Food news: Restaurants opening! Restaurants closing! RVA Beer Week!

A very beer-focused week in RVA dining news (honestly, when isn’t RVA very beer-focused?).

October 31, 2013; 8:11 AM • by Ross Catrow

This past Tuesday, Max’s on Broad opened their doors for lunch and dinner. Max’s is a Belgian-themed restaurant owned by the folks that own Tarrant’s down the street. Menu options range from foie gras and steak tartare, to fish and chips and a turkey vegetable burger. You can probably find a little something for everyone–especially if that something is loads of Belgian-style beers.

Max’s is located at 305 Brook Road (basically across the street from Tarrant’s) and is open from 11:00 AM – 12:00 AM.

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The Cask is open!¹ Located adjacent to what we once called “the bus depot on Robinson” but now call “that awesome collection of street art,” this is a beer-focused project involving some of the folks from Commercial Taphouse.² Unfortunately they’re still waiting on their ABC license, but in the meantime you can grab some sausage-focused snacks. But once the beer does start to flow, you’ll know where to find me.

The Cask Cafe & Market is located at 208 S. Robinson Street.

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First, Chef Kevin LaCivita owned Pomegranate down in Shockoe Bottom way back in 2002ish. That endeavor ended, and he eventually found his way into the kitchen of The Blue Goat–you may remember his fried pig ears. Now, this past weekend, Moshi Moshi in Carytown closed up shop. Unrelated? PERHAPS NOT. Style Weekly has the news that Chef LaCivita will resurrect Pomegranate in Carytown in the old Moshi Moshi spot.

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Niwanohana Japanese Restaurant in The Bottom is for sale, just $70,000. This is at least the fifth restaurant to recently hit the market with the owner feeling just plain exhausted.³ The current owners are only looking to hand the place off to folks that will keep the Japanese theme.

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Chef Joe Sparatta at Heritage is pairing up with H. Alexander Talbot from Ideas in Food to create a multi-course tasting menu that has an exceedingly high chance of blowing you away. Oh, but it doesn’t stop there: Chef Lee Gregory from The Roosevelt will be on hand, along with T the Bartender, to complement what is already an insanely talented group of folks. Tickets cost $75 and include five courses…and a signed copy of Ideas in Food’s new book! That book currently costs $20.68 on Amazon, this is an incredible deal, my people!

The event takes place on November 11th from 6:00 – 8:30 PM, and reservations can be made by calling Heritage at 804.353.4060.

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Richmond BizSense is at it again with their Kitchen Confidential event. Five panelists will talk about running a restaurant in RVA–the perils, the pitfalls, the glory, the honor. This year’s lineup includes:

• Jason Alley, owner of Comfort and Pasture
• Aline Reitzer, owner of Acacia and organizer of Richmond Restaurant Week
• Ted Santarella, founder of Tarrant’s and Max’s
• Giuseppe Scafidi, chef/owner of Deco Ristorante
• Paul Keevil, owner of Millie’s and Lulu’s

$45 gets you a seat at the table, “heavy appetizers,” and two drink tickets. The cost shoots up to $65 next week, so get ’em while they’re cheap(er).

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Sauer’s makes Duke’s Mayonnaise, which is enough reason to patronize any event they should choose to throw. Sauer’s Night Out began yesterday but continues through the coming week. A bunch of local restaurants will be cooking up meals using Sauer’s products, and if you should choose to dine at one of these spots plus do some things on the Facebook, you’ll be entered to win a mysterious prize. Honestly, I hope it’s just massive tubs of Duke’s.

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RVA Beer Week starts tomorrow, and, with it, Advil sales in the Richmond region skyrocket. Basically, every place you could possibly think of in town that serves beer will offer some sort of deal, special, event, or unique tasting. The list of everything going on is kind of intense.

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Photo by: Madison Price

October 31, 2013 8:11 AM 1