NVM Review

By Warren Rojas

High art meets country sensibility at Staunton Grocery, an ingredient-driven enterprise that embraces its small-town roots whilst spoiling patrons with metropolitan panache.

Virginia natives Ian Boden (chef/owner) and Kyle Boatright (general manager/wine director) preside over the roughly dozen tables that make up this barely year-old experiment in locally sourced cuisine. The prominently displayed “Featured Producers” board up front trumpets the local farms, organic butchers and artisan producers that supply the agricultural building blocks Boden reconfigures into gourmet gold.

A chance encounter with the soul food staple that is chicken and waffles—“Chef really likes to play around with traditional concepts and really make them his own ... And that’s one that’s been really successful,” one server explained—reveals a Southern feast of pecan-crusted waffles drizzled with sorghum molasses, leafy collard greens and roast chicken (moist as all get out). Tender, grass-fed beef slices are draped over buttery-rich lardo risotto decorated with caramelized porcini mushrooms and a chewy cippolini bulb.

A one-two punch of Earl Grey-spiked chocolate soup flanked by cinnamon-sugar-dusted apple beignets was an absolute knockout.