Tag: Food & Drink

C-VILLE Weekly’s food and drink writing includes the weekly columns All You Can Eat and the Working Pour, in addition to the most comprehensive food and wine writing in Charlottesville.

Categories
Living

Pepper-eating contestants bring the heat

A crowd at the Livery Stable cheered on brave Carolina reaper pepper-eating contestants, as they fought the urge to guzzle milk for some temporary relief. Photo by Tom McGovern

A row of men plus one woman faced the bar amid a crowd of cheering, beer-hoisting onlookers. In front of each person was a glass of milk and a ceramic plate holding a single red Carolina reaper pepper. The bartender, Curtis Thornton, hushed the crowd and made an announcement.

“The rules of this competition are as such: You’re all gonna eat it at once, and the last one to reach for the milk wins.”

The lone female contestant suddenly bowed out, as had 11 men before her.

“Gentlemen: one, two, three, eat!”

The Carolina reaper is currently ranked as the world’s hottest pepper—hotter than a habanero, hotter than a ghost pepper. Hot peppers are measured in terms of Scoville units. To put the reaper in perspective, a habanero may have up to 350,000 Scovilles. Most cayenne comes in at around 30,000. The Carolina reaper has been measured as high as 2.2 million Scoville units.

The barroom contest was hosted last week at the Livery Stable, a restaurant and bar off the Downtown Mall across from the Omni hotel, at the suggestion of this writer. After a certain quantity of beer had been consumed one night by myself and the owner, Ian Dugger (a former keyboard player for the ’80s band Men Without Hats, among other accomplishments), I implored him to order a shipment of Carolina reapers to put out on the bar to invite some sort of mayhem. Dugger immediately pulled out his smartphone and placed an order.

Once the peppers arrived, we concocted the rules for a contest. Each contestant would have one hot pepper and a glass of milk to tempt him into tapping out. The last person to reach for the milk would win a $100 bar tab.

Half an hour before the contest started, I stood in the doorway in front of the Livery Stable talking to Alex C., a tall professional man in his late 20s who was wearing a pink winter hat.

“It’s going to be the worst thing I’ve done physically to myself ever. I know,” Alex said. “I know it is but I’m still willingly doing it. I love anything that makes me feel anything.”

I also chatted with Jack Graves, a local artist whose work has been featured in a solo show at The Bridge PAI and is currently exhibited at Live Arts and McGuffey Art Center.

“It’s going to be hellacious,” Graves said calmly. “Just try not to overthink it. It’s mind over matter. Honestly, I think the worst part will be using the restroom later. …They’re offering you a glass of milk once you give in but that one glass isn’t going to save you. It’s like a placebo. Wait it out. All you’ve done is cancel your chances. I’m going to win.”

As the bartender gave his order to commence suffering, the contestants chewed in silence.

I have eaten a scorpion pepper, which held the hottest pepper title a few years ago before the Carolina reaper eclipsed it. The scorpion is “milder” at around 1.4 million Scoville units. It isn’t clear to me how exactly one can be hotter than the other: When every nerve ending in your mouth is fully engaged with horrible pain, I don’t see how you turn that amp up to 11. When I ate the scorpion pepper it wasn’t a contest, but I ran for the milk. In my experience, these types of peppers take about five to 10 seconds to really kick in.

Sure enough, Alex began to tremble about 10 seconds in. A young man to his left was panting heavily. Graves carefully removed his phone from his pocket, plugged in a pair of headphones and began to listen to the album …And Justice for All by Metallica. He closed his eyes and almost seemed to be napping.

The crowd cheered and jeered. “Drink…the…milk! Drink…the…milk!” one woman chanted.

Alex stood on his bar stool shaking frantically. He reached toward the milk and then seemed to change his mind, grabbing instead the thick ceramic plate on which his pepper had been served.

He shoved the plate into his mouth and bit down hard. Pieces of broken ceramic scattered across the bar.

“No, Alex, no!” shouted Dugger.

Every breakable object within an arm’s reach of Alex was immediately rounded up and guarded as he stood on his bar stool and attempted to swing from the exposed steel joists above him.

More than five minutes had elapsed and nobody had gone for the milk yet. Ian and I hadn’t planned for this contingency. How do we break a tie?

But Graves suddenly settled the issue for us. He reached toward the plate on the bar containing the remainder of the peppers and popped a second Carolina reaper into his mouth.

The crowd erupted. A gauntlet had been thrown down. Alex reached for a second pepper of his own. But in his agonized state, he couldn’t get it down. He took a bite of it, spat some out in a spray of tiny red chunks and dropped the remainder on the bar.

“Going once, going twice, the winner!” cried Thornton.

With a little help from Metallica, Graves had won the Carolina reaper challenge.

“How do you feel?” I asked him a few minutes later.

“As much as I did earlier, that I’m Jack Graves,” he said. “It was strong but I met it, you know? And I’ve just eaten a second one a minute ago just to bully everyone else out. …It’s hot, like you said. Jittery. Trying to keep my face composed. It wants to twitch a bit. I’m still fighting it.”

Alex was unable to comment.

Categories
Living

Littlejohn’s opens a Pro Re Nata outpost

Littlejohn’s New York Delicatessen outpost at Pro Re Nata Farm Brewery serves sandwich staples, such as the Chris Long sub, along with smaller snacks, burgers and fries. Rammelkamp Foto

Fans of Littlejohn’s New York Delicatessen can now enjoy a Chris Long sub, Bum Steer and Five Easy Pieces at Pro Re Nata Farm Brewery on Rockfish Gap Turnpike in Crozet. The restaurant operates out of a Pro Re Nata-owned food truck on the brewery property, providing food to patrons and offering both pick-up and delivery services to the Crozet community. Littlejohn’s Restaurants Inc. president Colleen Morrissey says customers can choose from a menu that includes the most popular sandwiches and subs from Littlejohn’s location on the UVA Corner, plus smaller snacks, burgers and fries.

Littlejohn’s at ProReNata also offers weekend specials such as sandwiches made with, or made to pair with, one of the brewery’s beers. “Our team is having fun being creative and reacting to the customers’ requests,” Morrissey says. “We’re changing the menu periodically to reflect the requests we receive.”

Chopt, chopt

First, the Corner got Roots Natural Kitchen. Then The Salad Maker opened downtown. Now, Chopt is set to move into the former Ruby Tuesday space at Barracks Road Shopping Center in the second half of 2017.

The chain, which has multiple locations in New York, North Carolina and in the Washington, D.C., area, says on its website that its fresh salads “push the boundaries of what a salad can be, looking ahead to a future where vegetable eating—and better fast food—is the norm.”

According to a Chopt representative, the restaurant will be company owned and operated.

“At Chopt, we believe that we are part of a movement to change the way America eats, and have always looked to forward-thinking students and communities as our partners,” the representative says, citing Charlottesville’s reputation as an “open-minded, health-oriented” community of foodies as a reason for the chain opening a spot here.

Cheese, please

We’ve got plenty of burger joints here in town, but Phil’s Steaks, currently building out the former Dunkin’ Donuts/Baskin Robbins spot at 1509 University Ave. on the Corner, is hoping to steer Charlottesville toward a different beef-consumption method: the Philly cheesesteak.

Phil’s head chef and co-owner Kevin McConnell and two of his friends started Phil’s, a New York City-based food truck, five years ago. Though the truck has a modest menu, offering only authentic cheesesteaks, made with tender sirloin steak, mushrooms and onions, served on bread from Philadelphia’s Amoroso’s Baking Company and smothered in either Cheez Whiz, white American or provolone cheese, and twice-fried fries, it made a name for itself.

McConnell says this first brick-and-mortar Phil’s Steaks location, set to open in mid-March, will be a lunch and late-night spot that caters to the college crowd, serving the truck’s staples plus a few new options like chicken steaks, veggie steaks and onion rings.

Cold spell

Splendora’s is again offering all-you-can-eat gelato Wednesdays during January and February. Fork over $10 and you’ll get scoop after scoop, so long as you follow these rules:

1. No cup sharing.

2. You must stay in Splendora’s—no leaving and coming back.

3. You will get a new cup for every scoop, but keep your spoon.

4. Please don’t have food delivered to Splendora’s

5. Don’t eat so much you die or vomit.

Categories
Living

Cho’s Nachos has got it covered

J.R. Hadley, co-owner of Cho’s Nachos and Beer, says the restaurant employs a special distribution method to ensure each chip is covered with toppings—not a naked chip in sight. Photo by John Robinson

J.R. Hadley has eaten a lot of nachos. When traveling around the country to Pittsburgh Steelers games, Hadley and his friends often ordered nachos to go along with their cold beers at various bars and restaurants. They would rank the nachos according to chip integrity, dispersion of ingredients (nobody likes a naked chip), quality of the cheese and other toppings and, of course, overall taste.

“I’m a nacho snob,” the Boylan Heights owner admits. And at his new spot, Cho’s Nachos and Beer, set to open later this month in the former McGrady’s Irish Pub space on Grady Avenue, the nacho is king.

It’ll have share-size and individual portions of cheesy nachos with Cabot sharp white cheddar; TexMex nachos; short rib nachos; buffalo blue cheese nachos; tuna nachos with sushi-grade tuna, avocado, jalapeño peppers, wasabi aioli and pickled radish piled on top of wonton chips; dessert nachos such as s’mores nachos; plus sandwiches and salads for any nacho-haters.

Lindsey Daniels, who co-owns Cho’s with Hadley and Kristin Roth (who, along with her husband, Scott Roth, founded McGrady’s), says that Cho’s, which is slated to open by Super Bowl Sunday, will have a full bar with 15 beers on tap—“mostly craft, mostly local, from Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina,” she says—plus bottled beer, wine and cocktails.

As far as Hadley knows, this is the first nacho-concept restaurant in the country. “Most bar kitchens have nachos just because,” Hadley says. “But nachos is what we’ll do here.”

Champion expands

Champion Brewing Co. keeps on growing. In addition to its current brewing and taproom operation in Charlottesville and the planned opening of Brasserie Saison in February, Champion is set to open a brewpub by January 31 in downtown Richmond.

Champion president and head brewer Hunter Smith says the spot, located in an old bank building at 401 E. Grace St., differs quite a bit from Champion’s basic-but-comfortable Charlottesville taproom. Champion Richmond has vaulted ceilings and a mezzanine, and while it’s more than twice the size of the Charlottesville taproom, the Richmond location lacks an outdoor patio space.

Another difference? Champion Richmond will have food onsite: a tacos and tortas menu created by chef Jason Alley of Richmond’s Pasture and Comfort restaurants. 

Smith says the Richmond taproom will offer the same walk-up bar style that Charlottesville patrons have come to enjoy, plus a growler station, to-go beers and TVs for sports-watching.

Cary Carpenter, formerly of Parallel 38, The Whiskey Jar and Champion in Charlottesville, will manage the Richmond taproom.

Ken Rayher, former lead brewer at Richmond’s Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, will guide Champion’s Richmond brewing operation. Rayher, who’s really into lagers and has been brewing at Hardywood since 2013, plans to offer several new beers exclusive to the Richmond brewpub. “I tend to gravitate towards continental lagers and somewhat obscure historical styles, so look for some of the former that haven’t been done in Richmond before, and some new twists on the latter,” Rayher says. “I’ve been having a lot of fun playing around with refermentation on fruit and mixed fermentations lately.”

Categories
Living

Local restaurant closings leave us feeling empty

Perhaps the biggest food loss of the year—or at least the one with the largest community outcry—was the closing of Spudnuts this month after close to 50 years of providing us with potato flour donuts. Photo by Eze Amos

The end of 2016 has us eating our feelings. We’ve scrambled to get one more box of Spudnuts, wolfed down our last Brookville baked egg and toast points and devoured a final bowl of Mican noodles. Here’s a look back at the restaurants we said good-bye to this year, plus a rundown of new ones to look forward to in 2017.

Although we said so long to Just Curry on the Downtown Mall, in its stead we have Draft Taphouse, a serve-yourself-style bar with 60 taps.

Mican may have closed its York Place location on the mall, but it didn’t completely disappear from our lives—it now offers a smaller menu in the Lemongrass space on the Corner.

We’re whining about Mountfair Vineyards closing to the public—only club members can sip and savor there now.

The bad news is: Belmont BBQ officially closed. The good news is: The Local Smokehouse (the team behind The Local) fired up a barbecue joint in its place.

Harrison Keevil’s Brookville restaurant served its last meal this month, but you can still enjoy Keevil’s cooking at Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen in Belmont, which opened this summer.

Keeping pace with the changing times, Tempo on the corner of Water Street and Fifth Street SE is now fittingly home to Water Street restaurant.

After 10 years of pints, Tuesday trivia nights and St. Paddy’s Day celebrations, McGrady’s Irish Pub said farewell with a final party in September. Cho’s Nachos and Beer is slated to cater to McGrady’s former regulars.

West Main Street saw some change of spaces as well: C’Ville-ian Brewing Company closed in October, and Snowing in Space nitro coffee has set up shop in its place. And the former Horse & Hound Gastropub space finally has new tenants with Los Jarochos Mexican restaurant dishing out Veracruz food.

Speaking of Mexican food, Yearbook Taco on the Downtown Mall is no more, but owner Hamooda Shami has big plans for the space: A restaurant pop-up concept called 11 Months that changes—you guessed it—every 11 months.

We’re also not ready to say au revoir to Rock Barn, which is selling its remaining inventory through the end of this month. Founder Ben Thompson says we’ll have to wait and see what his next steps will be.

And perhaps the saddest closing of all is Spudnuts, the beloved donut palace on Avon Street. The store has been run by the Fitzgerald family for close to 50 years, and current owners Mike and Lori Fitzgerald said the time had come for an end of an era. The couple still owns the building, so we’re hoping to have more good food news to report soon.

And we would be remiss not to note the departure of one of the greatest culinary masters in this town: Jose De Brito, former executive chef at The Alley Light, joined Patrick McConnell’s staff at The Inn at Little Washington in May.

Full plates in 2017

But as we lament the loss of some of our favorite spots, we’re starting to get excited for new ones that are slated to appear in 2017.

Hardywood, a Richmond-based brewery twice voted Virginia’s top brewery by ratebeer.com users, is on track to open a Charlottesville location at 1000 W. Main St. in the Uncommon building.

In other brewery news, Hunter Smith, of Champion Brewing Co., is teaming up with restaurateur mastermind Will Richey to open Brasserie Saison in the former Jean Theory spot on the mall, where Benelux cuisine will be served, along with exclusive specialty beers brewed on-site by Smith and the Champion team.

Piedmont Place, which recently opened in Crozet, has a whole bunch of food options in the Piedmont Market, inspired by NYC’s Chelsea Market: a brick-and-mortar spot for Morsel Compass’ food truck noshes; homemade, small-batch ice cream at Crozet Creamery and Smojo smoothies and juice. In addition, there’s Smoked Kitchen and Tap (an extension of offerings from the Smoked BBQ food cart that left the Downtown Mall in August) on the lower terrace, and several floors up you’ll find, The RoofTop (also run by the Smoked team), offering pizzas, flatbreads and a Blue Ridge Mountain vista feast for the eyes.

We’re crossing our fingers that James Beard semi-finalist Melissa Close-Hart will finally open Junction, her much-anticipated “Mexican meets Old West” Southwestern saloon/steakhouse-style restaurant in Belmont.

We’re also eager to experience the perks of an expanded Shenandoah Joe on Preston Avenue and a larger Three Notch’d Brewing Co. location at IX Art Park, scheduled to open in November 2017.

And to end the column on a sweet note, we’ve heard Charlottesville is getting a Sugar Shack Donuts and that Sweethaus is moving to a bigger location.

Categories
Living

Bakeries share their holiday treats

The buche de noels at Pearl’s Bake Shoppe depart from tradition with unique designs and customizable fillings. Photo by Tom McGovern

’Tis the season to gather around a table piled high with foods galore. And, thankfully, Charlottesville artisans are preparing plenty of specialty items for the holidays. Here is a sampling of seasonal treats you can find around town.

Albemarle Baking Company

Panettone, the much more popular Italian cousin of fruitcake, is available at Albemarle Baking Company from November through January. ABC makes a traditional panettone with raisins and candied oranges, and uses naturally fermented dough, farm fresh eggs and butter with no preservatives, which give it a rich texture. For many, holiday baking can bring back memories of simpler times, and for Gerry and Millie Newman, owners of Albemarle Baking Company, the panettone does just that. “We like to bake holiday favorites from around the world (including panettone from Italy and stollen from Germany) and share the histories and folklore behind those treats with our customers,” Gerry says.

For the Newmans, one of the best parts of holiday baking is hearing how customers have made panettone part of their own traditions: Some make French toast out of it or hollow it out and fill it with ice cream for a decadent treat.

MarieBette Café & Bakery

Stollen is a type of fruit bread made with candied and/or dried fruits that originated in Germany. At MarieBette, this holiday treat is a departure from tradition with a buttery and dense fruit bread rather than a dry and preserved loaf. They use brioche dough and dried fruit soaked in golden rum then sprinkle the loaf with powdered sugar.

Head baker Hilary Salmon adds a unique rich twist by filling the stollen with crystallized ginger, apricots, raisins, almonds and pockets of housemade marzipan. The hints of crystallized ginger and orange zest come through upon first bite and complement the creamy texture of the marzipan. “I love that it’s a childhood memory [Salmon’s mother is German],” Salmon says. “The spiciness of the crystallized ginger and the sweetness of the bread make for a sweet and spicy combination.”

Pearl’s Bake Shoppe

Buche de noels (also known as yule logs) are a holiday tradition for many, usually made from sponge cake and layered with icing. At Pearl’s Bake Shoppe, they create custom buche de noels for the holiday season. You can choose from a vanilla or chocolate base (the chocolate base is naturally gluten-free, but the vanilla can be made gluten-free as well), and from unique designs that include a birch tree or a vertical log. “We love making them because not only is it a great dessert, but it can also serve as a centerpiece for your holiday celebration,” says Laurie Blakely, co-owner and operator of Pearl’s. With the holidays around the corner, demand is high for this seasonal specialty, she says.

Arley Cakes

In celebration of her first year in business, Arley Arrington, owner of Arley Cakes, is making unique pies for the holiday season. Her spiked eggnog is a custard pie filled with holiday spices and booze—what could be better? Arrington also prides herself on adding unique visual elements to her pies. “This one has a decorative edge made of little pie-crust ‘gingerbread’ people. Spicy, cute and boozy,” she says. Her inspiration for the pie comes from her limitless childhood desire for eggnog. “Each year when I was a kid, once the temperatures dropped and the days got shorter, I’d always start searching for it in the grocery store—it was never too early for eggnog season,” she says.

The Pie Chest

The Pie Chest is known for its seasonal flavors, and this time of year is no exception. The peppermint crunch pie is a play on a truffle, with Callebaut dark chocolate, natural peppermint oil and crushed-up candy canes for layers of crunch. The filling is placed in a chocolate cookie crust and topped with a mint-infused whipped cream. “Nothing says winter quite like this pie,” says Rachel Pennington, owner of The Pie Chest. “The contrast of colors (white, red and black) and textures (fluffy, crunchy and smooth) make for the perfect slice of holiday pie.”

Categories
News

Steak of America: Bank building has restaurant in its future

The Downtown Mall will be Bank of America-less, but will have another steakhouse. Staff photo

When Bank of America closes its branch doors downtown in February, it leaves a grand 1916 building in its wake that will house a steakhouse, according to building owner Hunter Craig.

And while he declined to identify the grilled meat purveyor, he did say it would be locally owned, not a national chain.

Also inhabiting 300 E. Main St., which began as Peoples Bank and during its 100-year history has morphed into Virginia National Bank, Sovran Bank and NationsBank before Bank of America, will be… another bank.

“Not Virginia National Bank,” specified Craig, who sits on the VNB board of directors.

Other as-yet-undisclosed tenants will lease office space in the building.

bankofamericaInterior
The bank’s interior soars. Staff photo

 

Categories
Living

Virginia Tech’s impact on what, where and when to grow

Virginia Tech professor Tony Wolf’s experiments and monitoring of Virginia terroir have an ongoing influence on our region’s winemakers. Courtesy of Virginia Tech

You’ll often find a university at the epicenter of many of the world’s great wine regions. Learning institutions help drive and fund research and increase wine quality. Since 1905, the University of California, Davis has conducted vine and wine research just outside of Sacramento. Its findings have had an immeasurable impact on winemaking in Napa and Sonoma. Hochschule Geisenheim University, a wine-focused institute since 1872, sits in the heart of German wine country and has a far-reaching influence throughout Germany. The University of Bordeaux offers a master’s in vineyard and winery management or a doctorate in oenology and viticulture. Cornell University offers programs in viticulture and has buttressed the explosive wine scene in the Finger Lakes region. In Virginia, we have Virginia Tech, where a significant part of the agriculture program focuses on grapes.

VT’s influence on Virginia’s wine industry can, at times, be difficult to pinpoint. Much of the research and information is freely available online, so winemakers may read an article, apply that knowledge in their own vineyard, and you’d never know that VT had a subtle impact on the wine you drink. In speaking to movers and shakers in the Virginia wine scene, their responses indicated two main areas where VT’s research shapes our industry: viticulture and winemaking research results that winemakers can apply to their products, and VT’s site selection-tool that helps wineries pinpoint great places for grape growing.

At VT, “Tony Wolf and Bruce Zoecklein (now retired) were major contributors to the Virginia wine industry’s growth and improvement in the 1990s and 2000s,” says wine writer Dave McIntyre. “Their research influenced the selection of vineyard sites and grape varieties, as well as techniques in the wineries.”

When I contacted Joy Ting, enologist at Michael Shaps Wineworks, and asked her about VT’s impact, she laughed because she was holding Zoecklein’s article on sparkling wine, which she was in the middle of referencing before tackling a sparkling wine project.

“For me, [the] biggest impact has been the breadth of information about which Bruce Zoecklein wrote,” says Ting. “It doesn’t matter what question I have about wine chemistry, Bruce has written a paper about it. His academic research was vast, but he also wrote Enology Notes, a free online database of short articles collected from his newsletters over the years. It’s a great topical reference for all things wine chemistry. If that wasn’t enough, Bruce was (and still is, despite his retirement) always available to answer questions personally.”

Emily Pelton, winemaker at Veritas Vineyards & Winery, graduated from Virginia Tech and studied with Zoecklein. As a founding member of the Winemaker’s Research Exchange, Pelton maintains a commitment to research and its practical application to Virginia wine.

Virginia’s unique climate faces a host of challenges that many other wine regions don’t confront, such as hurricanes, humidity, hail, frost and local pests such as turkeys, bugs and deer. “When I read the enology literature, much of the work is done in areas whose viticulture is so different that I wonder if the results really apply here,” Ting says. “Also, some of the grape varieties we feature are not widely used elsewhere in the U.S. (viognier, cabernet franc, petit manseng). Virginia Tech helps bridge that gap. The research they do is driven by the issues we see here.”

“Tony Wolf’s research at his experimental vineyard near Winchester, along with his regular updates on weather conditions and disease threats, continue to help growers cope with the challenges Virginia’s tricky environment throws at them,” says McIntyre.

“Their work with vineyard pests and controls has made clean wine making possible,” says local winemaker Jake Busching, with Michael Shaps Wineworks. “We are constantly finding new things that like to damage our fruit. Virginia Tech has been there to find fixes and new methodology for remediation every time.”

VT’s focus on local challenges for vineyards offers practical and custom-tailored research results to winemakers around the state. The application of this research has, in part, been the wind in the sails of Virginia’s recent wine boom.

VT has also developed “a site-selection tool that helps you to see if a specific plot of land is good for growing grapes,” notes Ting. “It basically allows you to locate the plot by address or latitude and longitude, then use a drawing tool to specify where on that site you want to plant. From there, it uses nationally available climate and soil databases to help you see if the site is suitable for grape growing. Since site selection is so important, this is a great first step.”

Ben Jordan, winemaker at Early Mountain Vineyards, thinks the future of higher quality in Virginia wine is to secure the best vineyard sites that aren’t necessarily right next to the winery. He points to VT’s online site-evaluation tool and Wolf as a resource in site selection. “I have been trying to find an awesome site so we can push quality,” he says.

Like so many other wine centers around the globe, the academic world has the ability to ignite a complex and vital relationship between those who study wine and viticulture and those who operate wineries. Many of the world’s great regions thrive because of a healthy link to universities, and it will be fascinating to see how the relationship between Virginia Tech and local wineries continues to develop in the future.

Categories
Living

The Salad Maker opens on Market Street

Jacie Dunkel opened The Salad Maker last week to provide fresh and quick salad options for customers seeking a sit-down spot for lunch or dinner. Photo by Tom McGovern

In The Big Salad episode of “Seinfeld,” Elaine asks George to get her a big salad from the coffee shop. “What’s in the big salad?” George asks. “Big lettuce, big carrots, tomatoes like volleyballs,” Jerry deadpans.

You won’t get enormous salads with gargantuan vegetables at The Salad Maker at 300 E. Market St., but you will find dozens of fresh salad options. Owner Jacie Dunkel, who also owns Tin Whistle Irish Pub and Fellini’s #9, says that while the Blue Ridge Country Store on the Downtown Mall has a great lunchtime make-your-own salad bar, there aren’t many places downtown to get a quick salad for lunch or dinner, and she wanted to give customers another option, especially one with seating.

Tin Whistle chef Karen Fiedler started developing the salad recipes before handing things over to Allison Campbell, previously of Zazu’s and Revolutionary Soup.

Salads are ordered via paper menus available at the door—once you’ve snagged one, write your name on the line and circle your special or classic salad of choice, or select your own components from a hefty list of greens, proteins, cheeses, housemade dressings and more. Then, take your paper to the Create counter, and pick it up and pay—$8.95 for a special or classic, $6.95 and up for a custom—at the Produce counter when your name is called.

There’s the North Garden, with spring mix, spiced almonds, goat cheese, dried apricots, roasted red peppers and balsamic vinaigrette, as well as The Crozet steak salad with romaine and iceberg lettuces, blue cheese, marinated mushrooms, tomatoes and blue cheese dressing. There’s also a cobb, Greek, Caesar and spinach salad, and, if you’re feeling adventurous, opt for a Palmyra salad: in-season ingredients sourced from many local farmers and City Market vendors—it’ll never be the same twice. All salads come with a housemade rye cracker. And The Salad Maker also offers a daily soup, made at the Tin Whistle, and homemade brownies and cookies.

Strike while the waffle iron is hot

How do you like your waffles? With a pat of butter and a drizzle of syrup? Smothered in fruit compote and whipped cream? Scalding hot and crispy brown after a moment too long in mom’s toaster (I’m looking at you, Eggos!)?

Come winter, your preferred waffle consumption method may change with the opening of Iron Paffles and Coffee at 214 W. Water St. At Iron, a paffle—housemade puff pastry baked to flaky perfection on a waffle iron—is a bit richer and more flexible than a waffle, making it the perfect vehicle not just for syrup, caramelized cinnamon apples and whipped cream, but for sandwiches, too.

In February, owner Kathryn Matthews plans to start serving eat-in and take-out paffles such as the Made of Iron, with sausage, bacon, egg and cheese; the Rise ’N’ Iron with blueberry compote, local hickory syrup and whipped cream; the Iron Master, with Southern fried chicken and mac ’n’ cheese; and various vegetarian options. Paffles will cost around $6 each.

Tasty tidbit

Monolith Studio’s chef knives were recently named a runner-up in the Home category in Garden & Gun magazine’s seventh annual Made in the South Awards, which celebrate and encourage Southern craftspeople.

Categories
Living

Mican and Lemongrass merge their menus

Mican's dynamite roll is still on the menu at Lemongrass on 14th Street. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen

After celebrating a decade in business, Pham, the owner of Lemongrass on the Corner, has been looking ahead to the next 10 years. Yoshihiro and Yukiko Tauchi, owners of Mican, a Japanese restaurant that, until this fall, had been located at York Place on the Downtown Mall, fused with Lemongrass.

Says Yoshihiro Tauchi, “[This was] a big idea of Pham. He was a longtime customer of Mican, and [is] our friend.”

Yoshihiro Tauchi is still serving up Japanese dishes, such as the dynamite roll, from his former Mican menu at Lemongrass on 14th Street. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen
Yoshihiro Tauchi is still serving up Japanese dishes, such as the dynamite roll, from his former Mican menu at Lemongrass on 14th Street. Photo by Natalie Jacobsen

“Their set menu of traditional Japanese dishes attracted me again and again,” says Pham. The Tauchis’ menu features flavors from the Kyushu and Hokkaido prefectures of Japan.

And Yukiko mirrors Pham’s praise. “[Lemongrass] stands apart from other Thai restaurants because they rely on subtle flavor to [preserve] freshness and healthiness,” she says.

Now the Tauchis are working under one roof alongside Pham, with both using the Lemongrass name. “The colors of the interior have changed slightly, and we may add a few more Mican touches,” says Pham.

Tauchi is adding sushi, donburi (rice bowl with fish) and ramen to the already-established Lemongrass menu. Due to the number of ingredients and swath of space ramen preparation requires, however, the steaming bowl of traditional noodles will only be available on the weekends for now.

“We hope to make even more menu choices, including ramen, gluten-free and vegan-friendly,” says Pham. “Right now, we offer vegetarian substitutes to our staples.”

Both owners are unified in their focus on healthy dishes.

“We like being in Charlottesville,” says Yukiko. “Both Thai and Japanese cuisines are so popular in Washington, D.C., but we are bringing it here for everyone to enjoy.”

Popping back up

L’etoile is back—but for two nights only. On November 18 and 19, L’etoile chef and owner Mark Gresge, with the help of sous chef Kelsey Naylor, will host 10 diners each night for a seven-course meal at the L’etoile catering station in Crozet.

Gresge closed L’etoile—the restaurant was located on West Main Street, next to Continental Divide and across from the Amtrak station, where Mezze is now—in 2014 after 20 years of serving French-Virginia cuisine. He’s been catering ever since, but Gresge says he misses his restaurant.

Cooking for catering is very different, much more heavily planned than restaurant cooking, Gresge says, and he misses the spontaneity of the restaurant kitchen.

“I wanted a fun evening to capture the L’etoile feeling…let’s just have a meal,” Gresge says about his decision to host a pop-up restaurant. And apparently Charlottesville diners want the same: The 20 seats sold out almost immediately after the pop-up was announced, Gresge says, adding that “the response has been graciously excessive.”

The seven-course menus will be a surprise to dinner guests—“I want to serve what I want to serve,” Gresge says—but he will likely feature some L’etoile favorites and some seasonal local produce.

If you didn’t score a seat, don’t fret: This probably won’t be a one-time thing, Gresge says. He hopes to host more dinners in the new year. We’ll keep you posted.

Tasty tidbits

At the helm…Firefly has a new chef, Ted Miller. And we hear there will be some new menu items rolling out this week. …Eight is their lucky number…Devils Backbone Brewing Company is celebrating eight years of brewing craft beer in the Blue Ridge with two parties—one at its basecamp brewpub in Roseland and another at its outpost brewery and taproom in Lexington—on November 19. The Milestone 8 Imperial Schwarzbier will be on tap at both places.

Categories
Living

Local artisan launches bitters company out of necessity

“The traditional recipes for a cocktail up to the late 1800s were all the same—bitters were a part of almost all cocktails,” says Kip McCharen, founder and owner of McCharen’s Bitters. “It’s a seasoning. It serves the same function as salt and pepper or lemon juice in a dish.” Photo by Matt Bonham

Bitters are back, baby, and one local is looking to get in on the action.

Wait, bitters?

“The traditional recipes for a cocktail up to the late 1800s were all the same—bitters were a part of almost all cocktails,” says Kip McCharen, founder and owner of McCharen’s Bitters. “It’s a seasoning. It serves the same function as salt and pepper or lemon juice in a dish.”

McCharen launched his eponymous bitters company out of necessity—he got into making craft cocktails but couldn’t easily buy the ingredients he wanted. He made a batch of bitters in July. It turned out to be a large batch. At first, he thought he’d give bottles away as Christmas gifts. But he couldn’t wait that long to share them.

“I am terrible at keeping secrets, so I let some friends try them, and they really liked them,” he says.

Bitters have been around for more than 1,000 years, but they’ve been slow to catch on with the modern artisanal crowd. While there are thousands of craft breweries, cideries and distilleries, and more popping up all the time, the number of bitters makers in the U.S. is still somewhere around 50, up from only a few about a decade ago.

And just how many of those four dozen craft bitters producers are located in Virginia? Zip, zero—until now.

McCharen, whose education is in political science and economics and who currently works in finance, saw an opportunity, so he called up the Charlottesville City Market in early August and asked if they might, at some time in the future, have space for him to sell his products. They told him to come down that Saturday.

Kip McCharen is waiting for an ABC decision before he can increase production on his artisanal Virginia bitters. Photo by Matt Bonham
Kip McCharen is waiting for an ABC decision before he can increase production on his artisanal Virginia bitters. Photo by Matt Bonham

After several successful markets and finding his way into a handful of restaurants—Miso Sweet, Lost Saint, Citizen Burger Bar and The Bebedero—through personal contacts, McCharen is at the point where he’d like to scale up and buy commercial kitchen space. “I think he’s got a really cool angle on it, and it might be early enough in the game to catch lightning in a bottle,” says Lost Saint co-owner Patrick McClure, referring to the ability of small bitters producers to be successful on a large scale.

There’s one problem, though: The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Commission doesn’t know what to do with McCharen.

To answer why, you’ve got to understand a bit about how bitters are made. They are, essentially, booze infused with aromatics. You start with a high-strength spirit, steep with a bittering agent like gentian root or wild cherry bark, and flavor it with star anise, orange peel or mint. Sometimes you dilute the infusion with distilled water or sweeten it with syrup.

Where things get interesting is in the taste of the final product and how it’s marketed and sold. There’s no standard for perceived bitterness (international bittering units, or IBUs, are specific to beverages made with hops), so the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has to make a judgment call on every bitters-like product to decide whether it’ll be “potable” or “non-potable.” Potable bitters, like aperol, fernet-branca or even Jägermeister, are marketed and sold like any spirit. They’re a standalone drink. Non-potable bitters are what McCharen’s shooting for.

“It’s this weird fine line,” he says. “They take whatever it is and dilute it down…and depending on how it tastes, they can say it is non-potable. The point is there is no measurable way to do that.”

The fact that no one has produced bitters in Virginia in more than a century only makes things more complicated, McCharen says.

Even if the ABC doesn’t yet know what to make of McCharen’s Bitters, local tipplers seem to be on board. McCharen said before going into business he looked at Google traffic for several bitters-related keywords, and Charlottesville was among the most active areas in the region. Consumer response has borne that out—he’s been profitable through his farmers market and bar sales, and when he teamed up with Miso Sweet to introduce his products at a cocktail dinner in early October, the response was positive.

McCharen says he’s optimistic ABC will figure things out soon—there are about five other alcoholic beverage boards nationwide with rules in place for bitters—but there’s no timeline on his ramp-up. When he does go to full-scale production, he said his goal is to develop flavors that are quintessentially Virginian.

“You’ve got gin from England, rum from the Caribbean, whiskey from Kentucky, and I find it fascinating that there isn’t a flavor of Virginia in cocktails—it’s not represented,” McCharen says. “I’m just really focused on trying to expose Virginia history through flavors.”