Tag: Food & Drink

The first episode of “The Big Brunch” opens on chef Antwon Brinson. He stands almost in silhouette over a hot pan, stirring a sauce that coats some delicious-looking meatballs. Brinson is framed by his steel teaching kitchen, an everything-you-could-need creative cooking space at his business Culinary Concepts AB, located just off Barracks Road. In this HBO Max reality series, Brinson’s voice is the first we hear: “As a chef, you wear three hats. You’re a mentor, you’re a coach, and then you’re a chef.”

That balance is a guiding principle for Brinson, whose culinary career has shifted from navigating the precise world of fine dining to running his five-week cooking program in Charlottesville. The bootcamp at Culinary Concepts AB is a cooking crucible that prepares novices and experts alike for a career in the restaurant industry, meeting a tangible need for qualified staff in town. But the culinary bootcamp does more than just teach students how to dice and sauté; it teaches them how to set goals and meet them.

“I want you to walk away from this and feel like, ‘I’ve learned a lot about myself. And I feel confident going out into the workforce and with the skills that I’ve gained here,’” says Brinson. “And it may not even be cooking, it may be something else, but you found yourself through this journey.”

Brinson embarked on a new journey himself when he joined the inaugural cast of “The Big Brunch,” a new cooking show executive produced and hosted by Dan Levy that premiered last fall. The competition’s variously themed challenges tested Brinson’s culinary acumen by asking him to cook in a totally unorthodox way.

“When you think about cooking, you think about cooking from the context of, ‘What cuisine am I gonna cook? What protein am I gonna use? Is this a vegetable dish? Is it a seasonal menu?’” says Brinson. “You don’t think about cooking from the perspective of, ‘A dish that inspired you through your childhood,’ or, ‘A dish that speaks to where you are currently on your journey.’”

Those sort of abstract directives center each episode of “The Big Brunch,” which, true to its name, tasks contestants with reimagining brunch through their own personal lens—first with a starter item, and then with the main course.

“It challenged all of us to cook from a place that none of us had ever cooked from before,” says Brinson. 

In that first episode, we meet chef after chef from across the country: a proud cook of Cantonese cuisine from Asheville, North Carolina, a sprightly Long Island baker, a vegan auteur from El Paso, a self-taught Richmond restaurateur, and on and on. There are 10 in total (three from Virginia!), and it’s clear from the moment we meet the judges that these earnest chefs will be duking it out for cash—$300,000, in fact.

But this isn’t “Chopped,” despite the tears shed each episode. “The Big Brunch” is a big love-fest, a celebration of the art of cooking that specifically centers each chef’s community-focused passion project as the beneficiary of the grand prize. The leisurely timed hour-long episodes encourage the audience to get to know each chef, to learn about their drive and ambition and identity. And the production of the show allowed the chefs to get to know each other better, too.

“I would have never imagined that I would go on a show and meet people and say they’re gonna be my friends for the rest of my life,” says Brinson. “We’re cooking from a place of, ‘I want to change my community, I want to make this industry better.’ … To be in a room with nine other contestants that feel the same way that you do about their community, and they’re expressing themselves with food that way, it was remarkable.”

As the competition heats up and contestants get eliminated one by one, it’s evident the chefs are competing not against each other but against themselves. Each one has a comfort zone—like a tried and true banana bread or a predilection for mushrooms. Judges Levy, Sohla El-Waylly, and Will Guidara sniff this out quickly, and steadily push the chefs to refine or expand their repertoire. In one brunch, the contestants play a challenge so safely that the judges call a mulligan and order them to start over from scratch, to really push themselves. As a result, the contestants return with dishes so outstanding the judges can’t bear to eliminate anyone. “That was a comeback for the ages,” says Guidara.

It’s in that same episode that Brinson very publicly embraces his love for Ethiopian food, a cuisine he cooks regularly at home but has shied away from professionally.

“In my career as a chef, in all the places that I’ve worked, I’ve never put Ethiopian food on the menu. Never,” he says in an interview segment on the show. “It was fear. ‘It’s not familiar. Will the guests like it?’ And being here, this competition has really helped me grasp an identity.”

“I love learning about my culture because I didn’t grow up with it,” Brinson told C-VILLE. “So I just started cooking Ethiopian food on HBO. … That’s what they [the judges] were able to do, they were able to pull this out from all of us, had us all cooking from a place of vulnerability.”

Originally from Niagara Falls, New York, Brinson says he didn’t grow up thinking he would be a chef. He didn’t have a strong culinary presence at home—but he did know that when his grandmother was baking desserts for the holidays, it brought the whole family together. He found that food was an equalizer: It’s at the center of many memorable moments in his life. That belief in the unifying power of food led him to join his high school’s cooking team (where he made it to state competition on his first try), and eventually to the Culinary Institute of America, where he refined the skills he would use as a high-end chef in kitchens from the Virgin Islands and Hawaii to Palm Springs and San Francisco. His latest stop in Charlottesville saw him take on the role of executive chef at Common House, before leaving the restaurant biz entirely to open his cooking school.

Throughout his travels, Brinson held tight to the adage that food helps people connect and build communities. He immersed himself in each location’s culture to become a better chef—“I knew that if I understood the culture it would give me a profound understanding of the cuisine,” he says—which means he learned to cook food from a wide variety of culinary traditions. He came to “The Big Brunch” confident that he could pull a range of recipes from his pocket at a moment’s notice, but the competition’s time crunch and increasingly abstract expectations actually had him cooking much like he does at home: in a freeform, improvisational way.

At home, Brinson opens the refrigerator without a plan, and takes stock of what he can cook with and what he can salvage from leftover ingredients. It’s an experience that he says harkens back to his youth, when his mother always seemed to be missing one key ingredient he’d need to make a sandwich. He made do, and his quick thinking served him well on HBO Max as the timer marched on.

“Challenge three, the farm-to-table challenge, is really where I just changed,” says Brinson. “The challenge was, like, cook one vegetable. And I just literally went ham. I had four or five different techniques on the plate, I had mushrooms throughout it with different textures. … In that moment, I realized, I’m just gonna fucking cook. I’m gonna stop trying to dig deep. What is the food saying to me? What do I feel in this moment? And that’s what I’m gonna go with. That’s what got me through the competition.”

Though there are similarities between how Brinson cooks on TV and how he cooks at home, his tenure on “The Big Brunch” was anything but familiar. Cameras swooped around him as he prepared his dishes, and interview questions flew at him fast while he was working. He and the contestants were urged to only interact on set, so that their most authentic thoughts and feelings could be captured raw. And after each brunch, the chefs were subjected to 15- to 20-minute critiques (often shortened to barely 30 seconds in the show).

There’s no TV magic on “The Big Brunch”: Each episode is a truncated version of a 12-hour shoot, and every dish served up is exactly representative of what the chefs were capable of in that challenge. Things can and do go wrong, and when Levy rings the bell to signal everyone to stop cooking, the chefs better be ready to present whatever they have—even if it’s missing ingredients or portions.

“You got one shot,” says Brinson. “You literally have one shot to nail it. If you fuck it up, well, that’s what you get.”

As much as he enjoyed the experience, the Charlottesville chef isn’t dying to get on another cooking show.

“I was gone for a month,” he tells me, sitting at a table in Culinary Concepts AB. Brinson is surrounded by the stations that his students use in culinary bootcamp, the same kitchen that we see him cooking and teaching in at the beginning of the show. “I think that if I was to do another cooking show it would have to be more focused around what I’m currently doing, it has to be in line with my mission. Something that highlights the work, something that highlights the students, something that really highlights the outcome. I would want it to be less about me and more about the inspiration that happens when you create a space like this.”

Brinson’s dedication to his new role as a business owner and teacher is an outgrowth of the tireless, laser-focused work ethic that powered him through his career in high-end resorts. He draws considerable inspiration from his mother, who was a foster parent while he was growing up.

His mom suffered from back pain, but “then she gets a foster kid that’s an emergency placement that could possible die because they’re on a ventilator,” says Brinson, “and all of a sudden she has no back pains, anything, and she is determined to make sure this kid makes it through the night.” Her hyperfocus and vigilance continues to inspire the chef to “find a focal point and go hard,” a lesson he passes on to his students.

“What we’re doing here, man—restaurants and food service providers all around the world need something like this,” says Brinson. “People need something like this. And our goal is to scale this thing across the nation. And that’s the vision.”

Want to see how Antwon Brinson did in the competition? Check out “The Big Brunch” on HBO Max, where all episodes now streaming.

As the year draws to a close, I wanted to gain some insight into what wine consumers are drinking by asking local shops what their best-selling beverages were in 2022. While many were reluctant to name specific bottles or producers, the information they provided reveals some interesting trends.

Rosé all day

It appears that local drinkers continue to be head-over-heels about pink wine.

Certainly, rosé can play a lot of roles, whether you need a wine to be lean, bright, and refreshing, or you want one with a bit more complexity and depth of flavor. As a result, this category always seems to be a crowd-pleaser. At Wine Warehouse and In VinoVeritas, rosé was among the top sellers, especially in the summer months. Wine Warehouse had robust sales of over 50 different rosés, while customers at In Vino Veritas sought out rosé from the South of France.

Classic, quality wines at value prices

It should come as no surprise that there is steady demand for wine produced from traditionally well-known grapes from classic regions. At the same time, drinkers of all ages are looking for a price point that doesn’t make them think twice about opening a bottle on a Tuesday night. Will Curley at The Wine Guild of Charlottesville says his sales trends show that customers are looking for bottles “that don’t shirk on quality and still fit into their weekly budget” and “demonstrate terrific value for classic, carefully made styles.” A good example of these is the Guild’s top-selling Bodegas LAN Rioja Estate Bottled Reserva, which has all the berry fruit, hints of cedar and smoke, and structure that you expect from classic Rioja wine, and a price in the low $20 range.

Portuguese reds

It was a pleasant surprise to hear from In Vino Veritas’ Erin Scala that Portuguese red blends are among the top sellers. While Portugal is largely known for port wine, the country has a long history of producing excellent wine outside of the sweet dessert category. Recently, there has been increasing awareness of wines made in Portugal, especially the robust red blends. Despite this uptick in interest, wine from Portugal is still in less demand than wine from other European countries, so those looking for some serious value in terms of price-to-quality ratio can find it here. Scala mentions the Fita da Fitapreta and the Dow Vale do Bomfim as notable bottles to try.

Organic, bio­dynamic, natural

Siân Richards, co-owner of Market Street Wine, has seen a trend among younger wine drinkers with curious palates and less focus on traditionally known regions and producers. Richards says these customers show an interest in organic, biodynamic wines, and natural wines. The shop stocks many popular options and the staff can help interested customers with recommendations. She is quick to note that their best-selling wines are always ones featured as Wines of the Week, and cites this as evidence that, while customers may be willing to explore, they are still looking for trusted guidance in their drinking choices. Market Street Wine attracts people who want “a relationship with a local shop with a carefully selected inventory and … personal recommendations based on us knowing/hearing where their interests are.”

Virginia wine

An encouraging sign for our local wine industry comes from The Workshop (the wine store located at The Wool Factory). Wine Director Kylie Britt says the best-selling wines are consistently the locally produced Virginia wines sold under The Wool Factory private label, while other Virginia wines are also consistently among the top sellers. The Wool Factory hosts free weekly tastings and frequently invites local producers to pour at these events, and as a result, their wines top weekly sales. “Our guests love local wines since they can build a connection to the producers,” says Britt. Here’s hoping you find something fabulous in your glass to celebrate the New Year, and cheers to more fine wine discoveries in 2023!

Woodson’s Mill is alive. The green lawn is speckled with people in conversation. There’s smoke from a wood-fired pizza truck, and a number of vendor tables display local food and handcrafts. Rising above the gathering is the four-story, clapboard mill building that has stood there since the 1790s.

Inside the historic building, the sound of the crowd fades into the trickle of the Piney River, the zip of belts and pulleys, and the churning of the steel waterwheel. Underneath and at the heart of those sounds is the low rumble of the millstone.

On the first Sunday of every month, the grist mill opens its doors for the Mill Race Market, where patrons can buy local goods and see the process of making stone-ground flour. But even on less celebratory days, the millstone turns at the heart of a growing community, producing an industry of local grain that nourishes the culture of farmers, bakers, and foodies around it.

Millers Aaron Grigsby, Charlie Wade, and Ian Gamble brought new life to the mill when Deep Roots Milling moved its operation into the building in 2019, with the goal of making milled grains an accessible part of the local food movement. This access has been a glaring omission, considering grains are the foundation of a traditional diet, and wheat in particular is the most consumed food in the United States.

“Well, it is sort of the staff of life in the Western world and beyond it,” Grigsby points out.

The millers knew that bakers wanted to bake with whole grain to offer regionally, ecologically conscious food.

“We were pretty well aware that there would be a growing market for what we were doing, and that really the bottleneck was that it just wasn’t available,” Grigsby says. But the speed and extent of their growth was a surprise.

Deep Roots has won Good Food Awards for outstanding American craft food the last three years in a row, and the mill’s flour can be tasted in offerings at Belle, Althea Bread, Carpe Donut, Little Hat Creek Farm, MarieBette, Cou Cou Rachou, Albemarle Baking Company, Crustworthy Pizza, Slice Versa, Ambrosia, and Janey’s Bread. It’s also available retail from Stock Provisions, Foods of All Nations, and Greenwood Grocery. At the Ix farmer’s market, you can catch Deep Roots at a stand once a month ahead of the Mill Race Market, or find Tonoloway Farm making silver dollar pancakes with its flour.

As a co-founder of the Common Grain Alliance, Heather Coiner is interested in building the local grain economy as well as exploring it in her Little Hat Creek Farm bakery.

“What I like to do is I like to make familiar things with at least 50 percent stoneground, local flour,” Coiner says. “So, I make a white sandwich bread, I make a multigrain sourdough, I make rosemary crackers and graham crackers, chocolate chip cookies, and things that are really embedded in our culture.” 

Her stock room is filled to the ceiling with sacks of flour. “I use Deep Roots flour in pretty much everything,” she says.

Her Danish rye bread was perfected through a working relationship with the millers, and being able to communicate the grades of flour she was after. There was some back and forth as they honed the ratios of cracked rye and finely ground powder for the mix. “Danish rye has three different grades of rye flour in it, and they have been really generous in working with me to provide those grades of flour that I need,” Coiner says. 

Before Scott Shanesy opened the doors at Belle bakery, he knew he wanted to use local, stoneground flour from Deep Roots. “We got in here January 2020, and within the next year we were slowly working the recipes in,” Shanesy says. “Then this past year we made the big switch.”  

Deep Roots flour is in their loaves, baguettes, English muffins, bagels, scones, and cookies. “I think everything now besides the donuts, cinnamon rolls, and the brioche,” says Shanesy. But the plan is to transition those items too.

For Shanesy’s hearth loaves with a crackly steamed crust, the process can stretch over three days to finish fermentation, but the rustic, sourdough loaves are the highlight of his bakery. 

One of the reasons bakers like Shanesy want stoneground flour is that it has more of the whole grain in it—fiber and minerals from the bran, protein and fat from the germ. Commercial white flour is generally just the starch part of the grain, which makes it less nutritious, harder to digest, and less flavorful.

“My quickest telltale sign of quality is, do you need a drink with it?” Shanesy explains. “Are you salivating a lot? If the textures and aromas and the flavors aren’t right, you’re going to need help. But I’ve found that if the dough is fermented and broken down, and you achieve that right texture, you can just eat a half a loaf and not even think about it.”

Ask Alicia Simmons about her happiest childhood memories, and she immediately recalls the many hours spent in the kitchen with her twin sister and grandmother at the family’s farm in the Shenandoah Valley. “We made lunch for dad and grandpa every day,” says Tavola’s executive chef. “That’s how I fell in love with cooking.”

Growing up on a farm formed Simmons’ appreciation of food because she knew the hands that touched every morsel she helped prepare and then consumed, the amount of work it took to get an ear of corn from a seed in the ground to her plate. “Farmers,” she says, “are more appreciated now than they used to be. But growing up, farmers were my heroes.”

Her grandfather was a dairy farmer who grew a variety of crops, and also raised ducks, pheasant, and trout. “I was lucky to see it all,” says Simmons, 28, adding that it came as little surprise to anyone when she enrolled in the culinary arts program at Valley Career & Technical Center.

“Basically, we had a little restaurant at valley vo-tech, which set you up to work in a bigger restaurant,” says Simmons, who quickly increased her knowledge of prepping and cooking and pricing everything out. She says it was a great foundation, something she built on when she graduated from Piedmont Virginia Community College’s culinary arts program several years later. More importantly, though, her vocational training confirmed what she’d known since she was a child: She wanted to cook professionally.

Soon after graduating from PVCC, Simmons landed a job making salads at Staunton’s Newtown Baking & Kitchen, where she worked alongside Chicano Boy Taco owner and former Zinc executive chef Justin Hershey.  

But it was her pastry work—she’d fallen in love with dessert-making while at VCTC—plus a recommendation from Hershey that led Simmons to Tavola in 2015. In addition to making desserts at the popular Belmont restaurant, she prepped food and helped serve private events. Soon, she was working on the line and putting together salads for Tavola’s then-chef de cuisine Caleb Warr, “a great mentor who took me under his wing and really showed me how a chef is also a teacher,” says Simmons. “He was so patient, and took the time to show me all the little things.” Eventually promoted to sous chef, Simmons was named the Italian eatery’s executive chef in 2021.

On a typical day, she arrives at Tavola around 11am to receive the day’s food orders (many of the restaurant’s ingredients come from local farms, and its specials are based on what’s in season), and begin prepping, which means everything from baking bread or cheesecake to preparing sauces or butchering half a pig.

“That’s the joy of it,” says Simmons, who earned Best Chef honors in this year’s Best of C-VILLE competition. “And I love cooking for all the foodies here, people who appreciate our open kitchen and seeing how hard we work. They see it all go down, and they like the food even more [because of it].” 

Simmons prides herself on preparing some of the area’s finest cuisine (linguine alla carbonara, anyone?), but she also makes it a priority to share her culinary knowledge, scoffing at those TV and movie chefs who terrorize their kitchen employees. 

“Nobody appreciates going to work and being yelled at,” Simmons says. “I had great teachers coming up. And I want to reflect the way my grandma, Justin, Caleb, and [Tavola co-owner and chef] Michael Keaveny treated me. You need to enjoy your job to enjoy cooking. A big part of what I do is take the time to show everyone else how it’s done, so they can take what they learn and teach someone else and keep the ball rolling.”

A menu is a canvas for Executive Chef Alicia Simmons, who presents Through the Seasons, a thoughtfully crafted dining experience, every three to four months at Tavola. The seasonal one-day-only dinner is filled with the restaurant’s recent daily specials, prepared in collaboration with chef de cuisine Kendall Moore. Simmons typically handles the dessert course, while Moore flexes his skills on the mains, both supported by a talented line of cooks.

At their most recent dinner in September, the first plate—an “amuse” or quick appetizer—consisted of a homey and warm English muffin with anchovy butter, a salted tomato and shiso taco, crisp in taste and soft in texture, and a fragrant and bold cannoli of squash and mascarpone. It was all paired with a sparkling red Patrick Bottex Bugey-Cerdon La Cueille wine, and my palate was ready for the sumptuous flavors to follow.

The antipasti offered multiple options, including roasted oysters with tomato caper relish and crispy calamari with grilled peaches, blistered shishito, Meyer lemon, and caper aioli. The oyster was so buttery and smooth that I wanted to sip it right out of the shell, and the pairing of a Domaine Michel Brégeon Muscadet was a nice soft companion with a pleasant silky taste. By contrast, the calamari, tender on the inside, was delicate and bursting with flavor from the caper aioli. Grilled peach was an inspired element, adding some playful fruity notes, while the shishito peppers were savory and welcome, commanding my attention. This colorful dish was paired with a funky, bright, and slightly sour Sono Montenidoli Tradizionale.

For the entrata, I was treated to grilled halibut with heirloom caponata and basil and fennel salad, and a roasted duck breast with local cabbage and duck jus. The halibut was moist, tender, brusque, and delicious—flavorful but not in your face. Sweet in some places, the dish entertained my entire mouth, and paired nicely with a glass of Tenuta Terraviva MPH, a wine with mango and pineapple flavors and a clean finish. The roasted duck arrived with a strong, salty fragrance, a fatty cut with smooth texture and warmth, swimming in savory jus. The veggie pairings, dark and wispy, contrasted with the wilder duck, and came alive with a strong pour of Davide Carlone Boca.

Finally, the dolci, a blackberry mousse cake with chocolate cookie crumble was paired with an espresso Manhattan. The mousse, bright, fluffy, crunchy, and oh-so chocolatey, was a perfect match for the iced latte-like cocktail. I left with a fond memory of soft, whipped mousse and a bold coffee flavor—a whiff of an Italian café.

Blenheim Vineyards taps Fine Creek Brewing Company for new release

There’s nothing that forges stronger bonds and solidifies friendships quite like collaboration. Whether combining resources, such as different raw materials, or providing an area of individual expertise, it’s exciting to work as a team to produce a new or better result. Blenheim Vineyards and Fine Creek Brewing Company did just that when they teamed up for the release of the Collaboration Wine line. 

Charlottesville’s Blenheim Vineyards has a longstanding relationship with Fine Creek Brewing Company, headquartered in Powhatan. In the past, Fine Creek has used barrels from Blenheim, and incorporated different varieties of the vineyard’s grape pressings in some of its beers. Blenheim has hosted pop-up events where Fine Creek poured beer at the winery, and Fine Creek has likewise hosted Blenheim to pour wines at the brewery, where they also feature Blenheim on a list that supports the Virginia wine industry. 

That professional partnership led to personal friendships, says Tracey Love, who oversees sales, events, and marketing at Blenheim. “We have become good friends with Mark [Benusa, Fine Creek’s owner], the brewer Brian Mandeville, and the taproom staff,” says Love. “It felt like a natural progression to invite them to sit down with Kirsty [Harmon, winemaker at Blenheim], and work together on these two wine blends.”

Collaboration blends are priced at $20 a bottle, and take the place of Blenheim’s On the Line blends, a limited-release series intended to help provide healthy meals to frontline workers and others in need during the pandemic. With these new wines, as with their recent launch of the Oenoverse wine club, Blenheim is focused on promoting community and inclusiveness. 

Collaboration White is a blend of chardonnay, viognier, arneis, albariño, and petit manseng. It was aged 15 percent in oak barrels and 85 percent in stainless steel. On the nose, there are notes of sweet lemon-lime, white peaches, apricot, and beeswax. On the palate, the wine is medium weight and textured, with strong acidity and flavors consistent with the nose. 

The Collaboration Red is a blend of merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and petit verdot. It was aged 75 percent in oak barrels and 25 percent in stainless steel. The nose is deep and full of red and black fruit, raisins, and blueberries, with hints of vanilla, smoke, and flint. On the palate, the wine is medium weight in structure with flavors of black plum, fig, raisin, and a long finish with hints of smoke. A bit brooding on first taste, it is best when given time to open up. 

“A chance to tie the Virginia beer and wine scenes together in any capacity is a great thing, and getting to do it with your friends makes it that much better,” says Benusa, calling Blenheim’s staff, “some of our favorite folks in the industry.”—Paul H. Ting

Bevvies of fun

Champion Brewing Company has some recent releases that will pique the interest of board game fanatics, mayo lovers, and Hoos alike.

Members of the Champion Beer Club have access to a limited selection of Catan-themed beers, each one modeled after one of the game’s six biome tiles: wheat beer for the field biome, Schwartzbier for the mountain biome, Altbier for bricks and hills, and more.

This year, Champion also introduced a beer to cheer for: the Cavalier Lager. It’s a light, easy-drinking beer that’s made to pair well with salty game-day snacks and relaxing with friends.

And capping off the tie-in trifecta, Champion has a blend of Vienna malt with Magnum and Saaz hops carefully crafted to complement the taste of Duke’s Mayonnaise. That’s right, there’s even a picture of Duke’s on the can. 

Kitchen concepts

One of the most innovative projects to come out of the Charlottesville food scene recently is Multiverse Kitchens, a digital food hall that features seven local brands. 

Order online take-out and delivery from an array of choices, such as a mother-clucking chicken sandwich from Fowl Mouthed Chicken or Firebox’s grilled oyster mushroom wrap, complete with cucumber salad and yogurt dressing. Or maybe you’re in the mood for a blueberry shortstack from Big H’s Pancakes or a box of fresh-baked cookies from Long Strange Chip. In the Multiverse, anything is possible, (except foods like fries, which don’t travel well).

Founder Harrison Keevil (of Keevil & Keevil Grocery) admits the spot’s name was inspired by Albert Einstein and parallel universe theory. “You can cook a chicken an infinite number of ways.” he says. “So you can create an infinite number of concepts from one kitchen.”

Here’s the scoop

Emily Harpster’s SugarBear Ice Cream has been partnering with restaurants all over the city to offer unique flavors, like Honey Sea Salt Latte and Buttermilk & Jam. And you don’t have to go very far to get them: SugarBear is served at an ever-expanding lineup of local restaurants, including MarieBette, Bowerbird Bakeshop, Feast!, Greenwood Grocery, and several more. “I came into this wanting to keep it simple and creative and collaborative,” says Harpster. “I would love for Charlottesville to have its own local brand so you can pick up a pint from a local market.” Expect SugarBear’s flavor mashups to change frequently—so, if you see one you like, scoop it up.—Will Ham

Eating out as a vegetarian can be disappointing, to say the least. While joints like GRN Burger and Botanical Fare have dedicated entire menus to tasty vegetarian and vegan eats, many restaurants only offer a token vegetarian dish. So for those who are tired of the seasonal vegetable plate, grain bowl, and mushroom risotto, we found five delicious dishes from area eateries that make dining out as a vegetarian fun.

Green Giant, Now & Zen Choosing what to order from Now & Zen’s extensive veg menu can feel like an impossible task. Thankfully, our server came in with a clutch recommendation—the Green Giant. The extra-large sushi roll is stuffed with sweet potato tempura, cream cheese, avocado, and cucumber, and topped with spicy mayo, eel sauce, tempura flakes, and scallions. 

Philly Cheeseshroom, Kitchenette This neighborhood sandwich shop is known for its meaty eats, particularly the Hot Wet Beef, but its vegetarian sandwiches are just as tasty. The Philly Cheeseshroom is a satisfying take on its meat counterpart, and features a blend of mushrooms sautéed with onions and roasted red peppers, provolone, shredded lettuce, and house mayo on a sub roll.

Kimchi Fried Rice, DOMA Korean Kitchen Eating DOMA’s Kimchi Fried Rice is like having a delicious home-cooked meal, which is no surprise considering owners Imsook “April” Lee and her husband, Doyoung Moon incorporate recipes passed down from family members. The simple-but-flavorful dish is prepared with butter and spicy kimchi, topped with a fried egg, and served with doenjang soup. Take it to the next level by adding cheese and tofu. 

Egg Paffle #1, Iron Paffles & Coffee This decadent, flaky waffle sandwich is the perfect brunch meal. Made with egg, cheddar, and housemade sriracha mayonnaise, the paffle is easily converted to vegetarian by substituting tempeh bacon for regular bacon. Iron Paffles’ menu is entirely customizable, and offers alternative preparations for multiple allergies and dietary preferences. 

Rigatoni Verdi con Zucca, Tavola It’s all about the sauce with Tavola’s rigatoni verdi con zucca. A sage-marsala cream ties together this seasonal dish, which features heirloom squash, mushrooms, pecorino, and amaretti crumble, served atop housemade pasta. The flavor is seriously unforgettable.