Dine out

     Since reinventing itself early last year, Town House—which features the artful, evolving cuisine of chefs John B. Shields and Karen Urie—has been luring diners from as far away as Washington, D.C., New York and Toronto to Chilhowie’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it historic district. In other words, my four-hour drive from Charlottesville to this faraway corner of our state was a small price to pay for the dining experience of the decade. In the case of my 20-year-old niece, Caroline, who joined me for the weekend with her Charlotte-based mom (my sister, Lisa), it was transformational. As she declared to her 804 friends on Facebook post-Town House, “One weekend, 12 courses and I am now officially a foodie.” Apparently, a semester in Paris didn’t have quite the same effect as a single meal in Chilhowie.

      Restaurant owners Tom and Kyra Bishop, together with their daughter, Leslie Brewer, decided to bring big-city dining to their close-knit, slow-paced community by convincing two of Chicago’s best young chefs to pack their bags and move to rural Virginia. “We never thought they’d actually come here,” Kyra confesses. But Shields and Urie, who had been working at stellar restaurants like Alinea and Charlie Trotter’s and had just been offered top positions at Trotter’s new Las Vegas venture, were completely seduced by the pastoral beauty of the land, the promise of living closer to the source of their inspiration (nature) and the chance to evolve as chefs in a kitchen—at last—of their very own. “Town House is basically every chef’s dream,” Shields told me over coffee at the Abingdon Farmers’ Market very early on a Saturday morning. “And food makes more sense here.”

     I had dinner reservations for that very evening and wanted to be present for at least part of the local, seasonal food shopping. Instead of collecting the raw materials from a delivery truck or a walk-in, the husband-and-wife duo can now shake hands with the farmers and purveyors who grow their food, raise their lamb, roast their coffee. We made slow progress in the tiny covered market, stopping every few feet to greet a friend, exchange recipes and cooking techniques or find out when the arugula and figs would be coming in.