Author: restaurantarama

Melissa Easter is a bit of a victim of her own success. The owner of the 2-year-old La Taza Coffee House in Belmont has been seducing crowds with her Latin-inspired full menu—breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week—and cooking up her hot and spicy dishes for the cool jazz cats at Saxx Jazz and Blues Lounge next door, and it seems her first Latin lover may feel a bit scorned. Of course, we’re talking about the dark and handsome, er, coffee bean. O.K., before you start rolling your eyes at our histrionics and anthropomorphism, you should know that when Restaurantarama asked Easter what inspired her to roll out a La Taza outpost—a coffee cart that is—in the lobby of the Ix Building two weeks ago, she told us, “I wanted to go back to my first love and really promote the coffee line.”

From the grounds up: Melissa Easter gets back to basics with the La Taza coffee cart, now serving in the Ix Building, south of the Downtown Mall.

In fact, Easter told us she felt a little scorned herself when she recently noticed an unofficial rating of local coffee houses on the blog cvillain.com and found La Taza barely made the list. Dudes, the girl brews some seriously sweet and socially conscious coffee! All of La Taza’s java is Rainforest Alliance certified and either fair trade or comes directly from growers, many of whom Easter has met personally. She just returned from a coffee excursion to Guatemala, and this past Saturday she held a low country boil to raise money for a solar-powered coffee mill to support the sustainable growers there.

But that rating hurt. Could it be that local coffee drinkers have been so charmed by Easter’s use of chipotle that they’ve given the caffeine the cold shoulder?

Well, no worries anymore. The girl, at least, and her coffee have been reunited in a little love shack at Ix. The coffee cart is in residence five days a week from 8 to 11am and 2 to 3pm, so consider stopping by for a cup of joe even if you don’t live or work around those parts. That way your eyes won’t be tempted by the other lusty fare at the flagship store. You’ll be 100 percent coffee committed. 

Brown bag brigade

You’ve heard the one about cutting your hair makes it grow faster, right? Well, we know (after a painfully bad grow-out) that that’s, like, poppycock. But when Baggby’s’ Jon LaPanta told us his family had sold their 8-year-old Forest Lakes location (the new owners have renamed the space Café LaJoi) as part of a “shrink before you grow” strategy, we followed the logic. Jon’s parents, Mike and Ann, opened the original Baggby’s gourmet sandwich shop on the Downtown Mall 14 years ago. (And we give them serious props for braving the Mall when it was still a deserted Goth haven as well as for their homey sandwiches, salads and cookies and neighborhood atmosphere). But the elder LaPantas are, in Mike’s words, “moving into retirement mode.”

Son Jon, who had run the Forest Lakes outpost, has come home to the headquarters to take over that operation, yes, but also to work on packaging up the Baggby’s brand into little brown bags for license. Mike says many transient customers—parents of UVA students, for example—have been pestering him for years about opening up additional locations, and so the family is getting ready to produce little offspring. They won’t be franchising, however, says Jon. Rather, the family will license the concept—the brown bag ordering process, for example, and their method for spinning out freshly made, homemade fare at a fast food pace. Jon says that by contracting rather than franchising, budding Baggby’s entrepreneurs can “be their own boss” without having to comply with onerous franchise regulations that stipulate things like hours of operation.

Having to rise at the crack of dawn every day to make fresh chicken salad and those little chocolate chip cookie bites sounds onerous itself to us, but, hey, that’s why we don’t own restaurants, we just write about them.

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

It’s no secret that Northern Exposure went south this year. The 13-year old W. Main Street establishment stopped serving regular meals in January, less than a year after rolling out a new menu under the new ownership of dining darling Coran Capshaw. Back then, longtime Northern manager Jeff Hale told us that going forward the space would be used as an event location for Applause Catering, but all year the place seemed spookily quiet and deserted. And then a ray of Carolina sunshine! 

Spry’s BBQ, billing itself Carolina’s Finest BBQ & Fish, opened September 19. Restaurantarama checked out the scene and found Northern’s Yankee-leaning interior hasn’t yet changed much, but with blues music blaring and the aroma of smoked meat and beer wafting, the vibe certainly has. Within a week of opening, owner George Spry told us he had to invest in a $4,000 buffet station to accommodate the massive lunch crowds. The UVA hospital employees who flooded the establishment told Spry they loved the food—the vinegar-based Carolina barbeque, the hickory-smoked pork ribs—but that it took too long. “That kind of hurt my feelings,” says Spry. “We’re not McDonald’s.” But then Spry discovered that many customers only had 30 minutes for lunch. “I’ve always worked for the state and had hour, hour-and-a-half lunch hours,” Spry says with surprise. So feeling for the time-challenged folks, he splurged on the service-expediting buffet.

George Spry, owner of Spry’s BBQ, cures the hunger of many UVA Hospital employees with 30-minute lunch breaks, now that he’s put in a buffet station.

It’s no surprise that Spry could make that quick adjustment. He’s an experienced pit master—he grew up smoking pork butts on a farm in South Carolina, and he’s been catering events around the state for about nine years. He has a mobile pit operation as well as a base out of the Hickory Hill Service Station on Route 29 south of Charlottesville. He’d been looking for a Charlottesville location for about a year when the Northern Exposure space became available for sublease from Capshaw’s restaurant group.

And all of this is in between Spry’s day job whipping real butts into shape. Spry was a probation officer for 15 years (the last 10 in Charlottesville) and now works with at-risk youth as a special counselor at Charlottesville Schools Alternative Program (Spry plans to get some of those kids involved in the barbeque shop through a mentorship program). And when he’s not doing that, he’s raising two kids with his wife, a teacher at Walker Upper Elementary.

Sheesh, all that sounds busy enough to us. Why add a third career to the mix? “There was no Carolina-style barbeque here,” Spry says bluntly. Oh, well, there you have it—George Spry is doing his civic duty in more ways than one.  So do yours, and get yourself some of his grub—before we kick your butt.

Double trouble

We at Restaurantarama have been talking about The Law so much these days, it’s easy to forget that we’re dealing with food here—and not even, like, crack-burgers or crystal meth-meatballs or anything. Although, apparently, if the meat was sent to a certified slaughterhouse then those dishes would be the right side of legality—from the perspective of the Virginia Department of Agriculture, at least. However, the fresh pork from Nelson County-based local farm Double H—a favorite supplier of many local dining establishments from Hamiltons’ to Revolutionary Soup—has not been so sanctioned. Richard Bean, who runs Double H farm with his partner Jean Rinaldi recently was arrested by Virginia State Police on one felony count and 11 misdemeanors, including illegally slaughtering his own pigs and mislabeling his produce “certified organic.” (Check out Government News on page 19 for the full story). Among other things, Bean is forced to henceforth drive his pigs to a certified slaughterhouse in Fauquier County. Restaurantarama checked in with some of Bean’s loyal customers for their reaction. Michael McCarthy of Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie had this to say: “To have to take that pig to a slaughtering house will really break his [Bean’s] heart and his pocketbook…but, he’ll survive.” And Will Richey, who buys Double H’s chicken and produce for Revolutionary Soup, added: “I guess you’ve got to follow the rules, but we need to look more closely at these rules. Richard’s a great guy—he’s proud of what he does.”

For more on the Double H story, read "Double H farmers busted for selling pork" in this week’s Goverment section.
 
Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.

You can take the girl out of the restaurant business, but you can’t take the restaurant business out of the girl. Or something like that. In this case, we’re referring to Li Chen, former owner and matriarch of Ming Dynasty, who, three weeks ago, opened Café 88 next to Integral Yoga in the Preston Plaza. And thank goodness! Members of the cult who followed Chen’s delicious vegetarian fare at Ming have been walking around town like zombies without a master. Chen sold Ming about a year ago to the folks who own the Asian Market next door. After ruling Ming’s empire for 20 years and developing one of the best vegetarian menus in town (come on, we know even you carnivores enjoyed the vegetarian sweet and sour meatballs), Chen was ready to retire. And it was a pretty definitive break from the scene—Chen gave Ming’s new owners all the secrets to her beloved menu before she walked out the door.

And then just a few months into the rest of her life, Chen got the itch for the kitchen again. But something much smaller in scale than Ming and with a different menu, obviously. The restaurant gods must have Ms. Chen’s back, because the perfect little spot opened up in the old Maruthi space next to vegetarian hang-out IY. 

It seemed like 87 years to Ming Dynasty lovers, but Li Chen, Ming’s former owner, has finally opened a new restaurant, Café 88.

With its 10 or so tables, intimate bar seating along the front window and quaint patio area, the space is the perfect size for Chen’s light fare of dim sum, bento boxes and soup. “It’s more like home cooking,” says Chen. The bento boxes in particular (the Asian version of the brown bag lunch) are “like my mom used to make for me when I was little in Taiwan.” Chen says she wanted to capture that feeling she’d had as a child when she would anxiously open her bento box at school to discover what good things her mom had prepared for her “from the heart.” Each of Café 88’s bento boxes comes with a main attraction, such as Taiwanese-style pork chops for the meat eaters or crispy tofu for the veggies, rice and two vegetable side dishes that Chen makes fresh daily depending on what’s locally available—Chen says about 80 percent of her ingredients are local.

And you can get your grub to go. Chen serves her food in disposable, microwaveable dishes for easy take-out. But then, of course, you’d miss the experience of watching Chen cook for you in Café 88’s cozy open kitchen—just like Mom.

Baker takes a bow

From an update on one cultish maven, we bring you news of another that’s not nearly as positive. No, sadly, Lisa Eslambolchi, owner of Ambrosia Bakery & Deli on Route 151 in Nellysford, is selling her establishment. In its three short years of existence, Ambrosia has developed a loyal following of folks willing to haul ass practically to Wintergreen for Eslambolchi’s famous cakes (she had a home-based bakery business for a few years before opening Ambrosia) and signature salads, spreads and sandwiches with a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean flare. As for why she’s selling? Well, Eslambolchi wouldn’t articulate any specific reason to Restaurantarama other than to say that she’s ready to move on. Restaurantarama did sense some justifiable fatigue in her voice as we suspect being an owner-chef of a dining establishment is one of the most grueling gigs around.

But not to fear, Ambrosia addicts. Like Chen, Eslambolchi tells us she’s committed to finding someone to take over what she started at Ambrosia. As for her next move?  Well, also like Chen, we suspect she won’t be able to stay out of the kitchen for long. In fact, the revered baker intimated to us a growing interest in the more nutritional and medicinal aspects of food. Hmm. We say look forward to an interesting new culinary adventure from Eslambolchi in the near future!

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

We know you’ve been wondering: Just where do I go for a daily shot of wheat grass in this town? And how do I get a goji berry juice cocktail without entering into some wacko pyramid scheme? Well, those of you who care about your health and stuff have probably been wondering that. Those of you whose weekly caloric intake involves something McFried or McProcessed probably have never pondered these questions, and you probably won’t get all chai’d up by the news that Sublime All-Natural Food & Juice Bar is planning an October 1 opening at its location on Elliewood Avenue—“the first of many of these stores,” owner Geoff Robinson tells us. Everyone else’s chakras, however, should be quivering with delight that Robinson (former owner of Jarman’s Gap in Crozet) and his partners—Julia Jondahl, Stuart Madany and Tim Rose—will “bring health and vitality to the Corner.” After that, the four UVA grads who’ve been studying raw food and juice bars in New York, L.A. and other major cites, plan to bring their juice, smoothie and shake shop to a corner near you (they’ve already been scoping out sites in Chapel Hill and Asheville, North Carolina, for the next phase of world domination). But for now, they’re still constructing the Elliewood space, which will be all feng shui’d and biogeometric thanks to Madany’s expertise—he’s a designer with Ota Holistic Design. And they’re still working on the recipes for the drink menu, which will be (forgive us) delicious and nutritious thanks to Rose’s knowledge—he’s a certified holistic counselor and a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York.

The sky’s the limit: Sublime All-Natural Food & Juice Bar owner Geoff Robinson, left, and one his three business partners, Tim Rose, hope to attract health food skeptics as well as health food nuts.

Rose says “Charlottesville is ready for this.” Ready for what exactly? That would be ready to replace its afternoon Diet Coke with a lean, mean juice drink like the Beauty Lift (carrot, apple, spinach and parsley) or perhaps the Cleanse Cocktail (carrot, apple, beet, ginger). Well, maybe not at first. Rose says he hopes to attract health food skeptics with Sublime’s sweet shake menu (made from more familiar whole foods like bananas, organic yogurt and cacao beans) and move them on to the more hardcore healthy stuff later.

And just how will this shop be different from the other smoothie joints in town, some of which, ahem, haven’t fared so well? Well, first off, unlike some other guys, Rose says Sublime won’t be making its smoothies with syrup—gross. Who knew? Nope, Sublime’s ingredients will be raw, whole foods and as organic and local as possible. Get ready to drink yourself silly with salubrity next month!

Three’s a charm

In the same spirit of the Corner getting all progressive, the Jabberwocky has reopened as three. a kitchen and lounge. We told you about the renovation earlier this summer—at that time the new spot was to be called 1517, but owner Andy McClure opted instead for “three” as a reference to this being his third restaurant in town (he and his brother Patrick also own The Virginian and West Main). Of course, the name could also refer to how quickly he and STOA Design (the folks behind the X Lounge) pulled off the overhaul (as in 1-2-…O.K., you get it). Restaurantarama was impressed by three’s sleek décor and more upscale yet unpretentious fare—think gourmet riffs on bar food staples, such as nachos served with a crème fraiche-based topping.

X-man

Speaking of the X Lounge, owner J.F. Legault has stepped down from his other day job as managing director of the Clifton Inn to focus on the Glass Building hot spot and his event businesses—the Event Company (which now offers catering) and the A.V. Company. Legault tells Restaurantarama he is extremely proud of his accomplishments at Clifton, having turned the once troubled outfit into a Relais & Chateaux property and one of the best small inns in the country during his four-year tenure there. About Clifton, he says he leaves behind “the best epicurean experience in Charlottesville currently.” Legault says he has turned Clifton’s reigns over to his very capable manager, Depne Candir.

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

The new owner of Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie, Michael McCarthy, started his culinary career as a humble dishwasher at age 15 in Baltimore. Very Anthony Bourdain, no? Then McCarthy did the whole culinary school thing before cooking at high-pressure, upscale restaurants in San Francisco, Las Vegas and most recently at our own Ivy Inn. About two years ago, though, he got the itch to open his own place—but not one of the high-end variety where he’d been cutting his teeth. For his own place, he wanted something casual and niche, and he wanted to avoid busier markets close to town and north of Charlottesville. "It’s so saturated up there," he says. So after two long years of searching, McCarthy finally found his perfect place at the humble Dr. Ho’s, which he and his wife, Nancy, took over in July.

Now, if you read this column regularly, you know that restaurants in these parts change hands more often than, let’s say, C-VILLE cleans the staff refrigerator. In other words, McCarthy has had plenty of purchasing options over the last two years. Why the long wait? And why oh why did he settle on a shoebox of a pizza joint in the sleepy town of North Garden 11 miles south of Charlottesville on the lonely stretch of Route 29S heading toward Lynchburg? Well, if you’re asking yourself these questions, you’ve probably never been to Dr. Ho’s. The 9-year-old dining establishment next to the Crossroad Store is so much more than the only pizza shop (make that the only restaurant) for several miles. For the locals, it’s an institution.

Michael McCarthy’s dream of owning a restaurant was no longer pie in the sky when he bought Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie in North Garden.

McCarthy says many residents and area laborers frequent the restaurant’s tiny bar, with its unexpectedly comfy leather seats that allow for peering right into the kitchen, about five or six nights a week. (By the way, there’s no head-down pizzamaking at this intimately appointed place; anyone in the kitchen better be good with the customer chit-chat, as "ponying up to the bar" practically means ponying up to the pizza oven.) Also, area hikers have made Dr. Ho’s their fuel stop on the way to and from adventures at Crabtree Falls, and just plain ol’ hungry pizza lovers from Faber to Scottsville to Esmont have made Dr. Ho’s their chosen pie for take-out or for dining in at the cozy leather booths that sit under kitschy conversation-starting artwork, from vintage Grateful Dead posters to the white paper plates that the under 12 set decorates with crayons while waiting for their grub. Dr. Ho’s is one of those down-home dining dens that Tony Bourdain himself would just love.

And when McCarthy says the business is "totally locally driven," he’s talking not just about his customers but also about his vendors. McCarthy purchases most of his ingredients—eggs, whole wheat flour, sausage—from nearby farms such as Double H in Nelson County, and he also incorporates produce from the gardens of local folks who bring him their surplus fare, from tomatoes (oh, I think we can find something to do with those) to watermelon (uh, thank goodness for culinary school skills).  

Perpetual pie

McCarthy, smartly, has left most of Dr. Ho’s recipe for success intact—he kept all the old staff and has maintained the specialty pizza menu, including the popular and classic Humble Pie (sweet peppers, Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, provolone and cheddar), the progressive Buddha (tofu, no cheese) and the postmodern Lil’ Mermaid (shrimp, pesto, oven-roasted tomatoes, feta). His additions have been subtle but key—more microbrews and imported beers and a diverse list of appetizers to appease patrons who must wait more than 20 minutes for the properly hand-tossed pie.

So if you call yourself an eat local-ite and you’re feeling humble and hungry, you really should put your money and your mouth where, er, your mouth is and stop in for the modest munchies at Dr. Ho’s—new captain, same tasty ship.

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

Last week we told you about the illegalities of forgoing the delicious fare at Buck Island BBQ. This week, we are disturbed to inform you about a straight-up culinary caper. L’étoile restaurant on W. Main Street was burglarized on Thursday, August 23. It all happened while the restaurant was closed for two weeks during the vacation of owners Mark and Vicki Gresge. Just what was the interloper seeking?  Locally grown wild mushrooms for resale on the black market? The secret recipe to l’étoile’s signature tarragon and walnut chicken salad? Nope, Restaurantarama admits we were slightly disappointed to discover it was nothing that interesting. No, this dope was looking for cash, Vicki Gresge tells us, and cash is something that anyone with half a brain knows restaurants of l’étoile’s ilk rarely have on hand—most of their receipts are of the credit card variety. But, apparently, le stupide didn’t know his fine dining establishment from his convenience store cash drawer, nor did he seem to notice he was in a world of pain and gushing blood after breaking into the l’étoile’s side window. Thanks to the numbing effects of some illicit substance, Gresge presumes, the trespasser soldiered on with his quest, bleeding and disoriented, and "made a mess of everything," she says. He broke the cash register and ransacked the upstairs office before he was apprehended by police on his way out of the building.

It was thanks to the restaurant’s security alarm that les gendarmes were waiting for the real hamburglar when he emerged from the building. And it was an alarm, Vicki says, that she’d asked to have disabled just a few days earlier because it kept going off falsely and interrupting her vacation each time the security company called. Unbeknownst to her, however, the security folks at ADT reset the alarm anyway.

This is a job for Inspector Clouseau: From left to right, employees Brian Wilkinson, Amity Elliot, Jess Tyler, and owner Mark Gresge, pose in front of l’étoile, where a break-in by a clueless criminal put a damper on eight years of peaceful French cooking.

It’s not surprising that the Gresges were a little complacent about crime—this month’s break-in was the first time they’d experienced any criminal activity in the eight years since they’ve been operating the restaurant at that location, and Vicki says she knows of no other restaurant break-ins on the street.

So was it a fluke occurrence or an indication that Charlottesville’s big-time restaurant scene is bringing with it big-time crime? Restaurantarama will leave those predictions to les autorites. All we know is that by the time you read this, l’étoile will have been cleaned of all the broken glass and will have reopened on schedule after the Gresge’s vacation. So when you stop in to dine on Mark Gresge’s signature locally grown, seasonal fare with the French flourish, we suggest that you think about how precious good food is and how local foodies are practically risking life and limb to bring it to you.

Loss of flavor

Remember how a few weeks ago we introduced you to Russel Smith and his Flavor’s Café that opened in June in the old Ombra’s space on Crozet Square? At the time of our writing, Flavor’s was just getting going and didn’t even have a sign out front yet. Well, Smith’s handmade wooden sign finally made it! The restaurant, however, did not. Flavor’s has closed its doors, and two signs indicate the business is for sale—one professional-looking sign from local restaurant broker, Stu Rifkin, and one pink poster board sign with a different contact number that indicates "owner financing available."  Curious about the state of affairs, Restaurantarama checked out Rifkin’s website (www.rifkinassociates.com) and discovered that Uncle Charlie’s Smokehouse, a few doors down from Flavor’s, is also listed for sale, as are 11 other dining establishments in the area, including Orbit Billiards & Café and Monsoon. Budding entrepreneurs, take note!

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

“It’s illegal to shop here and not get barbeque,” one customer announced to the folks behind him in line at Buck Island BBQ—a new take-out place and country convenience store on Route 53. And that’s about right. So consider this a fair warning: If you stop by the shop to pick up a gallon of milk and motor oil and you don’t add some smoked pulled pork with the 20-ingredient house C.C. Rider sauce and maybe some Bayou baked beans and homemade “crispy” coleslaw to your order, Restaurantarama personally will execute a citizen’s arrest and force feed you dog kibble for the remainder of your days.

If the story of Bob and Helen Pitts, seventh-grade sweethearts who reunited after 40 years, doesn’t warm your heart, the food at their restaurant, Buck Island BBQ, surely will.

Because the place has only been serving food since February, however, for now we’ll forgive you if you’re not yet on a first name basis with Buck Island proprietor Bob Pitts. But he will know your name if you spend any time in this quiet little corner of Thomas Jefferson Parkway just up the road from Monticello and Brix Marketplace. Pitts greeted every customer by name on the afternoon we visited. And it’s not surprising that Pitts already has a loyal clientele. He and his wife, Helen Pitts, who has been a full-time social worker in Charlottesville for 22 years, have been catering barbeque spreads with down-home Louisiana-style eats, such as smoked baby back ribs, Cajun-seasoned chicken and beef brisket, for about five years, most recently under the name Bayou BBQ. They bought the old country store—a former post office and something of a landmark on Route 53—in November and remodeled it before headquartering their catering operation there and opening up for take-out.

With its primitive smoker out on the front steps and its tiny take-out counter, visible galley kitchen and shelves of country store staples—cans of beans, pounds of sugar, bags of pork rinds and six packs of beer—a visit to the Buck Island BBQ shop is like stepping back in time. For Pitts, though, it’s the future. “This is what I plan to grow old doing,” says the man who’s on his third career. The native New Yorker had a corporate gig before he moved to Charlottesville a little over five years ago and started selling real estate. But while operating a smoker at a neighborhood picnic, he discovered his true professional calling involved barbeque and baked beans.

And if that doesn’t sound like fate, get this one: Pitts moved to Charlottesville after reuniting with Helen, his seventh-grade sweetheart in New York, after almost 40 years. Go ahead and say it, “Awww.” Now go get yourself some barbeque before Restaurantarama picks you up for culinary indecency.

Top chef

Coming soon…

For some of us, the end of August is tragic. It means the imminent closing of the pools, the coming curtain call on lazy days of shorts and flip-flops and cranky kids heading back to school. For Corner business owners, however, it means a welcome end to the summer famine. And it means massive hiring sprees, new menu items, renovations and an energetic rain dance or two—all in an effort to attract the returning hordes of UVA students whom they hope will generate enough revenue in eight months to compensate for the following four-month lull.

Take It Away Café, owned by Tom Bowe, and other Corner mainstays, remain student meccas, but Bowe says, "We all sort of agree that we’ve lost some business to the Downtown Mall.

Of course, just as some people can’t take the heat, some Corner merchants can’t take the business famine, and high tail it out of there. This summer, two franchises, Pita Pit and Tropical Smoothie, with all their slick and shiny signs and expensive overhead, have shut down. Also, Make Sense Dining, which owns the Biltmore Grill on Elliewood Avenue and O’Neil’s Irish Pub on University Avenue (as well as restaurants in Harrisonburg and Lynchburg), has decided to close O’Neil’s forever. The pub had been closed for the summer, as was typical. But Rebecca Lehnert, regional manager for Mason’s, told Restaurantarama that the company decided not to reopen the 8-year-old bar and instead focus its efforts on the 15-year-old Biltmore. Lehnert said O’Neil’s business and location were good fits for an owner/operator, but for a corporate owner like Mason’s, it made more sense to focus on one Corner location.

Mason’s must count itself lucky to have Lehnert, a 10-year veteran who knows how to navigate the Corner. To survive its chaos, "you have to love the college atmosphere," she says, and she calls all the other longtime Corner merchants who have embraced and thrived in that atmosphere, folks like Bob Mincer, Ron Morse of Baja Bean and Tom Bowe of Take It Away Café, "phenomenal people."

Going east

Despite the obvious respect Corner business owners and managers have for each other, "It’s hard to get merchants on the Corner to work collectively," says Bowe, who opened Take It Away 16 years ago. Indeed, Lehnert says merchants used to scatter the nights of their specials and spread the wealth, but now, many are having specials every night of the week. "It’s like the battle of the specials," she says. And yet, combining marketing efforts, or at least not cannibalizing each other, is becoming increasingly more important for Corner establishments. That’s because, perhaps even more daunting than UVA’s inconveniently short eight-month school schedule, is the increasing flight of business to east of the University. "We all sort of agree that we’ve lost some business to the Downtown Mall," says Bowe of recent discussions with his neighbors. One reason Bowe cites for such loss is the increasing attention the city is giving to ease parking along the Mall.

But Bowe counts at least two reasons to be optimistic about Corner business this particular school season: (1) The new student apartments on 15th Street likely will bring new customers and (2) Corner anchor Ragged Mountain Running (which was rumored to be considering moving, but instead went into bigger digs) will stay at its Corner location. Restaurantarama counts a third: Downtown Mall mainstays Revolutionary Soup and Christian’s Pizza (both 2007 Best of C-VILLE winners) have chosen to expand to the Corner (the former being open and the latter being a work-in-progress). 

Oh, and there’s a fourth reason: exciting new grub, of course! Both the Biltmore and Take It Away are planning new foodstuffs to lure you away from Downtown trappings. Check out Biltmore’s new Pittsburgh-style mammoth sandwiches loaded with coleslaw and French fries right there between the bread (an homage to Primanti Bros. if you’re a fan of Steelers country), and at Take It Away, you now can top off your gourmet salad and sandwich fare with some gourmet Gearhart’s chocolates. Who needs pools and flip-flops?

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

We’re not the only ones in the list-making business. Wine Spectator magazine, one of the resources for the vino-enjoying crowd, has been compiling an annual guide of the best restaurant wine lists around the globe since 1981, and this year, eight area establishments made the cut. Restaurants who make it into Wine Spectator’s guide are given a rating of one, two or three stars (wine glasses, actually) with one being excellent, two being super-excellent and three being super-duper-excellent. Blue Light Grill, C&O, Clifton, The Downtown Grille, The Melting Pot, The Old Mill Room at the Boar’s Head Inn and Silver Thatch Inn each received one star this year. And because you, the readers, chose C&O for your favorite wine list this year, we first wanted to give you a shout-out for being just as über-sophisticated and discerning as the know-it-all Wine Spectator folks.

Thanks to the expertise of Wine Director Richard Hewitt, Fossett’s at Keswick Hall is one of only 748 dining spots in the world to receive two stars in Wine Spectator magazine’s annual guide of the best restaurant wine lists.

But only slightly more exciting than the major league palate of C-VILLE readers is that for the third year in a row, Fossett’s at Keswick Hall received two stars, one of only 748 dining spots in the world to get that rating. The magazine gives out the higher two-star rating to honor lists that (1) have a broader range and depth of wine regions and producers represented and (2) are easy to use and demonstrate the restaurant’s "enthusiasm for wine and food." Fossett’s has a whopping 680 wines on its list that comprises all the major national and international wine regions (sounds enthusiastic to us!), and Wine Spectator notes that the list is particularly strong in California and French selections. Just who is behind that mammoth cellar? That’s Fossett’s Wine Director Richard Hewitt. We checked in with him for the juice behind the juice.

Hewitt, who is originally from California, came to Fossett’s six years ago by way of Massachusetts, where he ran the food and beverage program at Blantyre for 12 years. And like many food and beverage industry converts, he has a seemingly unrelated educational degree—anthropology and linguistics. We bet, however, those language skills come in handy when pronouncing Pouilly-Fuisse and spelling Chateauneuf-du-Pape and explaining in very diplomatic terms to a clueless customer that their favorite buttery, oaky Chardonnay does not go well with the grilled fish entrée they’ve selected. Hewitt not only buys the wine and writes Fossett’s very enthusiastic, 32-page wine menu, but also interprets it for the restaurant’s often intimidated clientele.

So Fossett’s list has pages and pages of Bordeauxs and Burgundies, Barolos and Biancos. Big deal, right? Been there, done that, right? What makes Fossett’s two-star worthy? Hewitt identifies several distinctions. His list contains insightful information with which wine consumers are increasingly concerned, such as which selections are organic and which come from up-and-coming female producers. The list also includes what Hewitt refers to as "exotic and esoteric" selections, such as a Pino Meunier (usually, a Champagne blending grape) from California’s Domaine Chandon and a Furmint from Hungary. But even better, Fossett’s has the most extensive list of Virginia wines on the planet with 70. Wine Spectator-decorated and still good to its neighbors—that’s worth 10 stars in Restaurantarama’s book!

Night school

So all this talk of multipage wines lists and obscure Hungarian grapes probably has you feeling terribly inept in the wine-knowledge department…and terribly thirsty. Well, we have just the thing to further your grape education and wet your whistle—Market Street Wineshop‘s monthly wine dinners. Robert Harllee says his shop has been co-hosting educational pairing dinners at area restaurants for 10 years now. On Tuesday, August 14, at 7pm, Harllee leads a tasting at Zinc French bistro that features classic bistro wines like Muscadet, Beaujolais and selections from Côtes du Rhône—those are what Restaurantarama calls the people’s wines. So go get some, people!  

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

You know how it goes. The first one to adopt a new trend is always viewed suspiciously, if not scorned and ridiculed. Take, for example, the first few daring folks to don flared jeans just a few years ago. Admit it. Many of you in your high-waisted, tapered Levi’s looked down on the mavericks in their reborn bell-bottoms. Until, of course, the trend went mainstream and you realized you were the one hopelessly out of style. Now, apparently, the high-waisted, skinny business is making a comeback, and Restaurantarama is thoroughly confused and avoiding denim altogether, but we digress. The point is, trendsetters are often doubted, and so it goes with restaurant no-smoking policies in this town.

Smoke doesn’t get in your eyes: The entire Downtown Grille, including its bar area, is now playing a nonsmoking tune, even though a proposed restaurant smoking ban failed to pass in the 2007 General Assembly.

The Downtown Grille raised quite a few eyebrows on April 1 when it voluntarily made the entire restaurant, including the bar area, smoke-free (you can still smoke on the patio, however). And this after the proposed restaurant smoking ban failed to pass in the 2007 General Assembly session. Is the Downtown Grille ahead of its time or just crazy?

The truth is, deep down, we all know the writing is on the wall for those who like to light up after their liquor and lobster. According to the last count of the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, 21 states and the District of Columbia currently ban smoking in restaurants and 16 of those also ban smoking in bars. Restaurantarama predicts Virginia (yes, the fourth-highest tobacco-producing state) will get on board sometime this…century. It only makes sense, then, that a few places would just get it over with and become early adopters. But a traditional New York-style steak, seafood and cigar establishment? That’s pretty risky, right? Apparently many of you think so, because the rumors have been flying that business has suffered and that former Downtown Grille regulars are huffing and puffing over, well, the lack of huffing and puffing at their former favored hangout. We checked in with Downtown Grille manager and partner Robert Sawrey to clear the smoke on the smoke once and for all.
 
Of the four-month-old policy Sawrey says he’s "very happy we did it." And while he admits that he probably did lose a few regulars from the bar area, he’s says he’s had a net gain of customers since effecting the ban. In fact, the restaurant’s sales have exceeded the same period last year, he says.

Sawrey (who was wearing, incidentally, a very classic pair of straight-legged jeans when we spoke to him) says it was regular complaints from some of his other customers that finally convinced him to enact the policy, and it’s one, he points out, that maintains the Manhattan style that the establishment has had since opening its doors in 1999. All of Manhattan’s eateries, after all, are now smoke-free by law.  

So there you have it folks. The Downtown Grille’s no-light up policy did not, in fact, backfire. And the bar area was renovated in June to add cozy black leather booths to accommodate the additional diners who are now actually willing to eat a full course dinner there free of unsavory smoke rings. Check it out yourselves. All the cool kids are doing it.

Kiss these grits

In some of the best news since Restaurantarama learned eating a big breakfast is good for the waistline, Maya is now serving Sunday brunch. As of Sunday, August 5, the W. Main Street spot for upscale Southern fare officially opened its doors to nourish you after your Saturday night benders with its special version of the Bloody Mary with pickled green beans, eggs Benedict with country ham on a biscuit and other countrified brunch munchies all of which pair oh so nicely with a side of Maya’s stellar, homemade grits.   

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