Pizza has long been a favorite carry-out food, and that hasn't changed during quarantine. Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria recently posted this photo of a dizzying pizza box tower and asked followers to guess how many. Photo courtesy Lampo Neapolitan Pizzeria
Stepping up to serve free meals
In these trying times for the restaurant industry, chef Harrison Keevil of Keevil & Keevil Grocery and Kitchen is using his talents to serve others. What originally started as a free lunch (about 20 meals each weekday), has expanded to include breakfast and dinner, and by April 13, Keevil is planning to offer 500 meals a day out of his kitchen. He’s currently funding it himself and taking donations at @keevil-kitchen. He’s also keeping it local by using as many area sources as possible—think Caromont cheese, Albemarle Baking Company pastry, and locally grown vegetables. If you know of someone in need, email keevilkitchen@gmail.com for delivery coordination.
Local bartenders get creative
With no bar to tend to at the moment, Tavola’s cicchetti bar team recently launched a Cocktail Quarantine video series. Episode one featured “quarantinis:” Husband and wife duo Rebecca Edwards and Steve Yang, both recently recognized as top 100 bartenders in the U.S., shook up their favorite variations on the martini. The best part? They’re taking requests. Go to @cocktailcoupleva on Instagram or tavola cicchetti bar on Facebook, and send a direct message or leave a comment with your cocktail of choice. Don’t forget to leave a virtual tip!
In the same spirit, The Local’s beverage director Alec Spidalieri developed a cocktail recipe book, which is available on a pay-what-you-can basis as a downloadable PDF. Visit his website for payment information and to download the content.
It’s five o’clock…on Zoom?
What would we do without Zoom and Facebook Live? In the time of social distancing, these platforms are allowing friends to connect and businesses to creatively reach their customers. The Wine Guild of Charlottesville and King Family Vineyards are hosting happy hours and virtual tastings, which allow people to come together while keeping their distance. Want to join the fun? Follow the Wine Guild and King Family on social media for upcoming virtual events.
Survival by takeout
Quarantine is for pizza lovers, or at least that’s the way it seems. Both Crozet Pizza and North Garden’s Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie have added additional phone lines to keep up with ordering demand. And a recent Instagram post from Lampo showed to-go pizza boxes piled high, and asked followers to guess the number of boxes shown. Those feeling fancy have takeout options too, with restaurants including The Farmhouse at Veritas and C&O now offering multi-course meals for pickup. Bet you never thought you’d enjoy steak chinoise in your pajamas, did you?
Most guests at The Farmhouse at Veritas find their way to the porch rockers. Photo: John Robinson
Vineyard lodging is having a growth spurt. As wine tourism grows in Virginia, so, too, do the number of wineries rolling out the welcome mat at everything from refurbished farmhouses to log cabins to luxe suites. More than 30 wineries now offer lodging; here are five local favorites.
The Farmhouse at Veritas, Veritas Vineyard & Winery
A designer’s touch is evident in the updated English countryside feel at The Farmhouse at Veritas, from silk draperies to custom wainscoting to the soft rugs on wide-planked floors. Some of the spacious rooms are snugged up by coffered ceilings over plush, king-sized beds, and a bottle of complimentary Veritas wine waits on a side table. Built in the 1820s as a family home, the Farmhouse at Veritas was updated and reopened as lodging in 2012.
Wine hour begins at 5pm in the salon with small plates of housemade nibbles: cheeses, pickles, charcuterie, and jams. Guests can rack up a game of billiards or take a walk through the Inn’s flower garden and grounds. Most visitors eventually find their way to porch rockers, where they stick like glue until dinner at 7pm.
For late risers, the best part of the Farmhouse schedule is the gloriously late breakfast, served to order from 9 to 11am. A glass of Veritas sparkling wine can be enjoyed solo, or as part of a duet with fresh-squeezed orange juice, along with croissants, fruit, and choice of a sweet or savory main course, such as housemade brioche French toast with house-cultured yogurt, local maple syrup, and granola, or Free Union Grass Farm fried chicken with Gruyère, fried egg, and house-fermented hot sauce honey.
For dinner, guests can drive 30 minutes to Staunton or Charlottesville, but most choose to dine in at the excellent Farmhouse Restaurant. (Reservations required; $85 for four courses, including wine pairings.)
Last fall, there was a particularly riveting photo of Virginia wine country making the rounds—have you seen it? October’s gone-to-orange vines marching in straight rows toward a glittering pond, backed by rising layers of gold-brown and blue mountains, all topped off with puffy white clouds. That iconic image was taken at Afton Mountain Vineyards, and that’s also the view from your private deck when you check in to one of the four Vineyard Cottages. Apartment-sized at 650-square feet, the Cottages feel fresh and airy, with a wheelchair-accessible quadrant design of king bedroom, huge bathroom with walk-in shower, cozy living room with cute electric fireplace, and kitchen with full-size appliances.
A two-bedroom, two-bath Guest House is also available, just 15 long strides from the tasting room. The full kitchen is outfitted for those who love to cook, while a comfortable living room with fireplace, front patio, and screened porch are perfect for those who love to sit.
Lodging fees include two tastings at the winery, and horseback riding in the vineyard can be arranged with a local outfitter. Two of the cottages are dog friendly, but there’s an extra fee.
Dinner options within a 10-minute drive include the excellent Farmhouse at Veritas (reservations required) and the nacho/wings/pizza/burger goodness at Blue Mountain Brewery, both in Afton.
Cottages $165-338; Guest House $225-355, plus fees. 234 Vineyard Ln., Afton. aftonmountain vineyards.com, (540) 456-8667.
Glass House Winery B&B
An extravagance of color, texture, and whimsy, the B&B at Glass House Winery might seem like the harvest of someone’s wildest imagination, were it not for the winery’s other flagship space—a glass conservatory off the tasting room that blooms year-round with 10-foot-tall banana trees, heliconia, and other tropical flowers. Glass House Winery is delightfully exuberant, to put it mildly.
The B&B’s main common areas are modern-meets-jungle with animal print furnishings and lots of greenery around an open kitchen. Outside, wicker furniture surrounds a pool, hot tub, and tiki bar.
Three bedrooms and a large, two-room suite—more sedate in décor—come with ensuite bathrooms, and the live-in innkeeper, Peggy Young, is available to help answer questions and cook up a generous breakfast in the morning.
There’s music and dancing at the winery every Friday from 6-9pm. Children and dogs are welcome at the B&B and winery.
Nearby dining options are few, but Duner’s, a busy local favorite with an upscale American menu, is 20 minutes away, or drive a few more minutes to The Mill Room, reopened this year at Boar’s Head Resort after a multi-year renovation.
$125-395 (book the entire B&B for $650-1,000 a night), 5898 Free Union Rd., Free Union. glass housewinery.com, 964-2190.
Photo courtesy Barboursville Vineyards.
1804 Inn and Cottages, Barboursville Vineyards
An aura of stillness and a sliver of a story begin your stay at Barboursville Vineyards’ 1804 Inn and Cottages, which stands among hulking ancient boxwoods in the shadow of a silent ruin. If former Virginia governor James Barbour’s brick shell of a home (it burned on Christmas Day 1884) reminds you passingly of Monticello, that’s because it was designed in the same Palladian style by a neighbor—Thomas Jefferson.
For sheer elegance, book one of the suites in the 1804 Inn; each has a separate sitting room, fireplace, and wide balcony or patio, plus enough oriental rugs, chintz, and antique furnishings to make you thirsty for an aged brandy. Inn guests breakfast together in the central dining room.
The cottages are more relaxed and casual, each with its own estate history as a schoolhouse, gardener’s cottage, or servant’s quarter. Inside, working fireplaces keep it cozy, and kitchenettes are stocked with DIY breakfast, plus happy hour wine, grapes, and cheese.
A shared deck behind the cottages is great for evening stargazing and sipping on a glass of Barboursville’s luscious dessert wine, Paxxito (available at the winery).
Three additional suites are now open in the Blue Run Cottage, which was the family residence for winemaker Luca Paschina for 30 years.
Though the room rate includes a wine tasting, consider upgrading to the winery’s Library 1821, a quiet, ritzy enclave overlooking orderly rows of cabernet franc vines. For a starting price of $25, you can sample Barboursville vintages dating back 20 years or more.
Reserve ahead for lunch or dinner at Barboursville’s gracious and welcoming Palladio Restaurant, featuring an a la carte menu of Northern Italian cuisine with wine pairings. The price for a three-course dinner pairing is $75 or $105 with wines, while the four-course pairing is $90 or $125.
$240-550, 17655 Winery Rd., Barboursville. bbv wine.com, (540) 832-5384. Library 1821 open Friday- Monday; reservations suggested, (540) 832-3824. Palladio Restaurant open for lunch Wednesday-Sunday and dinner Friday and Saturday, (540) 832-7848.
The tasting room at DelFosse Vineyards sits at the bottom of your palm, just above the wrist. Your fingers hold the trellised vineyard rows, rising up and away. At the top of your middle finger is a log cabin, and as you perch on the cabin’s flagstone patio, big enough for 50 of your friends, the entire estate—lake and winery, tiny cars and people—is your view. You rule. You are master of the universe. At least until the sun goes down; then you are bear bait. Ha! We kid: There’s a huge reinforced fence around the property. So instead, you are simply—alone.
The 150-year-old cabin is the best kind of retreat: full of character yet fully-functional. There’s a comfortable bedroom upstairs, satellite TV, and an updated kitchen and bathroom so thoughtfully done that the integrity of the log house—the smoky, dark woodsiness of it—remains.
The Vineyard Farmhouse, just outside the winery gates, has old-house charm in a modern package. Popular with DelFosse’s wedding parties, the Farmhouse holds nine guests in four ensuite bedrooms, plus full kitchen, dining room, and living room.
For dinner, break out the DIY steaks, or take a country drive 20 minutes northeast to Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie, which, in our opinion, has no reason to be humble: It’s by far the best pizza around.
The Farmhouse at Veritas plunks you down in the middle of the vineyard, setting the tone for the farm-to-table fare inside. Photo: John Robinson
“I think this may be the next Inn at Little Washington,” I said to my husband as we stepped off the wide porch of The Farmhouse at Veritas and out into the moonlight. I was tipsy, and the evening had been romantic, so I was happy and maybe exaggerating a little. Only time will tell.
Like the acclaimed Inn at Little Washington, which opened its doors more than 40 years ago with a menu that included shrimp scampi and veal scaloppini for under $10, The Farmhouse at Veritas, in the Blue Ridge Mountains foothills west of Charlottesville, started with modest intentions. A family home for nearly 200 years, the early 1800s farmhouse was repurposed in 2012 as a comfortable and graceful six-room inn that echoes the welcoming style of its namesake, Veritas Vineyards, next door.
Chef Andy Shipman rarely dines out, relying mostly on his culinary instincts—and inspiration from books like The Noma Guide to Fermentation and the multi-volume Modernist Cuisine—to guide his cooking. Photo: John Robinson
“Because we were so small, we started off thinking we’d just be catering to the house guests,” says Patricia Hodson, co-owner with her husband, Andrew, of the vineyard and farmhouse. “But then people who weren’t staying would ask, ‘Can we come and dine?’ And we’d say, ‘Sure, why not?’”
As word got out, more cars wound their way up the mountain for the four-course, wine-paired dinner, which always starts with a glass of Veritas sparkling wine on the shaded porch or stone patio. It was easy enough to see what was fueling the word-of-mouth marketing: guests exhaled deeply as they relaxed into a rocker and took in the view—a hillside of vines across the road, dripping with the same viognier and cabernet franc they’d find in their glass later.
After about a year, with the 36-seat restaurant selling out every weekend, the Hodsons had preliminary proof of the need for fine dining in Nelson County. But without a major population center nearby (no offense to Charlottesville, of course), an owner’s steps along the fine-dining continuum can be a tightrope walk: the risks of a misstep can be considerable, but the potential for glory—well, just look 70 miles north.
Chef Patrick O’Connell’s balance has been perfect at his Washington, Virginia, restaurant in Rappahannock County. After four decades of creative cookery and synchronized service with a huge dollop of theatrical whimsy, The Inn at Little Washington is now one of a handful of Michelin three-star restaurants in the country. (Many people think the town’s actual name is Little Washington: Such is the power of the restaurant.)
Chef Shipman’s mid-September menu opened with this rabbit-ramp sausage with chili hot sauce, egg yolk, upland cress, and American cheese. His plate compositions tend to be elegant and minimal. Photo: John Robinson
In the kitchen at The Farmhouse at Veritas, Chef Andy Shipman, 32, balances space, time, and expense against flavor. Flavor typically wins. Take breadso, for example. Like miso, breadso begins with a grayish mold called koji. The koji is added to leftover sourdough bread dough, salted lightly, and set aside to ferment for four months. Egg yolks are then laid carefully in the breadso, which acts like a blanket as they cure for several days. The yolks harden a bit, and are grated over a seasonal tomato salad, for garnish and a bit of umami flavor. The process is precise and requires patience, but the results are delicious.
Shipman could have skipped the breadso step if he’d used a sugar- and salt-based curing recipe like the one that made the rounds on social media last year. But he says the breadso gives the egg yolks a deeper, richer flavor that balances with that of the tangy tomatoes from the inn’s garden.
Chef Shipman is mostly self-taught as a cook. His restaurant career began at The Sunken Well in Fredericksburg, where he picked up skills as a dishwasher and busser—plus a lot of empathy for the grind of many kitchen jobs. Later, as a line cook at Foode, also in Fredericksburg, he learned from the smart and charismatic chef Joy Crump, who impressed Shipman with her dedication to craft and masterful kitchen management.
Shipman—an introvert with a close-cropped beard and unblinking blue eyes that let you know he’s listening—is not an easy interview: given a yes-or-no question, he’ll answer yes or no. But when asked about his cooking, out comes the Instagram and a verbal cascade.
About plating constructs, for instance: “Most plates we’ll go high and tight. We try to keep it in the middle. We like to hide a lot of things. Not too much garnish.”
That’s apparent in what at first seems to be a simple plate of asparagus with hollandaise. “It’s asparagus with roasted red peppers on the bottom, there’s preserved lemon underneath, and the hollandaise is actually mouselline,” the chef explains. “It has a little cream added to it, and instead of using butter we use duck fat, so it’s a duck fat mouselline topped with a sorrel leaf.”
Shipman hasn’t been to The Inn at Little Washington. He gets most of his ideas from reading. (The Noma Guide to Fermentation and Modernist Cuisine are recent sources of inspiration.) He ponders whether visiting superstar restaurants would help or hurt his creativity.
“There’s a natural urge to copy,” Shipman says. “When you don’t go to a lot of restaurants, instead of ideas coming from the outside in, they come from the inside out.”
Were Shipman to drive north and check out the Inn, he might notice that the air is magical but not so rareified that it leaves you breathless. The secret ingredient that makes an amuse-bouche of truffled popcorn and a tiny tumbler of minted pea soup so addictive? A very pragmatic device: sugar. In the snug dining rooms, the tables can be a bit tight, placing the occasional entering or exiting derriere directly at eye level. And romantic conversations take a back burner to constant food deliveries—12 amuse- bouches, entrées, and sweets on a recent visit—plus plenty of plate clearing and silverware shuffling. Dining at a Michelin three-star restaurant isn’t about you. It’s for you, but not about you.
Not so at the Farmhouse at Veritas. “Remember that we had some customers who told us they left [here] feeling hungry?” Patricia Hodson asks her husband at a recent dinner.
Finished with his work in the kitchen, Shipman stops by the owners’ table, where Mr. Hodson engages the chef on the portion size of one of the night’s menu items. “You have these lovely delights of the palate, but then you have the main course and you get this…galumph,” he says. “Might the rib-eye portion have been a bit too large?”
Patricia disagrees, saying they’d intentionally added a substantial meat course to the menu. Shipman has likely heard this back-and-forth before but still listens attentively. He’s a partner in the evolution.
Whether to keep a hearty and popular meat- and-potatoes course on the menu or downsize it and add maybe a fish course, or a cheese course before dessert—a French practice that Andrew Hodson likes—is one of many steps a fine-dining restaurateur must finesse on the way toward creating a legacy.
For now, future plans for The Farmhouse include expanding the kitchen and then adding a second seating. What stays the same? The convivial pre-dinner glass of Veritas sparkling wine, served on the patio on warm summer evenings, or comfortably ensconced in a leather armchair by the fire in cooler weather. A flavorful, four-course tasting menu that’s both abundant and original. Generous wine pairings. Friendly but unobtrusive service. In the end, a night that’s all about you.
The Farmhouse at Veritas. $85 per person plus tax and gratuities for four courses plus wine pairings. Reservations required. 72 Saddleback Farm, Afton. (540) 456-8100. veritasfarmhouse.com.
Taleofthetape: How two great restaurants measure up
Food
The Inn at Little Washington offers three tasting menus ($248 per person, plus optional wine pairings for $170 per person.) One menu starts off with “a Tin of Sin”: a cunning sardine-type tin filled with imperial osetra caviar, Chesapeake blue crab, and cucumber rillette. The Inn’s trademark fanciful naming and adorable (really!) packaging can elevate a special night out into a gaga fest. The food, never more than a few bites of any one plate, ranges from fork-stoppingly, eye-closingly good (pepper-crusted duck breast with brandy-roasted peaches) to a bit overwrought (a rather mushy tin of tuna and foie gras confit in black truffle vinaigrette).
The Farmhouse at Veritas offers a four-course menu ($85 per person, including wine pairings) that changes every other week. A recent first course featured an engaging minimalist plating of a square of maple-brined Autumn Olive Farm pork belly roasted for 60 hours, a spoonful of Dr. Pepper-tamarind reduction, a tiny round of cornbread, and a small stack of housemade pickles. Deep flavors and texture contrasts throughout the meal show plenty of thought, and classic sauces—such as a spectacularly flavorful bordelaise on an eye of rib-eye sourced from Lynchburg’s Seven Hills Food Co.—show patience.
Ambience
The Inn at Little Washington is awash in silks and brocades, fringed lampshades and fabric-swagged ceilings. Conversations are muted, superlatives many.
The Farmhouse at Veritas has that rambling feel and wood smoke smell of the best old houses. Couples are seated on an enclosed porch ringed by windows, with tables spaced to allow quiet conversation, while small (and the occasional large) groups move inside to two formal dining rooms. Tables are set with flowers from the garden and special touches like vintage cutlery with pearl-handled knives.
Service
The Inn at Little Washington’s service is a gliding minuet danced by an army of attractive, graceful servers somehow not colliding, never spilling, always smiling. You don’t care for that particular wine pairing? Here’s a new one. Want to know what’s in a dish? Just ask. Everyone knows the answer. To everything.
The Farmhouse at Veritas’ service begins and ends with restaurant manager, Angel Cruz, who, at 7pm on the dot, with a broad smile and erect posture, invites guests to take their seat for dinner. Cruz or Chef Shipman briefly introduce each course, and Cruz describes the wine pairings, all from Veritas Vineyards. Attentive servers smile but don’t intervene without a cue. Cruz keeps a watchful eye on every detail. The meal moves at a leisurely pace—one of the benefits of having only one seating a night, but still like clockwork through the four courses.
Clientele
The Inn at Little Washington’s price tag means “special occasion” for most diners, but the crowd is surprisingly diverse with a mix of families, lovestruck anniversary couples, and blasé Washingtonians who know the staff by name.
The Farmhouse at Veritas’ pre-dinner wine helps loosen everyone up, so there tends to be friendly chatter, especially if the day was spent a-winerying. The crowd is mostly couples who’ve driven out from Charlottesville or nearby Wintergreen, guests staying the weekend at the Inn, or the occasional girlfriend group.
