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 […]

There, there. Cozy up to these 20 comfort foods

I conjure a memory of my grandmother—bent over a stainless steel pot of salty potatoes, holding an electric mixer and a jug of milk—every time I cook mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving and, like anyone who has a favorite comfort food, it warms me. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Because scent is tied to memory, just the […]

Hot damn! MarieBette’s hot chocolate so fine

There’s hot chocolate and then there’s the warm, silky-smooth blend of housemade ganache and milk they whip up at MarieBette Café & Bakery. Rich, just thick enough and not too sweet, this cuppa wonderful is made to be sipped slowly and savored. It’s a grown-up version of a childhood favorite, served in a place that treats […]

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 […]

Talking turkey with Foods of All Nations’ Bill Yenovkian

Bill Yenovkian laughs as he attempts to describe the perfect Thanksgiving turkey “without sounding pornographic.” You want a “full, nice-shaped bird,” the longtime Foods of All Nations butcher begins. And then he stops, embarrassed, and tries again: “You want a rounded, plump breast…” Why don’t we start with the number of people you’re serving and […]