First announced in February 2022, Clark’s occupies the former Montrose Car Care building at the corner of West Alabama and Montrose. It’s part of Austin’s acclaimed McGuire Moorman Lambert Hospitality, the hotel and restaurant group behind Austin staples such as Jeffrey’s, Joann’s, and Perla’s Seafood & Oyster Bar. Houston’s Clark’s joins the original in Austin as well as a second location in Aspen, C

Inspired by American seafood from New England to San Francisco, Clark’s menu covers a wide range of options. As its name implies, the restaurant’s raw bar section starts with oysters from the East and West Coasts. It also includes caviar, crudo, ceviche, shrimp cocktail, and seafood towers.

Entrees options range from East Coast staples like a lobster roll, clam chowder, and fried clams to classics such as cioppino, crispy snapper, and linguine with clams. Non-seafood choices include steak, chicken paillard, and a well-regarded cheeseburger topped with sauce gribiche and gruyere. Breads, including the restaurant’s signature sourdough, are made in-house.

“We have several restaurants and I love them all, but there’s something special about Clark’s,” MML co-founder Tom Moorman said in a statement. “It’s got great classic seafood, a setting that feels like a nice place in New England, and honest American cooking with just the right amount of luxury.”

The company’s in-house design team took the lead on transforming an auto repair shop into a contemporary restaurant. Design details include leather booths, a yellow-and-white-striped awning, a marble-topped oyster bar, a private dining room, and a “see-and-be-seen patio.” A 280-gallon aquarium is sure to serve as a backdrop for social media photos.

Clark’s arrives at a moment when Houston has been flush with a number of new, upscale seafood restaurants. They include Navy Blue, Aaron’s Bludorn’s restaurant in Rice Village; Little’s Oyster Bar, the caviar-obsessed restaurant from Pappas Restaurants; and Balboa Surf Club, a California-inspired restaurant from the owners of il Bracco. In addition, Dallas’s Vandelay Hospitality Group will (finally) open Hudson House next to Brasserie 19 in the coming weeks. Houston restaurateur Ben Berg will put his spin on New England-style seafood at a new restaurant called Dune Road that’s opening downtown. Despite all the competition, MML co-founder Larry McGuire has even loftier aspirations for Clark’s.

“I’m a huge fan of El Tiempo, Hugo’s, Pappas, Armando’s, Da Marco, and the other Houston institutions,” he said. “We don’t really have a bunch of those kinds of spots in Austin and I think those are the restaurants that Tom and I have been trying to build. We have tons of friends and family in H-Town and look forward to cooking and hosting for them and creating a special place in Montrose.”

Only time will tell whether Clark’s achieves the same kind of longevity as the restaurants McGuire cited. For now, expect the Austin import to draw plenty of attention as Houstonians decide for themselves whether the restaurant lives up to its lofty reputation.

Source : Culture Map Houston

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From classic chocolate chip cookies to fruity snickerdoodles and holiday party-worthy linzers, these are the cookie recipes we make again and again

Cookie season is here, when it’s no longer too hot to turn on the oven, and when we’re practicing our best bakes in hopes of impressing at all the holiday cookie parties to come. The cookie can be humble, like the simple sugar cookies plus mix-ins that we make when we have leftover candy laying around, or snickerdoodles and their many variations. Or cookies can be a whole ordeal, like project-worthy linzer cookies that call for some helping hands. Whatever your cookie preferences, these are the recipes that Eater editors turn to time and time again, because life is always better with a fresh batch of cookies.

Strawberry Rose Snickerdoodles

Michelle Lopez, Hummingbird High

I adore Hummingbird High recipe developer Michelle Lopez’s cookbook, Weeknight Baking: Recipes to Fit Your Schedule, which includes a wide range of snickerdoodle variations. Thinking beyond the cinnamon sugar in terms of snickerdoodle coating is such a simple, smart way to do something fun with what’s probably my favorite type of cookie. Her base snickerdoodle formula is so strong — chewy and soft, with set edges and the right amount of lift from the cream of tartar — but this specific recipe also uses a splash of rose water in the batter, which both keeps them moist and adds a beautiful floral note. Lopez finishes the cookies with a strawberry sugar made from freeze-dried strawberries, which is great, but you can also get playful and swap out the freeze-dried strawberries for raspberries and/or sumac, another tip I got from her book. — Brooke Jackson-Glidden, editor of Eater Portland

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Deb Perelman, Smitten Kitchen

I have maybe four happy memories of the early days of pandemic lockdown, and three of them involve Deb Perelman’s chocolate peanut butter cup cookies. I found them at the perfect time, meaning just after the initial horror had started to fade but before the general despair took hold, and boy, am I glad I did. These are cookies that know how to lift a mood. This is in large part because they are more or less a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, the most perfect candy known to humankind. They’re also very easy to make. You just mix together some peanut butter, powdered sugar, and salt into little balls, then chill them in the freezer while you make the chocolate cookie dough that you then shape around them. The dough also contains peanut butter, because there can never be enough peanut butter in a peanut butter cookie. After you roll the dough in a little sugar, you bake the cookies for what doesn’t seem like enough time but is the perfect amount of time because you wind up with little tuffets that are soft on the outside, gooey on the inside, and so good that they induce a pharmaceutical-grade state of bliss. You will probably want to eat at least three at a time, and I recommend that you do. — Rebecca Flint Marx, home editor

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Farideh Sadeghin, Saveur

One thing I like about getting older is my increasing ability to see a trend and think, I’ll sit this one out: checkerboard-everything home interiors, the return of ballet flats, and, to bring it back to food, those thin, “pan-banging” chocolate chip cookies that everyone seems to make now. Despite the popularity of rippled, crispy cookies, my cookie tastes have always leaned cakier — more in line with Levain than with Tate’s. Since the former served as the inspiration for this chocolate chip recipe, it’s no surprise that it hits the exact notes I’m looking for: a thick, cakey cookie that’s gooey in the center and dotted with puddles of chocolate. It’s the only chocolate chip cookie recipe I reach for now, baking trends be damned. This recipe freezes well, too: Scoop your dough into balls, freeze them on a baking sheet, and then transfer them into a freezer bag. — Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter at Eater.com

Pretzel Linzers with Salted Caramel

Deb Perelman, Bon Appétit

Linzers are persnickety, what with rolling the dough, cutting shapes, and prepping fillings. These pretzel caramel numbers are no exception, requiring bakers to also wedge a cutting board in their freezer and arrange cookie segments on cooling caramel. But they’re also very gratifying for the work. I first made them as part of an assorted holiday cookie tin, which was a mistake, both because the linzers require enough work to count as a standalone project and because they outshined every other cookie in the box. They’re salty and sweet, snappy and chewy. They deserve to shine on their own, and they make a great group activity. A food processor, a microwave, and enough room to spread out make the task a lot easier. — Nick Mancall-Bitell, travel editor

M&M Cookies

Eric Kim, NYT Cooking

I have an M&M bar recipe that I’ve been loyal to for several years, but something still made me try Eric Kim’s M&M cookies recipe. It’s become a surprise hit — I’ve made these cookies for everything from snacking to camping to entertaining, and people can’t seem to get enough of them. They’re soft and well balanced and couldn’t be much easier to make. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Kim wouldn’t let me down: His gochujang caramel cookies were a big hit for Christmas last year, and these have a similar perfect chewiness. Subbing this recipe for my old favorite M&M bars also means I don’t have to run out and get shortening, which I use only for that recipe, anytime I make them. — Missy Frederick, cities director

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toffee

Kate Davis, Bon Appétit

To me, chocolate chip cookies are like movies. Everyone has a favorite that they’re always willing to revisit, but no one tends to agree on which one is best. My go-to is the rich, salty-sweet rom-com that is Kate Davis’s brown butter chocolate chip cookies, which are speckled with cameos of Toblerone fragments crushed into little toffee-studded geodes. The recipe doesn’t linger in the saccharine, though: If you’re not into the flat, cavity-inducing rom-coms, this isn’t just filler with a great PR team. Instead, hefty chunks of flaky kosher salt and that deeply nutty, toasty butter bring out the complexity and intrigue that keeps any creation from feeling bland or half-baked.

And even if you find that the recipe doesn’t meet every single one of your personal tastes, it’s adaptable enough to accommodate whatever add-ins or substitutions you may need to make. No Toblerone? Skip it! Not enough milk chocolate? Add dark chocolate, pretzels, or nuts! Whatever you want from the experience, this cookie can provide, and it’s always ripe for a remake. — Jesse Sparks, senior editor

Chocolate-Covered Marranitos

Rick Martinez, Food52

Few things capture the feeling of stepping out of the cold and into a loved one’s home like Rick Martinez’s recipe for chocolate-covered marranitos, pig-shaped cookies that are infused with velvety molasses, grated piloncillo, allspice, and warming ground chile de árbol, then topped in melted dark chocolate.

The cookies are straightforward to prepare, relying on three of the most sacred baking steps: simply mixing the dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another, and then combining wet and dry. From there, the dough gets a little bit of time to hydrate, and then you’re ready to roll it and bake. In case the recipe still feels a bit too intimidating, Martinez has a video walkthrough that I may or may not rewatch every time I remake these little piggies. In many ways, they’re an emphatic celebration of cookies’ underappreciated abilities to highlight the depth and richness of ingredients that often get forced into a supporting role (looking at you, unapologetically complex chocolate, molasses, and piloncillo). Plus, they offer an activity for family and friends of all ages: decoration!

Whether you’re the host or the guest offering these treats, everyone lucky enough to get one will want to stay a while. — JS

Source : Eater

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Here, we dig into the French Quarter’s spookiest bars and restaurants.

 Muriel’s

801 Chartres St.

• Driving the heebie-jeebies: The restaurant is said to be haunted by the ghost of Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan, who once lived in the building and died by suicide there after losing in a card game.

 Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop Bar

941 Bourbon St.

• Driving the heebie-jeebies: The bar is said to be one of the oldest in the U.S. and used as a base for pirate Jean Lafitte. Ghost hunters have reported sightings of floating red eyes and the aura of a woman who died by suicide.

 Pat O’Brien’s

718 St. Peter St.

• Driving the heebie-jeebies: Bar patrons often have to navigate long lines at women’s restrooms, but at Pat O’s, the bathroom line is also rumored to feel especially spooky.

 May Baily’s Place

415 Dauphine St.

• Driving the heebie-jeebies: This cocktail bar inside the Dauphine Orleans Hotel was home to May Baily’s brothel. A former call girl is believed to haunt the bar, rearranging bottles and being spotted in mirrors.

 MRB

515 St. Philip St.

• Driving the heebie-jeebies: Another former brothel, the MRB bar is home to a rather feisty lady ghost, who is said to have been a prostitute who hanged herself in the courtyard. She has been spotted in the mirror in the women’s restroom and is believed to have shoved people and even smashed the mirror.

 The Court of Two Sisters

613 Royal St.

• Driving the heebie-jeebies: It’s hard to pick one legend as the source of this restaurant’s ghost stories. Some say you may spot the pair of sisters who used to live in the building, or the ghost of a woman murdered there by her husband. In still another story, pirate Jean Lafitte is said to have killed three men in a trio of duels in the courtyard.

 Napoleon House

500 Chartres St.

• Driving the heebie-jeebies: The ghosts of an old woman sweeping the floor, a young woman who died under suspicious circumstances and a drinking sailor are all said to haunt this historic building, which once was intended as a getaway for Napoleon Bonaparte.

Source : AXIOS

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Just in time for chilly winter nights, Kraft Singles and chef Shirley Chung have collaborated on a limited-time run of grilled cheese and tomato soup dumplings. These ultra-gooey morsels combine the age-old beloved flavor combo into one-bite “Souplings.”

In this reimagination of a classic soup dumpling, the tomato soup and gooey cheese are tucked neatly inside the dumpling wrapper in a Chinese-American culinary fusion. As Chung notes in an official press release, “I love marrying traditional, authentic Chinese cuisine in new and progressive American ways.” She saw dumplings as a great vehicle to achieve that with tomato soup and grilled cheese.

Chef Shirley Chung has worked under Thomas Keller and Guy Savoy and as the Executive Chef at China Poblano by Jose Andres. In addition to being the Season 14 “Top Chef” runner-up, she appeared on the Food Network’s “Tournament of Champions” and has been a featured chef at the James Beard House. In other words, Chef Chung knows her stuff, and she’s serving the new Souplings for a limited time at Ms Chi Café, her Culver City, C.A. restaurant. (The Los Angeles Times even named Ms. Chi on “The Best Dumplings in Los Angeles” list.) Foodies outside of California can try the Souplings for themselves by ordering online via Goldbelly.com. A 16-pack runs for $89.95 and ships for free frozen on dry ice. Per the website, each dumpling weighs about 1.2 ounces and the 16-pack serves two to four people.

The first convenient way to bring grilled cheese soup dumplings home

So what might set this new dish apart from the others like it? Kraft’s version seems to be the first convenience-friendly option of its kind. Othervgrilled cheese and tomato soup dumpling predecessors have been the laborious fruit of much labor by home cooks. Kraft’s bad boys can just be reheated to enjoy (if you can digest the $90 price tag).

Source : Tasting Table

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The biggest name of the evening was Bar Long Fang, which not only won Best Cocktail Menu but was also named Bar of the Year. The bar, situated adjacent to the Park Plaza Hotel near Wangfujing, is more than deserving of the title, with each cocktail going through extensive tooling and tasting, utilizing fresh and unexpected ingredients in keeping with manager Fan’s motto “A good cocktail must be tasty.”

Other standouts include the Andingmen branch of Non-Binary, which won Best Design, and Rabbit Hole, which was awarded Best New Bar.

The action at Non-Binary, where the drinks concocted are some of the tastiest science projects

The former, which opened earlier this year nearly across the street from Paddy O’Shea’s on Dongzhimenwai Dajie, is part nightclub, with regular gigs in a minimalist space and a nice menu of drinks to boot.

The latter sits hidden up a staircase above beer bar Tiao Hai. Non-Binary isn’t just well designed, but also utilizes some wild equipment situated behind the bar counters to concoct what are, in our opinion, some of the most truly innovative craft cocktails in Beijing.

UNION took home three awards at this year’s ceremony

UNION, the Opposite House’s hotel bar, took home three awards: Best Service, Bar Team of the Year, and the Young Bartender Award for Charles Huang.

Other winners from Beijing include TRiO, Jing-A Taproom CBD, YAN Whiskey Bar and Mo Bar at the Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing, who took home Best Wine Bar, Beer Menu, and Whiskey Menu, and Hotel Bar respectively, as well as Alfred Yu of Paper Planes and Non-Binary, who took home the Entrepreneurship Award.

Jing-A’s CBD Taproom earned a victory for their beer menu

Outside Beijing, Old News of Dalian won Best Restaurant Bar and Zee Wang of Flow Bar & Lab in Shenyang won Bartender of the Year.

With victory for all the above, there’s still more room for further greatness. The winners of the North Regional DRiNK Awards are all in the running to take home national prizes when the DRiNK Awards hit Shanghai in March 2024.

*All awards at this event are designated with North in the original DRiNK announcement, but this designation has been removed for flow.

Source : The Beijinger

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Few things are as simple and as delicious as roasted sweet potatoes mashed with butter and salt. It’s entirely possible to take a bite of that side dish and want for nothing. During the holiday season, when sweet potatoes have their time to shine, there’s a way of dressing them up as a standalone appetizer that makes for both an alluring presentation and flavor enhancement: Bake and serve your sweet potatoes in nearly-whole orange peels. With this one trick, you will have solved the tripartite dinner party problems of festive presentation, portion control, and unnecessary food waste, making you an undisputed genius.

You may not be surprised to hear that the principal ingredients in these sweet potato orange cups are cooked, mashed sweet potatoes and medium-size oranges. (What you put into the sweet potato mixture is up to you, and there are many delicious options out there.) Simply cut about ½ inch off the top of each orange and scoop out the flesh with a spoon. (Now, you can snack on delicious fruit while you make the filling!) Stuff the empty peels with the sweet potato mixture and bake in a casserole dish partly filled with water. Then it’s simply a matter of placing one little half-sphere of deliciousness on a plate for each of your guests as a dazzling first course.

Sweet Potatoes And Oranges: Best Friends Forever

Using orange peels as a cooking and presentation vehicle for mashed sweet potatoes is only one iteration of a long and cherished culinary relationship. We’ve seen this particular combination of root vegetable and fruit forever: glazed, roasted, mashed, and more. It makes sense — marrying these two ingredients completes a flavor spectrum that starts on the low end with sweet potato’s earthiness and ends with orange’s citrus high notes, with the sweetness of both meeting in the middle.

What is both new and nuanced about sweet potato orange cups (besides their eye-catching presentation) is the very slight bitter notes added by the white pith inside the peels. If you decide to add orange juice and zest to the mashed sweet potato mixture, you will be showcasing every possible flavor of the fruit, and there’s something deeply satisfying about that idea. Also, just imagine how good your kitchen is going to smell in the process!

Someone Else Wants To Join The Party, And The More The Merrier

There’s already been much said about cooking with sweet potatoes and various bits of orange. If you think about it, there’s room for other flavors as well (besides the never-a-bad-idea addition of butter). Once you let your mind float over the landscape of holiday sweet potato dishes, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans can be seen waving from down below. Soon, visions of candied nuts will dance in your head, or possibly a crisp, nutty topping not unlike what goes on an old-school candied sweet potato casserole with tiny marshmallows.

But really, it all comes down to scooping, filling, and baking the round, orange bowls you might have once thought were compost (or were reserving to make candied orange peels). So, drink your piña coladas out of pineapple shells in the summer, but serve your sweet potatoes in orange peels during the holiday season. It’s practical, tasty, and beautiful.

Source : Yahoo Life

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Nils Bernstein, writer and food editor of Wine Enthusiast, curated the list based on 25 years of experience plus feedback from trusted friends and coworkers. He called it a list that “seeks to elevate the escapist charm of the hotel bar.”

Twenty-five hotels from coast to coast made the list. Among those were bars such as Bar Pendry in Chicago, Chandelier at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and Tonga Room at Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Here in Phoenix, Little Rituals at the Residence Inn/Courtyard by Marriott earned a nod.

Owned by Ross Simon and Aaron Defeo, Little Rituals was also a top 10 nominee for Best US Hotel Bars for Tales of the Cocktail awards in 2023 and top four in 2022.

Bernstein called it a dim and sexy space, and praised the housemade ingredients that incorporate seasonally available farmers market inputs such as marigold, shiitake mushrooms and lime leaf.

“These aren’t merely bars that happen to exist on hotel property,” Bernstein wrote, “but drinking dens that convey a grander sense of place.”

Details: Little Rituals at Residence Inn/Courtyard by Marriott Phoenix Downtown, 132 S. Central Ave., Fourth Floor, Phoenix. 602-603-2050, littleritualsbar.com.

Source : Az Central

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The seven-layer confections were inspired by investor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s holiday alter ego.

If you want to get your hands on one of Salt & Straw’s ice cream cakes—a brand-new product in the local company’s lineup of frozen treats—better camp out in front of one of the scoop shops this Friday.

The confections sold out just six hours after they launched online Nov. 8, but another batch is scheduled to be delivered to brick-and-mortar stores, where you can purchase them starting Nov. 17.

Salt & Straw is known to have caused a ruckus with its treats before. For instance, last year, the brand announced that it would be bringing back its limited-edition Chocolate Tacolate just as the nation was eulogizing the original childhood classic. Klondike broke the hearts of ice cream novelty lovers everywhere when it shared that it had halted production of the Choco Taco in order to meet increased demand for other foods in its portfolio. So news of the revival of Salt & Straw’s take—a chocolate-dipped waffle cone stuffed with cinnamon ancho ice cream—was overwhelmingly embraced.

It seems only natural that Salt & Straw would get into the ice cream cake game and somewhat surprising that it hasn’t done so until now. Perhaps that’s because it needed the prompting of a mega-celeb like The Rock, who the company partnered with to create the two flavors. Actually, Salt & Straw says it partnered with “Dwanta Claus,” the holiday alter ego of the WWE persona developed by now-actor Dwane Johnson.

Turns out, Dwanta shows up when it’s time to promote the various food and beverage companies Johnson has either invested in (Salt & Straw) or founded (ZOA Energy, Teremana Tequila)—the shtick is that he is both “naughty” and “nice,” temperaments that are then reflected in the flavors. As for the cakes—both with seven layers—that means a classic chocolate and peanut butter mashup along with some whiskey caramel ice cream (the booze should tell you this one is sinful) and a fruit-focused angelic version: coconut, marionberry jam and bananas Foster ice cream.

Salt & Straw says each cake can serve up to 20 people—a sizable birthday party—but just be prepared to shell out more than you would for a classic sheet version from your local Dairy Queen. The seven-layer creations are $89 each.

Source : Willmette Week

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01 of 08

The Restaurant at Blue Rock

Washington, Virginia

Set on 80-acres, a stay at Blue Rock makes for an indulgent rest after a long hike or day hopping between wineries. Luckily, you don’t have to vie for one of the coveted five rooms to experience the property’s magic. In Blue Rock’s restaurant, diners can enjoy a four-course tasting menu ($119) served in the inn’s formal dining room overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains. Helmed by Bin Lu, formerly of Washington D.C.’s much-lauded Pineapple & Pearls, dinner at the restaurants offers an ever-changing menu of seasonal fare from the Shenandoah Valley (think wine-poached quinces and chicken pot pie with chanterelles). Opting for the dinner’s wine pairing ($79) leads you on a journey from surrounding Virginia vineyards to the wines of Europe. For something more casual, Blue Rock’s Tasting Room serves hearty food à la carte.

www.bluerockva.com, 12567 Lee Highway, Washington, Virginia 22747

02 of 08

The Three Blacksmiths

Sperryville, Virginia

Since it first opened five years ago, this husband-and-wife run restaurant has been helping to establish the town of Sperryville, Virginia as the culinary capital of the Shenandoah Valley. An airy space, the farm-to-table restaurant puts on a new spin on intimate dining; it seats just twenty guests a night, and reservations for their prix-fixe seasonal dinners ($148) book out months in advance. Guest travel near and far arrive ready to settle in for the long haul—the tasting experience runs for four hours. Dinners are served beside an open kitchen in a cozy, candlelit space that satisfies long-after the last bite is taken.

www.threeblacksmiths.com, 20 Main Street, Sperryville, Virginia 22740

03 of 08

Vault & Cellar

Middletown, Virginia

Middletown’s Vault & Cellar offers the rare combination of approachability and high-quality fine dining. The brainchild of a local chef, who cut her teeth working in Michelin–starred Rose’s Luxury Washington, D.C. and alongside a James Beard award-winning chef at Cochon in New Orleans, Vault & Cellar feels distinctly personal and regionally focused. Their menu is deeply rooted in regional fare, like rabbit, duck, and quail. They source everything from eggs to vinegars from farms in the area, including Wardensville Garden Market, a nonprofit enterprise that supports young people in Appalachia. The restaurant has earned accolades for its impressive bourbon library (over 300 varieties strong), and special wine dinners which pair Appalachian cooking with the wines of local vineyards.

www.thevaultandcellar.com, 7843 Main Street, Middletown, Virginia 22645

04 of 08

The Shack

Staunton, Virginia

In The Shack’s dining room, chef Ian Boden serves a five-course tasting menu that highlights the links between local Appalachian cooking and the Eastern European Jewish culinary profiles of his ancestry. In Boden’s kitchen it’s about utilizing the region’s short growing season, cooking with rendered fats (lard or schmaltz, depending on how your look at it), and fermenting fresh produce to extend the season. The Shack sources from 40 regional farms and producers, creating menus around the height of the harvest.

theshackva.com, 105 S Coalter Street, Staunton, Virginia 24401

 The Best Things To Do In Staunton, Virginia

05 of 08

Bar Francis

Sperryville, Virginia

Outstanding cocktails served a stone’s throw from the Skyline Drive? It might sound unlikely, but that’s the goal of Bar Francis, a sleek cocktail bar on Sperryville’s Main Street where guests in hiking boots are as welcomed as those in heels. Attached to Sperryville’s Corner Store, which sells local produce, Virginia wines, and baked goods, the cocktail bar effortlessly blends a come-as-you-are atmosphere with drinks that hold their weight against the best of the best in any major city. Bar Francis’s cocktails use locally-sourced ingredients. Their takes on the classics, like the Thornton Manhattan (made with rosehip hibiscus syrup and mulberry spiced bitters crafted down the street at Wild Roots Apothecary) and the Good Copper Old Fashioned (made rye whiskey from local distiller, Copper Fox) make the bar a local favorite and celebrated post-hike discovery.

www.bar-francis.com, 3710 Sperryville Pike, Sperryville, Virginia 22740

06 of 08

The Red Hen

Lexington, Virginia

Since The Red Hen first opened its doors (in the midst of the 2008 economic recession, no less) it has aimed to provide a fine dining concept in a small Virginia town. Today, the twenty-six-seat dining room is thriving as a favorite for locals and visitors alike—it’s booked weeks in advance for the coveted days around Washington & Lee graduation and parents’ weekends. The curated menu rotates regularly, sometimes multiple times a week, to reflect what’s growing and being harvested in the Valley’s farms. They also source local meat and Virginia wines.

www.redhenlex.com, 11 East Washington Street, Lexington, Virginia 24450

07 of 08

Rappahannock Pizza Kitchen

Sperryville, Virginia

Some of the best pizza you’ll find on this side of the Arno, Rappahannock Pizza Kitchen serves seriously good pies in a lively dining room off Sperryville’s Corner Store. On the other side of the Corner Store is Bar Francis, so you can count on some award-worthy cocktails being served alongside your slices. Rappahannock’s secret lies in their sourdough crusts, meat and vegetable toppings which come from farms in the Valley, and cooking process in their traditional wood-burning pizza oven. This is what pizza dreams are made of.

www.rappahannockpizzakitchen.com, 3710 Sperryville Pike, Sperryville, Virginia 22740

08 of 08

The Catamount Lounge

Front Royal, Virginia

The folks behind the Strasburg, Virginia, breakfast spot, The Pancake Underground, have hung up their aprons and traded early mornings for nightlife. Their new venture, a cocktail lounge called The Catamount Lounge, will begin shaking and stirring drinks for guests in fall 2023. The Catamount Lounge is already generating buzz as a welcomed post-dinner offering in Front Royal, the Virginia town at the entrance to Skyline Drive. The intimate bar—there will be room for about forty people—will evoke some of the mid-century nostalgia that runs through Front Royal, harkening back to the tourism boom of the late 1930s boom when Skyline Drive was extended to the mountain town. The Catamount Lodge’ classic cocktail list will be mixed with some of their own concoctions, paired with a small food menu featuring local dishes.

www.instagram.com/thecatamountlounge, 124 East Main Street, Front Royal, Virginia 22630

Source : Southern Living

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The Italian carbonara police don’t want you to put ham in your spaghetti carbonara; they’ve made that clear. And don’t even think about splashing in cream or grating over Parmesan instead of pecorino.

But would they be so angry if the noodles were another shape — maybe small, ovalish orzo?

Carbonara “is the poster child for everything that’s wrong and right with trends,” said Roberto Serrini, a filmmaker and journalist who has studied carbonara intensely. His main point is that carbonara changes with time.

In the 1960s, it meant a splash of cognac to pair with the bacon. Today, it means guanciale, eggs, pecorino Romano and lots of black pepper (the carbon in carbonara).

One thing is clear: Using orzo pasta gets you to a plate of creamy, cheesy carbohydrates in a faster, and more foolproof, way than rice or spaghetti alike.

In Italy, the dish known as orzotto — a portmanteau of the words orzo and risotto — is made with pearl barley, “orzo” in Italian. Outside the country, however, and as it is here, the same word can refer to a risottolike dish where orzo pasta, what Italians call “risoni” (large rice), is used in place of the rice.

Orzotto is “better than risotto because it’s a little easier to cook,” Serrini said. “You don’t have to stir it constantly.”

In this recipe, the chicken stock is added all at once, and the orzo needs a mere 7 to 9 minutes to plump over a gentle flame. You can take comfort in knowing that your result will eat like a risotto in half the time and with much less stirring — and your mouth will be coated with carbonara’s perfect emulsion of cheese, egg and pork fat.

The anchoring succor of a classic carbonara cannot be beat, but it takes some technique to get the texture right. The trick here is to use guanciale, cured pork jowl, if you can find it, not just for its peppery flavor and crispy meat, but for its golden fat, which helps blend the eggs into a smooth sauce.

And the eggs, run through with pecorino and a cascade of freshly ground black pepper, should be first tempered with a ladle of the cooked orzo before folding into the rest of the pot. The extra starchiness of the rice-shaped pasta is yet even more insurance against the worst thing that can happen to your carbonara: scrambled eggs.

This is carbonara for the clumsy, the impatient and the greedy.

For more of a risotto flavor (at the risk of angering purists), you could cook a finely diced shallot, maybe even some celery or celery seed, in the guanciale fat before adding the orzo, then stir in a splash of white wine or cognac.

This eggy-peppery comfort is best eaten right off the heat. But it is odd how, even straight out of the fridge, cold, it still stays glossy, like a dreamy pasta salad.

The carbonara police might not like that, but you do, right?

Orzotto Alla Carbonara

Total time: 35 minutes

Servings: 2 to 4

INGREDIENTS

• 3½ ounces guanciale, pancetta or thick-cut bacon, cut into small dice (2/3 cup)
• 1¼ cups dry orzo
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth, plus more as needed
• 6 tablespoons finely grated pecorino Romano or Parmesan, plus more for serving
• 1 large egg plus 2 egg yolks

STEPS

1. Add the guanciale to a large, high-sided skillet and set over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until deeply browned and crispy all over, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the guanciale to a small dish. Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the skillet; reserve the extra fat for another use.
2. Stir the orzo into the fat in the skillet until coated, then season with salt and pepper. Stir constantly for just a few seconds, then add the chicken broth, raise the heat to high and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally so the orzo doesn’t stick to the bottom of the skillet, until the orzo is tender and loose like risotto, adding more broth as needed, 7 to 9 minutes. At this point, the pasta should have absorbed most of the liquid.
3. Take the skillet off the heat and vigorously stir in 4 tablespoons of the pecorino. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and yolks. Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons pecorino and ¼ cup of the orzo to temper the eggs and prevent them from scrambling when added to the skillet. Stir this mixture into the hot orzo, then immediately shake the skillet with one hand and stir with the other until the orzo is creamy and thick, about 1 minute.
4. Taste and add salt as desired. Divide among plates and sprinkle with more pecorino, black pepper and the reserved guanciale.
5. Source : The Seattle Times

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