Farm-to-Table Vision
The Staunton Grocery inaugurates a new era in Valley dining

by Christina Ball
Photography by Tyler Darden

June 2007

Staunton, frozen in time with its spectacularly preserved mix of 19th- and early 20th-century architecture, is oddly quiet for a significant urban center. It has always seemed under-populated, to me – like a theater anticipating the next great show, or a secret waiting to be discovered.

Completely deserted one moment, the city comes to life as if on cue and quiets down just as suddenly. At its annual Victorian Festival, for instance, its streets are animated with puppeteers, vintage carousels and barbershop quartets, and locals parade around in period costume: bustles, crinolines, tailored jackets and top hats. Is it any surprise that Staunton is home to a Shakespearean theatre, the new, internationally acclaimed Blackfriars Playhouse?

But Staunton offers much more than theater, antique shops and Norman Rockwell charm. Still proudly anchored in history but gearing up for a dynamic future, this urban epicenter of the Shenandoah Valley appears to be emerging from its century-long slumber. One by one, historic homes are being snapped up for a song by young couples and early retirees who renovate and then settle in. Along the main thoroughfare of Beverley Street, you can still find a parking space. Many freshly restored spaces, most with high tin ceilings and marble tile or wooden floors, have already taken on new identities as chic boutiques, galleries and cafes. In the last two years alone, in fact, Staunton has seen the arrival and revival of two cinemas, a prominent hotel and conference center (the Stonewall Jackson), several bed and breakfast inns, a European-style bakery, a yoga studio, a tea house, an organic grocery store and more than a handful of already popular new restaurants, including The Dining Room, Zynodoa, Casa di Scotto.

Starting this year off in gracious, contemporary style, the restaurant called Staunton Grocery has introduced a new kind of Valley dining. Sweetbreads, faro and purple potatoes have arrived on Beverley Street, and there’s no turning back now.

Why are young entrepreneurs leaving high-powered jobs in big cities to start new lives in Staunton? For 28-year-old Ian Boden, the chef/owner of Staunton Grocery, this city presented the chance to fulfill a dream he’s had since age 13, when he first apprenticed for a French maitre de cuisine in Northern Virginia: to own his own restaurant. After cooking in some of the hottest kitchens in New York City – Payard Patisserie, Judson Grill, Home – Boden was more than eager to stretch his culinary wings and fly solo.

Staunton had the perfect combination of demographics, affordability and agriculture that he needed to fulfill his farm-to-table vision. “I could sense right away that something exciting was going on here, food-wise,” Boden says from a sunny window seat in his simple, elegant dining room, with white tin ceiling, honeycomb tile floors and walls of terra cotta, sage green and exposed brick. “People here have increasingly sophisticated palates and are also very concerned about where their food comes from.”

Boden met his general manager and sommelier, Kyle Boatright, at a Virginia apple festival. In between bites of pippin and Everona Dairy goat cheese, the two exchanged introductions and contact info, and a few months later, the perfect partnership was formed. A Richmond native, Boatright honed his skills at numerous high-profile restaurants in places like Aspen, Jackson Hole and San Francisco. After five years as the assistant sommelier at the legendary Rubicon in San Francisco, he, like Boden, was ready to forge new professional – and personal – paths in central Virginia.

Shaved fennel, black truffle and grilled porcini

As his restaurant’s name suggests, Boden is serious about supporting local farmers and purveyors. Prominently displayed on the brick wall above the bar is a list of the day’s “Featured Producers.” In the warmer seasons, the hand-writing must get pretty small, but even in early spring when I visited, the list was quite long and included everyone from the Newton Bakery and Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar on Beverley Street to nearby Wheatland Farms (grass-fed beef) and Gryffon’s Aerie (all-natural pork).

Although the Shenandoah Valley has historically been the nation’s breadbrasket, restauranteurs have tended to snub local farmers in favor of bigger, more economical wholesalers. Which is why these same farmers are so happy to play a supporting role in Boden’s kitchen. A sign of how this chef is shaping the local landscape: Farmers now bring him their seed catalogues and ask what he’d like them to grow! Sweet-hot shishito peppers, cardoons (large, leafy vegetables with an artichoke-scented stalk) and crosnes (tiny tubers with a nutty flavor) were a few of his recent requests, and it’s clear from these alone that he aims to surprise and challenge farmers and diners alike.

Staunton’s friendly, small-town feel appealed to Boden as much as its farmer’s market. Tranquil and modest (his chef’s jacket is pure white, no embroidered name or title), he’d had enough of testosterone-spiked city kitchens and celebrity chefs. He was determined, he says, not to “die on the line.” I thought screaming and short tempers were par for the course in any serious kitchen (anyone who’s read Bill Bryson’s Heat or Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential will know what I mean), but Staunton Grocery proves that a calm, harmonious kitchen can, in fact, produce top-notch cuisine.

A huge 4-by-10-foot picture window gives diners a clear view of the chefs at work, and the kitchen becomes part of the performance. There’s something incredibly appealing about seeing the faces of the people who prepare your food. There’s an honesty and humanity in it that seems particularly appropriate in Staunton. In white jackets and elegant black and white striped caps, Boden and his young team of cooks are definitely entertaining to watch. And, on busy Friday nights, fire, sharp knives and non-stop orders make the show particularly dramatic.

Fine dining at its best is theater, of course, and Staunton Grocery is perhaps the closest culinary equivalent of the playhouse up the street. Much like the Blackfriars, where a changing repertoire is masterfully performed on a simple stage with minimal embellishment, Boden’s cuisine stars the finest-quality ingredients, all simply but artfully prepared and presented. He uses a maximum of five ingredients per dish and wants diners to taste every single one. The result is refined and exhilaratingly fresh – like the whole dining experience at Staunton Grocery, from the homemade sodas (key lime, ginger) to the décor (upholstered banquettes, white lines) to the gracefully efficient service throughout the house.

Wild halibut with carrot sauce, celery root purée and herb salad

The menu, constantly evolving, fits on a single sheet and is organized into “cold” and “hot” first course categories and about eight to 10 “main” courses. The beverage menu is equally enticing and user friendly and features a number of creative cocktails, many incorporating fresh citrus juices. Boatright’s fun-to-read wine list groups bottles into basic tasting categories: “sparkling,” “vibrant,” “bold,” “sumptuous,” “profound.”

Eager to experiment, I opted for the four-course tasting menu. After an amuse bouche of pork confit with spicy apple relish, I started with a salad of thinly shaved fennel, speckled with fresh pepper, lightly tossed with truffle vinaigrette and topped with the plumpest, juiciest fresh porcini mushroom I’d ever tasted. My palate alert, I then luxuriated in a vanilla-scented puree of parsnip with a pillowy goat cheese profiterole. An aromatic Gewurztraminer for Alsace, with hints of rose and spice was an ideal pairing.

A couple sitting across from me had ordered the scallops in a broth of fresh mint and red chili, another of the “hot” first courses I was tempted to try. These were not just any scallops, but sweet, tender still-in-the-shell scallops from Taylor Bay in Nantucket Sound. These diners had never seen scallop shells before and thought the kitchen had made a mistake. I eavesdropped a bit as their server, Steve, delivered a soliloquy to the scallop, singing the praises of both the bay and the broth and even citing Botticelli’s painting Birth of Venus in their defense – anything to convince the couple that this was the way nature created this particular shellfish and that the chef’s preparation was superb. They were skeptical, but Steve eventually convinced them, and I’ll just bet they order the scallops again, next time.

Roasted loin of lamb, Swiss chard, young turnips, olives and Banjouls gastrique

I had to sample Boden’s homemade fettuccine next. I thought I’d eaten fettuccine in every possible way, but I was wrong. Boden’s version was hearty and satisfying, but also miraculously light – soft ribbons of pasta laced with strips of earthy morel mushroom, a hint of celery root and contrasting wisps of dark green arugula. Next came tender, pink slices of lamb loin (no knife needed), fanned out on top of a crispy potato pancake with tiny young turnips and a high note of honey gastrique.

Normally, I’d be full at this point and maybe even skip dessert. But somehow Boden managed to keep both my interest and my appetite alive, course after course. After a meal out, I am almost always asked by my Italian friends and relatives, “Hai digerito bene?” Did you digest well? No need for details - a simple “si” or “no” will do. The point is that, more than chic décor or trendy ingredients, Italians consider good digestion a sign of a good restaurant. Good digestion means fresh ingredients prepared in an honest way.

Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the desserts at Staunton Grocery are made by an Italian pastry chef, Giancarlo Gnali. He, after all, gets the last word. Gnali, who runs a pastry shop in town – Gnali’s Fine European Pastries – creates “naked desserts” for the restaurant, which the chef and his team “dress" on order. Like Boden, Gnali strives to preserve the integrity of his ingredients. He uses minimal amounts of sugar, for instance, and insists on the freshest eggs and the most superior chocolate, Venezuelan El Rey. A Staunton resident since the early ‘90s, Gnali admits that Staunton Grocery is raising the bar for Staunton diners and chefs. “Ian really pushes the envelope, which is a good thing,” he says. “You don’t want to get too stagnant.”

When Boden suggested a parsnip-based dessert for the winter menu, the 51-year-old, Swiss-trained Gnali didn’t know what to say at first. Parsnips? In a dessert? A few days later, excited, he returned to Boden with his creation, a parsnip and blood orange tartlet with a blood orange reduction. Another followed: a cylinder of chocolates – dark ganache, mile chocolate gianduia and chocolate orange zabaione on a base of hazelnut sponge cake. Clearly no stagnancy here. For my dessert, Boden served a dollop of Gnali’s cinnamon mascarpone in a bowl of bright citrus fruits soaked in 15-year-old Pdero Ximénez sherry and paired with a sip of the same – a final sign of how this expert ensemble keeps things fresh.

Word of advice: Plan on at least two or three hours for dinner at Staunton Grocery. Anything less would be like leaving the theater at intermission.