Small Bites: This week's restaurant news

 Happy hour in the haus Every second spent eating Tara Koenig’s cupcakes is a happy one, so you’re guaranteed to get downright giddy at Sweethaus’ new happy hour(s) on Tuesdays from 2 to 4pm, when buying two cupcakes gets you one on the, er, haus. A pop-up chef On Sunday, catch Clifton Inn’s Tucker Yoder […]

Farmers first, winemakers second

What’s struck me more than anything over the past three years as I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know our area winemakers through this column, is how they consider themselves farmers above all else. No matter how skilled they are at making up for a bad vintage in the cellar, they all seem to […]

New imprints look to label local bands

Pseudo-sisters Sarah White (left) and Sian Richards bring their old-time act, the All-New Acorn Sisters to Charlottesville’s newest music spot The Whiskey Jar. (Publicity photo) Charlottesville has long been a delicious melting pot of bluegrass, rock, and alt-country, and the number of high-quality performers here seems as good as it’s ever been: so it was […]

From our farms to our tables

  Farm to table eating isn’t new. In fact, it’s as old as the farm day is long. But when it became cheaper and easier to produce and distribute processed foods, we went from a farm-to-table nation to a factory-to-drive-through one. In the past decade or so, as we’ve become more concerned with the safety, […]

Warehouses to pavilions

  A note from Arts Editor, Tami Keaveny: As we go to press with his second Feedback column, I’d like to officially welcome James Ford to our staff. James is well-known in the Charlottesville arts community, mainly because he has worked for or written about so many organizations within it. As an expert on film […]

Thomas Jefferson’s vegetable revolution

  Now more than ever, small-scale gardeners are favoring gentler, “pre-industrialized” ways of vegetable growing. Heightened interest in locavorism, heirloom seed-saving, community gardens, farmers markets, and local food sourcing are also contributing to our collective desire to get our own hands dirty and truly know where our food comes from. Ground-swelling developments like these are […]

Briny bivalves: All about oysters

Oyster purists insist on consuming their sea creatures unadorned and straight from the shell, but the uninitiated might want to work their way up to a slurpfest with these half dozen cooked versions—from poached to broiled—on restaurant menus around town. Rhett’s River Grill serves Oysters Rockefeller—they’re topped with spinach, garlic, cream, Pernod, and breadcrumbs and […]

Small Bites: This week's restaurant news

At tavola on Monday, April 23, a night when the busy Italian eatery usually takes a well-deserved night off, you’ll find the space transformed into an Asian restaurant for a one-night-only pop-up called, most appropriately, Marco Polo

Oysters meet their match on both sides of the pond

(File Photo) As oyster lovers are already painfully aware, April traditionally marks the end of their slurping season. Until September, when months get their “r”s back, it’s advised not to eat bivalves. Some rewrite this rule, proclaiming it a vestige of the past, but if you’re a seasonal eater, you’ll want to wait until the […]

Sweets by design: A look at the new Paradox Pastry space

Designing your dream house, wedding, or wardrobe is a cakewalk with Pinterest—the virtual pinboard that keeps magazine clippings from cluttering your life—but Paradox Pastry owner Jenny Peterson has always been able to visualize her designs. It’s a handy talent to have when the bread-and-butter of your job is producing an average of five multitiered, highly […]