy home-turned-dining-den.

Payne has owned Martha’s along with his wife, artist Carrie Payne, for the past 10 years. Her large and lively oil canvases decorate the intimate space, where the duo shares chef shifts—they have 36 years of food service experience between them. Payne says he’s been considering offering a late-night menu and full bar for a while now, but that he really felt the pressure to pad the pocketbook after Martha’s lost its longtime catering contract with the folks over at Monticello (Karen Laetare of Brix Market Place and Brix Terrace Café recently won the bid to operate the café at the new visitor’s center). “We do need to feed our family!” he says.

As for what kind of late-night vibe they are going for—frat boys and football viewing? Law students and husband hunting?—Payne is pretty nonchalant. “We’re kinda new to the whole bar scene. We don’t have a single dead animal or TV on the wall.”

What Martha’s does have, though, is arguably the nicest patio on the Corner—just perfect for sipping a few cocktails and people watching (when there isn’t a huge-ass Bud Light truck loitering long past the acceptable parking time limit and obstructing the view on Elliewood, that is.) Plus, Martha’s is investing in a removable platform for said patio in anticipation of live music. “And we’ll probably get a TV—a small one, “says Payne.

And though they may be compromising their morals, they are not compromising their food taste. For the late-night menu, Martha’s will offer some of its casual but classy versions of quesadillas, pizzas and pastas, but “we are going to try and stay away from fried foods—we’d rather people get their calories from the cocktails,” says Payne.  Restaurantarama will drink to that! 

Pioneering plates

Pantops is so last year. It seems the new, new, new frontier for exciting restaurant happenings is Nellysford. A few weeks ago, we told you about the “Fried Gizzards and Livers” place on Route 151, and now it’s the opening of Dogwood, which, incidentally, also serves breaded chicken livers, meaning Nellysford henceforth will be known as the fried guts capital of Central Virginia. But Dogwood, which describes its menu as “Steaks, Seafood and Country Cuisine,” also offers more traditional down-home fare like country fried steak, fried flounder and clams, and sides such as fried okra, baked beans and turnip greens. The place opened February 4 in the 100-year-old Rockfish School building on Rockfish Valley Highway and comes from Dennis Hunt, who’s been establishing a local following at his 4-year-old Dogwood Café in Amherst. Dogwood currently offers lunch, but soon will open for dinner and breakfast.

Ciao for now

Intimate Italian eatery Ristorante Al Dente, located upstairs of Escafé, is leaving its Downtown Mall location. The owners aren’t sure yet where they’ll land, but they’ll close this shop on February 28. Stay tuned for more on this story!

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Since we’ve been talking a lot about animal parts these last weeks, we thought it probably was appropriate to spend some time on the other side of the barbed wire fence—with you non-animal-part-eating people. As luck would have it, Mellow Mushroom owner John Adamson called this week to tell us that the Charlottesville location of the hoagie and pizza franchise is now offering soy cheese.

Identified flying object: Mellow Mushroom owner John Adamson has landed on the vegan-friendly bandwagon by offering pizza made with soy cheese.

“A lot of people who are lactose intolerant or wanted a vegan option have called up and asked for it, and we’ve been trying to figure out how to do it. We’ve been testing different soy cheese products, and we’ve found one that works with our ovens,” says Adamson.

The 6-and-a-half-year-old local Mellow already offers a ton of vegetarian options (even the meat-eater in us salivates over the tempeh hoagie with teriyaki and balsamic vinaigrette and feta cheese), so this is just one more step in the vegan-friendly direction. Restaurantarama can’t vouch necessarily for the full-fledged vegan-ness of the new soy stuff at the ‘shroom, as apparently there are all kinds of crazy complications involving animal protein additives such as casein that we don’t fully understand. But you vegans can probably figure it out, and in any case, Mellow’s latest move shows us that the restaurateurs ’round here are increasingly hearing you alternative eaters loud and clear. And that’s good news!

As for other options, the list of vegan- and vegetarian-friendly restaurants seems to be growing. There’s a local vegan blog called Eat Air that likes to keep tabs on this sort of thing, and for vegan-friendly establishments they list the high-on-veggies-and-low-on-dairy ethnic offerings of Chinese at Ming Dynasty and Café 88, Indian at Milan and Maharaja and Ethiopian at Mesob. In addition, The Flat actually lists vegan fare on the menu, and Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar has a very vegan-accommodating menu, as well as vegan-knowledgeable staff. Sticks Kebob Shop has lots of veggies and dairy-free humus and falafel, and Splendora’s has dairy-free sorbet. And there’s always cheese-free veggie pizza at Christian’s or the Buddha pizza made with “no cheese, tofu instead” at Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie. But since pizza without cheese is, like, not pizza, we prefer to call those open-faced, veggie pancakes.

The Box watch

Speaking of John Adamson, one of his partners in The Box (coming to the old Atomic Burrito space) also called with an update: Chas Webster says the place will be an “Asian-American noodle bar and grill” and will serve “affordable” sushi. Look for a soft opening this weekend.

Pupusa-palooza

Last week in our profile of new Central American-themed dining spot Cazon Tropical Restaurant and Pupuseria in the Woodbrook Shopping Center, we quoted the manager, Honduran native and longtime Charlottesville resident Carlos Palma, as saying it’s the first pupusa place in town. Maybe what Palma meant to say is that it’s the first authentic pupusa place in town, or that at Cazon, it’s real Pupusa with a capital P or something like that. Whatever the reasons, many of you wrote in to remind us that a while back there was another pupusa-serving place on Route 29N —the short-lived Pupusa Crazy (which became the short-lived Caribbean Malecon and now houses the second coming of Baja Bean)—and that Mexican restaurant Aqui es Mexico currently serves pupusas. We thank our diligent readers for clearing up the confusion. That many of you feel so passionate about the state of pupusas around here probably means good business for Cazon!

Spilling beans

When one door closes, another one opens, right?  Two bits of news on the coffee front seem to confirm that sentiment. First, coffee house Shenandoah Coffee, which was located next to the Antiquers Mall on 29N in Ruckersville and served local Shenandoah Joe’s coffee, recently closed shop about a year after it opened. But no bad news here—it seems that owner Ryan Miller had so much fun running a coffee house at that location that he’s ready to jump into the land of full-service. He plans to reopen by the end of the month as Coach’s Grill, a family-friendly spot with burgers, sandwiches, salads, local sports memorabilia and six flat-paneled TVs.

Second, a new coffee place called Just Java has opened its doors near Lake Monticello and also serves up Shenandoah Joe’s brew.  So that’s sort of like two new doors.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Some people view beer as a food group. You know the type—the ones who prefer to drink their lunches and consume a good portion of their weekly caloric intake in pale ales and porters. And let’s be honest, a good stout really does drink like a meal. Still, a brewery typically isn’t on Restaurantarama’s radar for its fine food-ness. That’s why we were pleasantly surprised to learn that Blue Mountain Brewery and Hops Farm in Afton has been getting rave reviews for its solids almost as much as for its liquids, since opening its doors in October.

Three cheers for beer (and sandwiches and pizza): Blue Mountain Brewery, owned by Matt Nucci (left), Mandi Smack and Taylor Smack, is gaining a reputation for its grub as well as its brewskies.

“We’ve been really surprised by how many people view us as a restaurant,” says Matt Nucci, one of the brewery’s three owners. “But there really aren’t many other options nearby.”

Nucci says the brewery’s tasting room has been drawing large dining crowds from Wintergreen Resort, as well as hungry tourists visiting nearby wineries along the Monticello Wine Trail and locals from Nelson County, Crozet and Charlottesville, many of whom have been getting one of their three squares while sampling Blue Mountain’s current lineup of six brews.

But we think there’s more to it than just a skimpy nearby dining supply. A refined bistro-like menu of such snacks as puree of parsnip soup with truffle oil and sage, a Kite’s Virginia country ham sandwich with Blue Mountain Ale mustard and a pizza topped with Blue Mountain Lager-boiled bratwurst, all made by the New York-culinary-schooled hands of chef Ian Wright, seems to have created its own demand for Blue Mountain munchies. And it probably doesn’t hurt that the brewery’s cozy tasting room, with its river rock fireplace, Alberene soapstone floor and views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, encourages lingering over the lagers and light meals.

And if the food is that good, you know that the brewery’s main reason for living must be pretty O.K. too. As it turns out, Nucci and his co-owners, brew master Taylor Smack (formerly of South Street Brewery) and his wife, Mandi Smack, can barely keep the brewskies on the shelf. The team says they’ve been selling 30 to 60 six-packs a day out of the tasting room alone. Add to that the drafts on site, plus the distribution of cases and kegs to a growing number of stores around Central Virginia and restaurants such as Mellow Mushroom, Continental Divide and Fardowners, and the 3-month old brewery is already producing 100 cases a week, all of which are brewed and bottled on site by the threesome and a few close family members. One of their limited edition specialty beers—a bourbon barrel-aged stout called Dark Hollow—recently sold out in 10 business days.

Taylor says they are pretty close to reaching full production capacity, so whatever you do, don’t show up and bitch and moan that the porter you had a few weeks ago is sold out. This ain’t Coors (thank goodness)—it’s small-batch brewing. But the Blue Mountain moguls say there’s always something new coming on tap—stay tuned for an Irish stout to be released in early February.

Incredible, edible entrails

Speaking of dining options around Wintergreen, there’s a new restaurateur who not only is saving the Nellysford area from starvation, but may even be helping to save the planet. The hero here is Charlie White, who’s peddling “Fried Gizzards and Livers” on Route 151. White has moved his fried chicken innards and fish operation to Nelson County from Waynesboro, where his gizzards had garnered a cult following.

Every other culture is careful not to waste one ounce of edible entrails from the butchered animal—at least that’s what we’ve learned from Tony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”—so we’re glad White is helping to inform our community about the sustenance of good guts. White’s stand is open Friday through Sunday.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

Mark Cosgrove received the “best birthday present ever” when he turned 29 a few months ago. His former father-in-law, W.C. Winkler, called him that day and said, “Want to open a restaurant?” It was the chance of a lifetime for Cosgrove, a native of Virginia who spent several years traveling around the country and cooking at such varied locales as Colorado, New Orleans, Williamsburg, Northern Virginia and here in Charlottesville at our own Millmont Grille before giving up the cooking business, first to sell cars and then to hock halibut at the Whole Foods seafood counter. Cosgrove says he had grown disillusioned with the restaurant industry and working alongside people who “just weren’t as passionate about food” as him.

Irish eyes are smiling: Co-owner and chef Mark Cosgrove (background), co-owner W.C. Winkler (right), and Operations Manager Andy Kielar are the faces behind Fardowners. The name pays homage to the Irish immigrants from southern Ireland—“far downers.”

“The only way I’d do it again is if I could do it my way,” he remembers thinking. When Winkler offered him just such an opportunity, Cosgrove grabbed his old friend and experienced food service manager and bartender, Andy Kielar (most recently of Rapture), to join him and Winkler in the plunge back into the food fire. The result is Fardowners (a reference to the Irish immigrants from southern Ireland—“far downers”—who worked for the Blue Ridge Railway Co. back in ye ol’ days of Crozet). The family-friendly restaurant opened on The Square in Crozet on December 17. The location is the former site of Flavor’s Café, which came and went practically before the ink on Restaurantarama’s July 24, 2007 column about the spot was dry. 

Winkler, a previous owner of several other nonrestaurant businesses and mostly recently an employee of Crutchfield, says he spotted the available space and thought, “What does Crozet not have?” Initially, he says, he thought an ice-cream shop was the way to go, but after getting in and seeing the spacious digs and the lovely wood bar, a full-scale, sit-down restaurant seemed the obvious choice.

But filling a niche was still important. Cosgrove references all of the successful restaurants nearby—Three Notch’d Grill, La Cocina del Sol, Crozet Pizza, Uncle Charlie’s Smokehouse—and says, “We didn’t want to do something someone else is doing—that’s no fun.” 

What they ended up with is not, despite the Irish-sounding name, an Irish pub, but what Cosgrove calls “contemporary comfort food”—in other words, lots of sandwiches and salads in the $6 to $12 range and entrees in the $9 to $18, with interesting spins on down-home staples, such as grilled meatloaf with wild mushroom demi-glaze, maple-glazed duck breast and BBQ tofu.

Restaurantarama has high hopes for this place. For one thing, as opposed to some of the previous establishments at this locale, this one seems to understand the three legs on the stool of restaurant success: They have the money guy, the chef guy and the manager guy all present on the premises and fully engaged. And for another thing, they are playing the increasingly important “eat local” card, having stocked the bar with Starr Hill and Blue Mountain brews and lots of local wines, and stocked the kitchen with produce and fresh herbs from Brightwood Vineyard and Farm in Madison.  Even the tofu is local—it comes from the Twin Oaks commune in Louisa. Now that is grassroots.

Quick bites

Hey, did you know that Outback Steakhouse, that national chain best known for the badunkadunk butt-breeding Bloomin’ Onion, has a gluten-free menu? Even more shocking to us was discovering a two-hour wait last Saturday night when we tried to take a gluten-free friend to our own Outback in the Albemarle Square Shopping Center. Lucky for non-gluten-free folks, at least, that new Italian-style restaurant Olivaté (which we profiled in our December 11, 2007 column) has opened across the parking lot, and we bet they will happily accommodate some of that overflow.

In other brief news, it looks like another frozen-treat franchise is going to give it a go on the Corner—a Rita’s is coming to the old Tropical Smoothie location on University Avenue.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

First lesson in restaurant design: Nothing ever starts on time. Ted Nelson has that one down now. He and his partner, Ben Dagitz, of Design Build Office, are designing the new location of Aroma’s Café in the Barracks Road Shopping Center. It’s the first restaurant project for the one-and-a-half-year-old firm started by Nelson and Dagitz, who graduated from UVA with degrees in architecture in 2002. Back in October, Nelson and Aroma’s owner, Hassan Kaisoum, told us they expected the aroma of Kaisoum’s Moroccan and Mediterranean fare (which currently is confined to a remote spot in the Fontaine Research Park) to be wafting down Barracks Road by the first of the year, but Restaurantarama has learned to tack on at least a week or two to initial opening day predictions. Add to that the additional layers of approvals and red tape that come from a shopping center bureaucracy, and Nelson says to expect a February opening.

Seeing it through: Ted Nelson of Design Build Office is hard at work on the new location of Aroma’s Café for a projected February opening.

But it will be worth the wait, we think. In honor of C-VILLE’s inaugural design issue, we stopped by the construction zone to find out what goes into designing a dining spot. We discovered that, at least in the case of this project, it’s a whole lot more than deciding where to run the plumbing and gas lines. Design Build’s business takes sort of a holistic approach. Unlike your typical architecture firm, which draws up the plans and then hightails it out of there when the contractors come in and discover—oops—it can’t be done within the budget, Design Build does, well, just what you’d think: the designing and the building.

As for specifics on the new space, there’s not a whole lot to reveal yet, thanks to Design Build’s ability to be flexible. “We came up with the concept, and we’re hashing out the details as we go,” says Nelson; although, he did let Restaurantarama in on a few of the initial design challenges. 

“Because Aroma’s is not full service all the time, flow is really important,” says Nelson as he shows us how the ordering line will begin from one of the restaurant’s two front doors and snake past the framed-out kitchen to the ordering window. From there, a half wall, along with strategically placed flowers and foliage, will separate the ordering space from the dining-in space and prevent those hungry orderers from gawking at and “breathing down the necks” of the diners, says Kaisoum.

To further distract those waiting on line, Kaisoum says that he and Nelson plan to give them “something for the eye to see for free.” In this case, the eye candy will be walnut tables, built-in benches, wine racks and cabinetry all custom-built and designed by Nelson and his team, as well as a modern interpretation of Moroccan décor, including plaster walls and a paint treatment to resemble the Tadelakt lime plaster used on traditional Moroccan homes.

Then there’s the distraction of Kaisoum himself, who intentionally will be visible through windows to the kitchen, navigating the tiny but efficient 400-square-foot space (less than half the size of the kitchen as his current cafeteria location) along with his team. “We’ll be doing a little dance and sautéing  around each other,” says Kaisoum.

In addition to working on his kitchen choreography, Kaisoum says he’s going to be upping the presentation of the food itself, to match the quality of the new space. After all, “you eat with your eyes,” says Kaisoum.

How true. So look for plenty for your eyes to devour when Aroma’s new digs are finally revealed.

Chef shuffle

Restaurantarama has learned of a couple of new cooks in the kitchen. At Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar, line cook Danny Campos has taken over for Chef Kathy Buschet, who has moved on to Hawaii.

At the Downtown Revolutionary Soup, owner Will Richey is taking over for the departing Shaun Harvey. Richey tells us that he is gladly heading back to stir the soup at his flagship store now that his Corner location, which opened this past fall, is up and running.

They aren’t top chefs just yet, but the high school kids in the Culinary Arts program at CATEC (Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center) are No. 1 in our hearts right now. Here’s why: Thanks to a class project that began in November 2007 called “One year of Blessing, Caring, and Thanksgiving to people in need, a commitment that never ends,” the kids received a grant of $2,500 from SkillsUSA—a national organization that supports vocational and technical school programs. The money will go toward facilitating the year-long community service project in which the budding young chefs and their teacher—UVA grad Bob Bressan—will provide food and food services to at least one area organization each month, from setting up a food booth at the annual holiday Toy Lift, to catering whole meals for the Salvation Army, to baking cookies for individual nursing homes.

Slice and nice: Cam Taylor is one of the budding young chefs in the Culinary Arts program at the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center who will provide food and food services to at least one area organization each month.

Of course, the program is not all about serving the community, but about serving the students as well. “We want to give the kids real world experiences and to get them passionate about it,” Bressan says. “We also want to introduce the community to the talents these kids have.”

Because, let’s be honest, the community often views “votec” as the place where the kids with the discipline problems and the learning disabilities get dumped. But Bressan says that the 27 kids from Charlottesville, Albemarle and Fluvanna in his culinary program run the academic gamut from those barely staying in school to AP students, and from those who just think it’s fun to eat free food to those who are aiming for top culinary schools after graduation (and then coming back to town to cook for us, we hope). And all of them, he says, are subject to a rigorous program that includes classroom studies on such nonfluffy food subjects as microbiology and the connectivity of tissues, as well as instruction in operating some pretty dangerous industrial kitchen equipment.

Bressan predicts that with all of the food prepping and chopping and sautéing and serving (not to mention all of the clean-up!), the program will include a whopping 950 hours of community service this year. That makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside—and very lazy.

Gettin’ spiffy

On the Friday night before Christmas, Restaurantarama went through the typical weekly ritual of picking a place for pizza. We like to change it up each Friday to keep tabs on all of the parlors, but after determining that Sal’s Caffe Italia on the Mall was next on the rotation, we were shocked to discover the place was closed! “Closed for the holiday” is what the sign said. We have to admit, we swore out loud. How dare a pizza place be closed on a Friday night? God forbid we have to rethink our entire evening on the fly! And there are still 72 shopping hours left before the big day—what gives? 

But then we calmed down and thought, hey, that’s kind of nice. The beauty of being a family-owned restaurant is that you get to close up shop and actually be with your family once in a while. Contrast that with a few area Starbucks stores, which stayed open even on the 25th. Jesus believer or not, can’t you people lay off the froufrou mocha latte for, like, one friggin’ day?

O.K., holiday hours aside, that episode of stamping our feet in protest outside of Sal’s gave us an opportunity to peer in the windows and see some lovely little renovations underway. It looks like Sal’s has some new paint, a new tiled roof over the kitchen area, a flat screen TV and new tables and chairs. We can’t wait to experience the new look and feel now that the friggin’ holiday is over and we finally can get some friggin’ pizza.
 
By the way, Blue Light Grill is also closed for renovations until January 18.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

We made a big mistake when we stopped by Beer Run late afternoon on Christmas Eve to chat with co-owner and daily operations guy John Woodriff. We were interested in checking out the place now that it has been open for a few weeks and finding out from Woodriff how things were going at this Carlton Road beer, wine and cheese store/café/bar/sandwich shop/all-things-to-all-people place. Because, personally speaking, Restaurantarama had already stocked up with holiday necessities—wine, the fixings for seven-layer cookies, wine, dinner rolls, wine, cheese for the cheese ball, wine—we assumed Beer Run would be quiet and slow and that we’d have plenty of time to converse with Woodriff. Boy, were we caught by surprise when we discovered the place was hopping at 3:30pm. There were shoppers perusing the store’s beer and organic wine selections, several folks chatting loudly in the café seating area and a half a dozen patrons bellied up to bar. All of them were keeping Woodriff on his toes ringing people up, bringing second and third rounds of drinks and taking sandwich orders. He was way too busy to speak with us, and from the looks of Woodriff’s harried face, the pace had been similarly hectic all day.

One thing at a time: Co-owner John Woodriff readies some beer for selling in his beer, wine and cheese store/café/bar/sandwich shop/all-things-to-all-people place, Beer Run.

That’s O.K. The hustle and bustle spoke volumes about how this business is faring. And observing the light-filled and airy space—more bright and cheery coffeehouse than seedy saloon despite the impressive 14 beers on tap—we could easily see how folks could be encouraged to guiltlessly throw a few back well before 5pm on a weekday, especially on a day when they should have been home getting annoyed with relatives like the rest of us.

The cupcake condition

In a 2006 Time magazine article, Joel Stein said, "Our society’s twisting of the cupcake’s role has become a sickness."  He was referring to the nation’s growing obsession with specialty cupcake boutiques such as Sprinkles, the Beverly Hills-based shop-gone-global-chain, and Magnolia, the Greenwich Village-based cupcake bakery made famous on "Sex and the City." Stein lamented that Americans’ preoccupation with cupcakes was obfuscating the market for more time and skill-intensive baked goods —like canelés, for instance. Well, for one, Mr. Stein, we don’t even know how to pronounce canelés, but two, we don’t really care if cupcakes are the comfort food simpletons of the dessert world. If cupcake love is an illness, then we’ve got a bad case. And apparently, so do you, dear readers. It’s only been a few weeks since a new local cupcake venture called Cupcakes & Co. has been supplying from-scratch goodies to local gourmet food shop Feast!, and already the things have been selling, like, well, hotcakes and getting lots of local blog buzz on cvillain.com.

Restaurantarama is partial to the Dark Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Cream Filling and Dark Chocolate Frosting, which is like a gourmet riff on the Hostess cupcake, but all of the six current flavors available at Feast!—Almond Cake with Almond Buttercream Frosting and Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Cream Frosting, for instance—are deliciously moist morsels made from high-quality ingredients. There’s really no comparison to the mass-produced grocery store junk that your mom brought to your third grade birthday party at the roller rink—except, of course, for the childlike glee you feel when you peel away that little paper wrapper.

The two local women behind the cakes currently are supplying Feast! with 12-15 dozen a week, and all of it’s made out of one of the pair’s—UVA grad Kieran Matthews—tiny home kitchen. So may we soon expect a Cupcakes & Co. storefront to fulfill our ultimate this-ain’t-LA-or-NYC-but-we-have-decent-sushi-and-a-cupcake-boutique-so-it-might-as-well-be fantasy? The two aren’t making any promises about that just yet, but Matthews says, "We have 20 other flavors that are available for special orders and that we hope to introduce in the near future." And the two say to look for Cupcakes & Co. fare to make appearances at other local retailers.

Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.