Bigger, better, and wetter

Now open
The Farm Cville, the charming pint-sized market next door to The Bridge/Progressive Arts Initiative in Belmont, is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every weekday morning by 7:30am in order to be your coffee-and-pastry pit-stop.

All souped up: The best in local stews

All souped up Few things take the chill off your bones like hot soup. And when you want to feed your hunger as well as your soul, there’s its heartier sibling, stew. These restaurants are ladling up some of the tastiest bowlfuls of warmth and comfort around. Petit Pois The French onion soup at Petit […]

Crozet eats

With the Crozet Musical Festival September 30-October 2, we’re focusing our hungry appetites on our Albemarle neighbor. Here’s how to eat your way through Crozet—breakfast, lunch, dinner and beyond.—Christy Baker Breakfast: Southern Way Café (5382 Three Notch’d Rd., 823-9450) The Good Ole Boy Breakfast is just what you’d expect: two eggs cooked to order with […]

Not your medieval mead

Mead, the honey wine drunk by famous olde tymers like King Midas, Chaucer and the Vikings, hasn’t had a big following since, well, King Midas, Chaucer and the Vikings. Mostly poured by velvet-clad, corseted “wenches” at renaissance fairs, mead’s been trapped in the Middle Ages. But with a current estimate of 60 dedicated meaderies nationwide […]

Mind out of time

If you were to meet either Frank Fairfield or Erik the Red on the street, you’d think that each was an absolutely one-of-a-kind, true American original. They’re both difficult to get in touch with, wear high-waisted stovepipe pants, speak with the wide-eyed, hopeful innocence of pre-Watergate Americans, and, indeed, both sing as if the second half of the 20th-century never happened.

Small Bites

The Commonwealth’s Commonwealth Come Friday, Charlottesville will have its own skybar! It’s not the original one planned for the now-defunct Landmark Hotel, but Commonwealth Restaurant’s Skybar is a bar under the sky—and open as of September 23. With 16 beers on tap, a menu of upscale bar favorites blessed with Chef Alex George’s Caribbean/Latin American […]

Chopsticks and wine

When we made our reservation at Peter Chang’s China Grill, manager Gen Lee asked us to bring wine because he doesn’t love their list. The request came as no surprise. Wine certainly isn’t the first pairing that comes to mind when you think of fiery hot and intensely spiced Sichuan cuisine. Beer, yes, or maybe even small sips of water between tears.

Crazy for Chang

Charlottesville cried into its hot and sour soup when legendary Sichuan chef Peter Chang skipped town, but then we counted our fortune cookies when he reappeared to open Peter Chang’s China Grill this spring. There, chefs trained in his techniques and fiery recipes give us a place to swoon and sweat seven days a week […]