Need lunch recommendations in Staunton, Virginia

[curls]

Hoping to go to Staunton, Virginia this weekend for their Hot Glass Festival. Any recommendations for lunch spots in or near Staunton, Virginia? Any other food related items we should check out while we are there (bakeries, vineyards, cheese, coffee shops, etc.)? Thanks!

[donk79]

Possibly (Probably!) a mistake, but if I had one food opportunity in Staunton, I would take it to go back to the Edelweiss Restaurant.  Yeah, I know, Edelweiss?  How stereotypical can a name be?  But this place was excellent, and 15 years ago, there was not much else worth seeking in Staunton.  I know the scene has changed now.  There is a LOT more worth checking out.  But still, given my druthers, Edelweiss would be my first pick.  The food was delicious.  The hosting was wonderful.  And while "light" never entered the picture, I never regretted how full the cuisine left you either.  It was a fulfilling experience from every angle.

[djyee100]

My best friend from high school lives in Staunton. She's a veterinarian. Need some pet care?

 

I visited her a couple years ago. We ate lunch at the Depot Grill. I had the crabmeat sandwich, which the place is known for. Another time we ate pizza at Shenandoah Pizza (my treat), and ice cream at Split Banana Co. (her treat). I thought the food at all these places was good.

 

There's a lovely tasting room for Ox-Eye Vineyards in downtown Staunton. This winery is still on the learning curve, and the wines were sometimes good, but not great. Not yet ready to compete with the big boys. But everybody starts somewhere. (I've tasted wine from the early Napa days that took the enamel off your teeth.) I had a great conversation with the winemaker's wife, who was behind the counter, and I was so pleased to learn about the wineries in this area.

 

I did visit Sunspots Studios that is hosting the festival. Loved the glassware and demo that I saw there.

 

Do you ever go to the plays at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton? It's a charming performance space, modeled after an Elizabethan theatre. My friend and I took in a Shakespeare play while I was there.

 

Hope you enjoy your trip!

[Meanderer]

We like the Yelping Dog, a wine store with a limited food menu.  Generally, we share a cheese plate and charcuterie while drinking one of the bottles of wine bought at retail price there.  There are some interesting grilled cheese sandwiches on the menu as well.

[curls]

Thank you for all your suggestions. Unfortunately I was not able to go to Staunton this weekend but I'll try to get to next year's Hot Glass Festival and I'll keep your recommendations for that trip!

[Busboy]

Esquire had this to say about The Shack in Staunton.

 

And I had this to say, in another forum:

 

A friend and I rolled into Staunton about 7:30 and --perhaps because of the rain -- found an almost deserted restaurant on an almost deserted street -- a real noir night just off a scruffy intersection near the four-lane.  From the outside the Shack looks like the sort of spot that would serve grit-centered breakfast specials and dubious fried chicken (undiscovered genius or poisoning risk?) at lunchtime to construction workers, less-Epicurean locals  and the guys at a nearby auto body shop. Inside -- well, it doesn't look much different  until the details start to come into focus.  The distinctive percussion of a restaurant kitchen at work (unlike the staccato clang of a diner's spatula on the griddle); the subdued lighting and the small staff  it illuminates; the shoulder-high stripe of old photos of the chef's in-laws that circle the restaurant (its chief decor), depicting a local family that apparently weathered the joys, sorrows and various challenges of pre-digital photography and 70s styles with enough panache to pull a talented chef from the canyons of New York back to the Shenandoah Valley.
 
Service was relaxed, direct and candid ("if you're already into heirloom tomatoes, the salad may not be that special"), and our waiter carried himself with such relaxed authority you felt that he could make anything he needed to happen (not that we had any odd requests) and when he announced that the glass of wine I'd mistakenly ordered would go great with the lamb (the next course), I believed him.
 
Our menu was vastly different from Lori's -- impressive, given  what I assume is the challenge of scoring so many ingredients when you're only accepting deliveries large enough for a 29-seat joint -- and offered five apps,four entrees and a pair of desserts.  We eventually settled on two variations of the menu: my friend ordered three savory courses for a fin over the $45 standard three-course cost and I went for the four course, $55 menu.
 
The snapper with cherries, fennel and soy sauce lees served as a fresh twist to the now-common raw fish starter.  Speaking of the commonplace, we had mussels and eggplant which were rendered somehow uncommon by the Vietnamese coriander (a quick Googling confirms my suspicion this is at best a very distant cousin -- different orders, phylum, etc --  to cilantro/coriander) that seemed to add more complexity than you'd expect -- not just when you took the time to brochette one between the eggplant and a mussel, but also when you just dipped the toasted ciabatta in the broth. 
 
I said to Laura that the squid ink  fettuccine with pureed parsley would be a bit bland without the uni and she tartly replied that it did have the uni and that perfectly cooked pasta that light was far more rare (particularly in my own kitchen) than I acknowledged and so maybe I should just shut up about that.
 
The entrees were like the kind of stuff that French Grandmas made legendary before mediocre cooks made them cliches: imagine being there at the birth of Boeuf Bourguignon or pot-au-feu.  All that patient, painstaking technique and those extraordinary ingredients hidden super-hero-like behind the mask of a simple stew, comprising something that elevates the palate and sticks to the ribs.  Anyway, that's what the beef cheeks reminded me of, but I may be getting carried away in penance for disrespecting the pasta.  And sticks of butter and heads of roasted garlic are no longer sufficiently OTT for my mashed potatoes: I must have marrow.  And throw some chanterelles and gremolata into the mix, while you're at it
 
I was quite keen on the lamb sausage 'n' shank, as well. Sausages that brought a bit of heat to the game, a square of crisp shank sufficiently tender inside you sort of expected it to ooze onto the plate like a ripe Pont l'Eveque whose rind has been pierced and an eggplant puree whose -- now that I think about it -- (relative) austerity sat well with the (relatively) rich meat, plus two buds of okra (that I shoved to the side because I've always hated okra) and pickled cherry tomatoes for fun.
 
Sweet corn pudding with moussed bittersweet choco, cubed nectarine and lime was another understated treat -- a touch off-beat and more memorable for it.
 
When it was over, Laura declared it -- with perhaps a touch of hyperbole -- "the best restaurant you've ever taken me to," which is no small praise, given dinners at Alinea, CityZen and (perhaps more relevant) Rose's Luxury in the last six months.
 
When it was over, we also had a brief chat with Ian, who is struggling to balance the fact that people now drive hundreds of miles just to eat at his shack with no guarantee that they'll get a table with the fact that he'd like to make sure the neighbors can still wedge their way into a restaurant so tiny that even one reservation no-show can really fuck the books for the night.  Even I sympathized, despite my dislike of no reservations policies -- perhaps because we didn't have to wait (I'm self-centered like that), and perhaps because he seemed like just about the nicest guy I've ever stumbled across in a restaurant kitchen.
 
All told, the damage came to a scant $177 -- though we drank far less wine than we would have in the old days -- and that included the T-shirt I can wear to the farmers market to show how goddam cool I am, and two rolls of Smarties, which are available (along with Mary Janes and couple other small sweets) at the register in lieu of mignardise.
 
Maybe next week I'll do a test whereby at 5PM I head south to Staunton and a friend hops the Metro to Barracks Row (home of Rose's Luxury) at the same time.  Be curious to see who eats first -- and who eats best.
 
ETA:  We didn't pay a ton of attention to the wine list which struck me as brief, well-chosen and reasonably priced. Also, when I called beforehand to discuss timing strategy, the friendly lady on the phone suggested arriving before 5PM or after 7:30, and said that they'd never turned a table away (though I wouldn't want to push it)  and that they now have space to sip wine outside while you wait.