Oktoberfest events abound in Charlottesville

It’s Oktoberfest season, and breweries, restaurants and bars all over town are celebrating one of the world’s largest festivals, which has its origins in an 1810 mid-October royal marriage in Munich. So dust off your dirndls and lederhosen, Charlottesville, and get thee to a bierhaus. Kardinal Hall Oktoberfest “is in the nature and history of […]

New momentum has Virginia winemakers racing to meet demand

As Virginia’s tobacco industry wanes, the food and wine sector builds momentum. With more than 80 cheesemakers in the state, an intense focus on sustainability at farms such as Polyface, Free Union Grass, Radical Roots and Wolf Creek, and a large, passionate beverage industry, the state is poised to contribute a unique chapter to America’s […]

Kardinal Hall brings the biergarten to a new level

Oktoberfest may be the ultimate celebration of food and beer. Here in Charlottesville, though, the festival’s signature Bavarian fare can be hard to find. Enter Kardinal Hall. Opened last year by the team behind Beer Run, the beer hall and garden filled a gap in Charlottesville dining with food and drink it calls “Alpine.” Truth […]

Great spots: 17 of Charlottesville’s most intriguing places

Be a tourist in your own town. It’s a phrase we employ when we start growing tired of the place we’ve inhabited for…well, let’s just say for a while. This week, we put it to the test, uncovering Charlottesville’s lesser-knowns (and a few tried-and-true classics, for good measure), from a secret garden to a wizarding world […]

Water Street replaces Tempo

There’s a new restaurant in the old Tempo space on the corner of Water Street and Fifth Street SE. It’s fittingly called Water Street, and, according to Ashley Sieg Williams, a trained chef who runs the front of the house, it’s not a rebranding of Tempo—it’s an entirely new restaurant. Williams says she and chef […]

LIVING Picks: Week of September 21-27

Food & Drink Edible native fruits and nuts Saturday, September 24 While exploring the Saunders-Monticello Trail, learn which berries, nuts and fruits are edible, as well as the history of these native foods and ways to prepare them. $18, 9:30-11:30am. Kemper Park, Thomas Jefferson Parkway. monticello.org Nonprofit In the Pink tennis tournament Saturday, September 24 […]

A trip to Italy influences chef’s approach to food

Tavola chef Caleb Warr never intended to cook Italian food. Warr, who grew up eating home-cooked Southern food in Louisiana, says that although he’d always dreamed of owning a restaurant, he wasn’t exactly into the idea of culinary school (neither were his parents). And if he did cook, he didn’t want to be limited to […]

Deschutes, now pouring in Virginia

Rejoice, craft beer lovers, because one of the best in the West is heading out East. That’s right—Deschutes beer is now available in stores and on tap in Virginia. Since their modest beginnings in 1988 as a small public house in Bend, Oregon, Deschutes Brewery has been making some of the tastiest craft beers out […]

Complementary cancer therapies help survivors heal

It’s difficult to find a single person who hasn’t been touched by cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated 1.6 million new cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year alone. And while we know that surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are the most common treatments for cancer, few people know about complementary […]

Brewery wants to tap into the neighborhood

Soon, you’ll be able to sidle up to one of the 45 bar stools at the Random Row Brewing Co. on Preston Avenue and say, “Bartender, I’ll have a random row, please.” The bartender will choose four different beers for you—a “random row”—but those beers have one essential commonality: They’ve all been made in the […]