Charlottesville doesn’t exactly hurt for places to eat, and this year’s crop of newcomers gave us plenty of reasons to rearrange our dinner plans. Chefs came home, familiar restaurant spaces found new life, beloved bakery fare got dressed up for dinner, and somebody finally asked the important question: Why shouldn’t the food at a bowling alley be good? In this year’s Best of C-VILLE, readers gave the Best New Restaurant crown to The Jervey—but one winner hardly tells the whole story. From pho and Argentine asado to proper pub fare and plates made for sharing, we found plenty more new arrivals worth getting excited about. Here are a few of our favorites—and yours.
The Jervey
Charlottesville spoke: The Jervey took home Best New Restaurant in this year’s Best of C-VILLE, and it’s easy to see the appeal.
The Belmont steakhouse occupies a former service station across from Mas, but you’d never guess the building’s past from inside. Wall-to-wall windows, starburst chandeliers, a sprawling bar, and mid-century styling give the room big-city glamour without making it feel too precious. Come in jeans or dress for dinner; either works. There’s even artwork above the bar that doubles as TVs, ready to reveal themselves when there’s a game worth watching.
The ownership team includes Andy McClure and brothers Scott and John Shanesy, familiar names to fans of Belle and Ciaccia, alongside Donnie Glass and Ross Johnson. In the kitchen, chef John Shanesy takes a French-meets-American approach to steakhouse comfort food.
Yes, there are dry-aged steaks. But The Jervey is just as interesting around the edges. Brick-pressed chicken is stripped down to chicken and salt, while a spinach “toaster strudel” goes in the opposite direction, wrapping creamed spinach in pastry and finishing it with truffle butter and Maldon salt. There are Parker House rolls, fried Virginia oysters, black truffle pasta, creamed sunchoke spinach, four different preparations of potatoes, and, because sometimes the classics really are classics, an ice cream sundae or milk and cookies to share.
The bar follows suit with a martini list and cocktails that play with familiar favorites, plus a wine program that includes Express Wine Service—request a bottle ahead of time and have it waiting at the table.
A steakhouse in an old Belmont service station could have been a gimmick. Instead, The Jervey already feels remarkably settled in. Apparently, Best of C-VILLE voters noticed. 901 Monticello Rd.
Red Rose Pub
There’s farm-to-table, and then there’s farm-to-table, comfort-style.
At Red Rose Pub by Chevy Chase Farm, the distance between the Palmyra pasture and the plate is about as short as it gets (20 miles!)—but nobody said eating local had to mean eating light. The Scottsville pub serves scratch-made comfort food built around seasonal vegetables, pasture-raised eggs, grass-fed beef, pork, and chicken raised or grown on the farm, plus housemade breads and other locally sourced ingredients.
And then there are the specials, where things get especially cozy. Take the Philly Cheesesteak Mac & Cheese: creamy mac loaded with seasoned steak, sautéed peppers and onions, and jalapeños. It’s the kind of stick-to-your-ribs fare that feels right at home in a country pub just a stone’s throw from the James River.
At the center of the operation is Joan Giampa Anderson, who started cooking as a kid on a step stool at the kitchen counter. She’s the creator behind the recipes that now fill Red Rose Pub tables, from her signature sourdough bread to ketchup, smoky barbecue sauce, creamy mayo, nut-free pesto, and, naturally, Red Rose Pub Sauce. She also dreamed up the Sunflower Bowl, made with freshly ground meat and her sourdough bread, topped with a sunny-side-up egg.
The setting at 515 Valley St. follows suit: warm and rustic, with red roses popping up throughout the décor. (With a name like Red Rose Pub, why be coy about it?) 515 Valley St., Scottsville
Maggie’s Midtown
We may never get over the closing of Blue Moon Diner, but when the sign went up at 606 West Main announcing a new spot called Maggie’s Midtown, our curiosity was piqued. And when we learned the team included Smyrna’s Tarik Sengul, well, we were ready to see what was coming.
The answer: a proper pub with some serious culinary chops.
Sengul, a James Beard Award semifinalist, joins veteran bartender Mike Stewart and restaurateur Bradley Geist in taking pub favorites to a new level. The menu leans hard into elevated comfort: pub oysters with rarebit and guanciale; shepherd’s pie with braised lamb and short rib, red wine reduction, and mashed potatoes; and fish and chips and bangers and mash.
But Sundays may be the time to go hungry. The weekend roast pairs local organic beef with roasted Yukon gold potatoes, vegetables, horseradish and herb dipping sauce, and silky pan-dripping gravy, with housemade Yorkshire puddings ready to soak up every last bit. Somehow save room for sticky toffee pudding or an Eton Mess of crushed meringue, berries, and whipped cream.
The setting is nearly as satisfying. Built in 1884, the Hartnagle-Witt House retains its original interior brick and upstairs floors, with a casual bar downstairs and a more polished dining room above.
And Stewart’s drinks meet the food where it is: classic, but with a little extra attention. Negronis and Vieux Carrés are barrel-aged, the piña colada is clarified, and his Pimm’s Cup gets cucumber, lemon, strawberry, and ginger.
Blue Moon left big shoes to fill. Instead of attempting to do that, Maggie’s gives one of Charlottesville’s most storied restaurant spaces a new reason to feel lived in. 606 W. Main St.
The Enemy
Keep your friends close and The Enemy closer—especially if there are empanadas involved.
Opened in late April on the Downtown Mall, The Enemy is the fine-dining creation of Cumbre Bakery founders Augusto Rodriguez Araoz and Juan Brandan. And if you already know Cumbre for its baked goods and empanadas, consider this their dressed-up evening counterpart.
The Enemy keeps its menu short and seasonal, drawing on European influences and Rodriguez Araoz’s Argentine roots. Cumbre fans will recognize the empanadas, though here they arrive as a polished trio of beef, chicken, and caprese. The ossobuco, meanwhile, pairs slow-cooked meat with mashed potatoes and a malbec reduction.
The restaurant represents a long road for Rodriguez Araoz, who immigrated to the United States from Argentina and began his restaurant career washing dishes in Miami before making his way to Charlottesville. After co-founding Cumbre and dreaming for years of opening his own restaurant, he landed on the new eatery’s name during long nights spent preparing The Enemy for its debut: Sometimes the biggest thing standing in your way is yourself. Inside, the York Place space has been transformed into an elegant dining room designed for a celebratory night out, with a menu that takes some familiar flavors from Cumbre into decidedly fancier territory.
The Enemy may be out to get you, but so far its primary weapon appears to be those empanadas. We can live with that. 112 W. Main St. #6
Aster
After 17 years of cooking his way through Austin, Nashville, and Chicago—including time in Michelin-starred kitchens—Drew Dunston came home to Virginia.
At Aster, which opened in May in downtown’s Glass Building, Dunston and sommelier Caleb Russell have built a restaurant around a shared affection for the place they grew up. The menu starts with Virginia ingredients—Shenandoah Sky Ranch beef, Smoke in Chimneys’ trout, Our Lady of the Angels’ cheese—which Dunston transforms using techniques and flavors he picked up along the way, with Nordic, Japanese, and French influences in the mix.
That makes for dishes with stories behind them. Dunston’s fried chicken, adapted from a recipe he once helped serve to Barack Obama and Joe Biden aboard Air Force One, arrives with koji hot sauce, pickles, radishes, buttermilk, and dill. Crab toast splits the difference between a Mid-Atlantic crab cake and Cantonese shrimp toast, stuffing Old Bay togarashi-seasoned crab between slices of buttered toast. And Cleo’s Date Cake reaches further back: The family recipe comes from Dunston’s great-grandmother.
The restaurant itself got an equally thoughtful makeover. The former Bluegrass Grill and Chickadee space is now an intimate 35-seat dining room filled with wood, soft lighting, sage green, and cream. Russell even built the Virginia white oak tables and bar top himself. A window into the kitchen offers a glimpse of the chef and his team at work.
Russell’s beverage program follows the kitchen’s lead, with wines selected to complement specific dishes and Virginia wine, beer, and spirits in the mix.
Aster may be named for a Blue Ridge wildflower, but the local connection goes much deeper than the decor. After nearly two decades away, Dunston isn’t just cooking in Virginia again—he’s cooking about it. 313 Second St. SE #105
Noble Argentinian
Steak seems to be only part of the point at Noble Argentinian Steakhouse.
The restaurant, opened by Argentine natives Enzo Segui and Leandro Fauze, is built around the tradition of asado: cooking meat over fire, yes, but also gathering around it. The two grew up in the same city, Tucumán, though they didn’t meet until both landed in Miami. They later made their way to Charlottesville, where the idea for a restaurant celebrating the food and communal spirit of home began to take shape.
Noble opened in late 2025 in the former Paradox Pastry space at 313 Second St., which has been transformed with leather and marble into an elegant parrilla. In the kitchen is Segui’s sister Karla, a longtime chef who moved from Florida for the job.
Beef, unsurprisingly, is the star. There are familiar cuts like ribeye, New York strip, and skirt steak, cooked over a wood fire with little more than salt and served with chimichurri and red peppers. But look for banderita, too: thinly cross-cut short ribs traditional in Argentina and less commonly found in the U.S.
And should your steak somehow not involve enough fire, there’s the flambadou. The cast-iron funnel is heated directly in the flames, filled with butter or fat, then held over the meat as its flaming contents drip down. Subtle? No. Do we want to see it? Obviously.
Beyond beef, Karla makes Tucumán-style empanadas filled with chicken, beef, or onion and cheese, plus veal, chicken, and eggplant versions of milanesa. Dulce de leche finds its way into crepes and cheesecake and alongside flan.
Fauze, formerly a sommelier at Marigold, oversees a wine list with a strong Argentine presence.
Come for the steak. Stay for the fire show. And bring friends—asado was never really meant to be eaten alone. 313 Second St. SE #103
Mai Tea Vietnamese Cuisine
Can pho cure tonsillitis? Almost certainly not. Has one particularly enthusiastic Mai Tea customer credited a bowl of pho tai chin with stopping her friend’s coughing and hacking? Yes. And frankly, that’s the kind of restaurant review that gets our attention.
Mai Tea Vietnamese Cuisine opened on Water Street in the Holsinger, tucked between The Melting Pot and C&O and bringing Vietnamese cooking—and plenty of bubble tea—to the Downtown Mall neighborhood. The menu focuses on two very good reasons to stop in: milk tea and pho, rounded out with banh mi and other light sides.
Pho is an obvious draw, including that apparently miraculous pho tai chin, with rare and well-done beef. Customers have praised both the pho and the speed at which those steaming bowls make it out of the kitchen—which is important when the craving hits.
Then there’s the “tea” half of Mai Tea. Bubble tea shares top billing here, making the restaurant as viable for an afternoon drink stop as it is for settling in over a bowl of noodles. One online reviewer who found the pho portions a little pricey nevertheless declared the bubble tea the best in town. You win some, you sip some.
The space itself is clean and roomy, with plenty of seating, and diners have also singled out the friendly service. More meaningful still are comments from Vietnamese customers who say eating here makes them miss home a little less. That’s a pretty compelling endorsement for a restaurant centered on traditional Vietnamese flavors.
So no, we cannot endorse pho as a substitute for antibiotics, a doctor, or any other form of legitimate medical care. But when somebody puts a hot bowl of the aromatic noodle soup in front of you on a lousy day? Mai Tea makes a pretty convincing case for its restorative powers. 509 E. Water St.
SunPins
Bowling-alley cuisine has historically set a pretty low bar. SunPins would like a word.
The duckpin bowling spot at Dairy Market takes over the former South and Central space with six miniature lanes, tech-enabled darts, a full-service bar, and—here’s the surprise—a scratch kitchen turning out food we’d happily order even without the promise of knocking down a few pins.
That’s all part of co-founder George Ordway’s plan to rethink the dark, windowless bowling alley of yore. SunPins is instead filled with light, with retractable glass doors opening onto a beer garden-style patio when the weather cooperates. The smaller, lighter duckpin balls and quick games also happen to make it particularly easy to sneak in a bite between turns.
And there’s plenty worth reaching for. Chef Scott Schuett’s shareable menu includes fried green tomatoes with housemade ranch and pimento dip; crispy Brussels sprouts with chorizo vinaigrette and queso fresco; and blistered shishito peppers with miso and sesame. Flatbreads include a prosciutto, apple, and brie version layered with apple butter, arugula, and balsamic glaze.
Even the salads refuse to phone it in. A shaved Brussels sprout salad combines spinach, apples, goat cheese, spiced pecans, and balsamic vinaigrette, while the kale Caesar ditches ordinary croutons for an enormous baked Parmesan crisp meant for shattering over the greens. Vegetarian and gluten-free options are woven throughout the menu.
Cocktails, wine, draft and bottled beer—including local selections—and plenty of nonalcoholic choices round out the experience.
Turns out the trick to making people want to bowl more might be pretty simple: Give them something better to eat than bowling-alley nachos. 946 Grady Ave.
