Food & Drink

The best embellishments add to—not detract from—whatever it is they’re embellishing. No one knows this better than David Heilbronner and Bruce Wilhelmsen, whose Bone Doctors’ Barbeque Sauce took more than two years to fully develop. Like most good stories, this one has humble beginnings. Seven years ago, Heilbronner’s daughter’s soccer team was raising money for […]

Virginia wine has long played an ancillary role in the grand scheme of American viticulture, at its best serving as a competent, if not slightly underappreciated, alternative to its more heralded cousins from the west, and at its worst some sort of morose oddity that gets finished out of sheer curiosity and, perhaps, even a […]

“Slinging pans among flames and rock’n’roll seemed pretty badass for a 15-year-old kid,” says Tommy Lasley, Angelo Vangelopoulos’ pick for a rising star, of his first job in the restaurant world. “It was there that I discovered I wanted to cook.” It is that same kind of energy and enthusiasm that Lasley, now 31, brought […]

“Many young chefs flair up like a meteor flashing across the sky,” says Craig Hartman. “But a chef that spends a lifetime toiling in the kitchen has to have everything it takes to run a marathon of consistency.” According to Hartman, Curtis Shaver of Hamiltons’, at 31, has what it takes. Hartman first met Shaver […]

There are no women on the real Mount Rushmore. Since there still hasn’t been a female U.S. president, there are not even any candidates. Although the realm of restaurant chefs is not quite as male-dominated, it’s not far off. For whatever reason, in Charlottesville as elsewhere, the top restaurant kitchens are still usually run by […]

A protege of not one but two Mount Rushmore chefs, Pippin Hill’s Amalia Scatena has been groomed for success. She spent a year and a half as an intern turned line cook at Palladio under Melissa Close-Hart. Then, starting in 2006, she spent nearly five years with Craig Hartman at Fossett’s, much of it as […]

Although no one could have known it at the time, September 10, 1988 was a big day for Charlottesville food. It was the first day of work in the area for two young cooks: Tim Burgess at Silver Thatch Inn and Vincent Derquenne at The Galarie in Crozet. Not long after, Burgess moved to The […]

Food trends can be slow to reach Charlottesville. Diners in big cities often enjoy (and maybe tire of) the latest fads years before we even get a whiff of them. This is not all bad. For one thing, it gives us some discretion over which trends to embrace. The city’s deliberate pace allows us to […]

Every Easter, chefs, purveyors, foodies, and friends gather for a massive celebration of food and wine centered around the distinctly Greek ritual of roasting a goat outdoors on a spit. Started in 2010, it is now the largest annual gathering of Charlottesville’s food family, and its host is the family’s patriarch, Angelo Vangelopoulos, chef-owner of […]