Richmond - Places to Dine

If you are out touring Richmond and do not want to be belabored by a long stop for lunch in a formal restaurant, there are a few upscale sandwich shops around town that serve high-quality food. The Hill Café is one of these, located in historic Church Hill, on East Broad Street, just a few blocks from the James River. A restaurant/bar in the evenings, The Hill Café serves delicious sandwiches for lunch with quality ingredients. The rich wood interior and attractive bar area fit nicely amongst this neighborhood of stunning historic homes. For a relaxing lunch, a number of good beers are on tap at the bar.

On West Main Street, you can find the Sidewalk Café, another casual lunch option, offering an extremely wide range of sandwiches, subs, and entrées. In fact, the choices are so vast, you may first need to decide which nationality you are in the mood for, because the menu includes samples from traditional Italian, American, Greek, and Mexican cultures. Sandwich choices include gyros, chicken in pita, traditional barbecue, hamburgers, black bean burgers, deli meat subs, meatball subs, eggplant parmesan, chicken Caesar, and more. Appetizers again boast multiple backgrounds, with quesadillas, nachos, saganaki, hummus and pita, and caprese salad confusing (but deliciously so) the diner. The Saturday and Sunday brunch menu is pretty all-American, however, with omelettes, breakfast meats, pancakes, eggs, and hash browns.

One final excellent lunch option is Baker’s Crust Bread Market, located on Cary Street, amongst great boutique shopping. Baker’s Crust is a small, local chain, with about six locations throughout Virginia. Baker’s Crust, however, maintains their quality throughout all of these locations; freshness is valued by owners and appreciated by patrons. Their menu, which started basically with soups, sandwiches, and freshly baked breads, has expanded as did their locations. Baker’s Crust is now open for dinner, and offers a number of great entrées, but traditionalists have a hard time ordering anything but their stacked sandwiches. Some of the options include slow-roasted brisket on a toasted sesame roll, chicken bistro club, smoked turkey on jalapeno and cheddar bread, tuna or chicken salad on semolina. Baker’s Crust has recently added a number of delicious grilled panini sandwiches, including a chicken and cheddar, Jersey grinder, tuna melt, and shrimp po boy, among others. Of course, if you aren’t in the mood for a sandwich, salads are large and soups are fresh. Appetizers include choices like tavern chips, double-dusted onion rings, tuna nachos, and crab and artichoke dip. If you adore Baker’s Crust sandwich bread as much as many others do, each location sells the breads separately. To further fill your tummy, try one of their desserts. The cheesecake, brownie sundae, ultimate chocolate lava cake, napoleon, and big apple pie are to die for. In addition, many locations have a creperie, offering Crepe Noisette, Diablotin, and others.

For a more romantic dinner, try La Grotta Ristorante, which is located in historic Shockoe Slip, on Cary Street. This traditional Italian restaurant offers a romantic atmosphere for both lunch and dinner. Dinner appetizer options include calamari fritti, pepperoni in bagna caoda, and carpaccio di manzo (thinly sliced raw beef tenderloin with lemon, capers, olive oil, and parmesan cheese). Rather than a single dinner entrée, diners can choose from La Grotta’s traditional Italian menu of insalate, primi (first course), secondi di carne (second course, meat), secondi di pesce (fish), vegetali (vegetables), and zuppa (soup). Insalate options include Caesar salad with either smoked trout, grilled chicken or shrimp; caprese salad; and, for the more adventuresome, rane con polenta, or frog legs sautéed over polenta. Primi options are all pasta based, like home-made ravioli with spinach and ricotta; homemade cannelloni filled with beef, veal, vegetables, and mozzarella in a béchamel sauce, and homemade gnocchi. Secondi di carne choices include sautéed buffalo rib eye with gorgonzola and pistachio sauce, and sautéed filet mignon finished in a green peppercorn and cognac sauce, among others. Secondi di pesce choices include jumbo prawns in a tomato cognac sauce and Atlantic salmon with baby shrimp, leeks, and diced tomato in a beurre blanc sauce, among others. To attend these Italian delicacies is a wine list varied to please any guest.

Any diner unfamiliar with the amazing difference between homemade, fresh pasta and boxed pasta is in for an unforgettable treat. There simply is no comparison. For this reason alone, it’s worth a trip to La Grotta. The Richmond Times Dispatch gave La Grotta Ristorante four and a half stars.




Richmond Restaurants