The plates that define Richmond: what they are, and where to eat the canonical version.
The plates that define Richmond. what they are, where they came from, and where to eat the canonical version.
Brunswick stew is the slow-cooked tomato-and-game stew that Brunswick County, Virginia claims as its own. Originally cooked with squirrel; modern versions use chicken with butter beans and corn.
Where: Mama J's Kitchen, The Roosevelt, Sally Bell's Kitchen
The ham biscuit is the Virginia tea-table and tailgate staple. Country-cured Smithfield ham sliced paper-thin and pressed inside a small buttermilk biscuit. Sally Bell's box-lunch standard since 1924.
Where: Sally Bell's Kitchen, Mama J's Kitchen, The Roosevelt
Virginia's Chesapeake Bay produces a flight of oyster varieties from the Rappahannock, Olde Salt, York River and the Eastern Shore. Cold-water R-months (September to April) are peak.
Where: Rappahannock, Bar Buoy, Lemaire
Peanut soup is the colonial-era Virginia tea-table soup, with roasted peanuts simmered into a chicken-stock cream. A staple of Williamsburg-era dining and a Jefferson Hotel dining-room standard.
Where: Lemaire, Mama J's Kitchen, Sally Bell's Kitchen
A creamy sherry-finished Chesapeake blue-crab soup, named for the female crab whose roe enriches the soup. The Virginia tea-table classic alongside peanut soup.
Where: Lemaire, Rappahannock, Bar Buoy
Dry-cured-and-smoked Virginia country ham, sliced thin and served center-cut on Sally Bell's box-lunch plates and inside The Roosevelt's biscuits. Smithfield-style is the canonical version.
Where: Sally Bell's Kitchen, The Roosevelt, Lemaire
Richmond's fried chicken canon runs from Mama J's family-recipe drumsticks in Jackson Ward to Croaker's Spot fried plates across the river. Buttermilk-brined, dredged and pan-fried.
Where: Mama J's Kitchen, Croaker's Spot, The Roosevelt
Shad roe is the seasonal James River delicacy: the egg sac of the migrating American shad, pan-fried in butter with bacon. Available only March through April.
Where: Lemaire, Rappahannock, Acacia Midtown
The Hanover tomato is the local-pride summer tomato, grown in the sandy loam soils of Hanover County north of Richmond. The variety appears at farmers markets through July and August.
Where: The Roosevelt, Acacia Midtown, Lemaire
Perly's house-cured pastrami on rye, with mustard, the Richmond version of the New York deli sandwich. The Grace Street counter has run since 2011 with house-baked rye.
Where: Perly's Restaurant and Delicatessen, Sally Bell's Kitchen
Sub Rosa's country sourdough loaf is the Richmond bread standard. Naturally-leavened, formerly wood-fired (now electric), with stone-milled local grain in every batch.
Where: Sub Rosa Bakery, Lemaire, Adarra
Brunswick stew is the slow-cooked tomato-and-game stew that Brunswick County, Virginia claims as its own. Originally cooked with squirrel; modern versions use chicken with butter beans and corn.
History: Brunswick County, Virginia and Brunswick, Georgia have disputed the dish's origin since the early twentieth century. Virginia's case rests on Dr Creed Haskins's hunting camp at Jerusalem Plantation in 1828, where his cook Jimmy Matthews is said to have made the first batch. The dish anchors the World Championship Brunswick Stew Cook-off at the Taste of Brunswick Festival each October in Lawrenceville, southwest of Richmond. Twenty-seven competing teams in 2025; the recipe is now standardised around chicken (originally squirrel), tomatoes, butter beans, corn and a slow-cooked tomato base.
Where to try it: Mama J's Kitchen, The Roosevelt, Sally Bell's Kitchen
The ham biscuit is the Virginia tea-table and tailgate staple. Country-cured Smithfield ham sliced paper-thin and pressed inside a small buttermilk biscuit. Sally Bell's box-lunch standard since 1924.
History: Captain Mallory Todd of Smithfield, Virginia (about 70 miles east of Richmond) made the first known commercial export of cured Smithfield ham in 1779; Virginia's General Assembly later codified the Smithfield ham name in a 1926 statute restricting it to hams cured, smoked and processed within the town. The dry-cure-and-smoke method of country-curing pork hindquarters became a colonial Virginia trade. The biscuit-and-ham combination appears in early-twentieth-century Virginia cookbooks as the canonical tea-table snack. Sally Bell's Kitchen has sold them in their box lunches since 1924, and Mama J's Kitchen in Jackson Ward keeps them on the menu today.
Where to try it: Sally Bell's Kitchen, Mama J's Kitchen, The Roosevelt
Virginia's Chesapeake Bay produces a flight of oyster varieties from the Rappahannock, Olde Salt, York River and the Eastern Shore. Cold-water R-months (September to April) are peak.
History: Native oyster harvesting in the Chesapeake Bay traces back thousands of years. The 19th-century shucking and railway trade made Virginia a national supplier. The Croxton family founded Rappahannock Oyster Company in 2002 in Topping (75 miles east of Richmond) and helped lead the aquaculture revival that brought the bay back. Richmond's primary oyster room is Rappahannock at 320 East Grace, with the farm's full flight of regional oysters at the marble bar.
Where to try it: Rappahannock, Bar Buoy, Lemaire
Peanut soup is the colonial-era Virginia tea-table soup, with roasted peanuts simmered into a chicken-stock cream. A staple of Williamsburg-era dining and a Jefferson Hotel dining-room standard.
History: African enslaved cooks brought West African peanut-stew traditions to colonial Virginia. By the early nineteenth century, peanut soup appeared in Virginia cookbooks alongside she-crab soup and oyster stew. The dish is closely associated with Colonial Williamsburg dining rooms and the Jefferson Hotel's Lemaire dining room (named for Thomas Jefferson's maitre d' Etienne Lemaire) in downtown Richmond. Virginia peanut country runs through Hanover and Suffolk; the fall harvest anchors the soup's seasonal window.
Where to try it: Lemaire, Mama J's Kitchen, Sally Bell's Kitchen
A creamy sherry-finished Chesapeake blue-crab soup, named for the female crab whose roe enriches the soup. The Virginia tea-table classic alongside peanut soup.
History: She-crab soup traces to coastal South Carolina (Charleston claims the original recipe) and spread up the Atlantic coast through nineteenth-century Tidewater Virginia. The dish became a Virginia tea-table staple, alongside peanut soup. The female blue crab's roe gives the broth its richness; today Chesapeake Bay regulations restrict harvesting female crabs to certain windows, so most Richmond kitchens use pasteurised crab meat without roe and finish the soup with a measured pour of dry sherry.
Where to try it: Lemaire, Rappahannock, Bar Buoy
Dry-cured-and-smoked Virginia country ham, sliced thin and served center-cut on Sally Bell's box-lunch plates and inside The Roosevelt's biscuits. Smithfield-style is the canonical version.
History: Captain Mallory Todd of Smithfield, Virginia made the first known commercial export of cured Smithfield ham in 1779. The Virginia General Assembly later codified the Smithfield ham name in a 1926 statute tied to peanut-fed hogs from the Virginia and North Carolina peanut belt (the peanut-belt requirement was removed in 1966; the geographic-processing requirement remains). The dry-cure, salt-rub and slow-smoke method became a Virginia trade. Smithfield is now a Smithfield Foods brand, but small smokehouses across the region (Edwards, Surryano, Gwaltney) continue the country-cured tradition. Today, country ham appears on Richmond restaurant menus from Lemaire's tasting plate to Sally Bell's box-lunch biscuit.
Where to try it: Sally Bell's Kitchen, The Roosevelt, Lemaire
Richmond's fried chicken canon runs from Mama J's family-recipe drumsticks in Jackson Ward to Croaker's Spot fried plates across the river. Buttermilk-brined, dredged and pan-fried.
History: Fried chicken is a foundational dish of African American Southern cooking, refined and codified across generations of Black women cooks. Edna Lewis (born in Freetown, west of Richmond) recorded the canonical Southern version in The Taste of Country Cooking (1976). Velma Johnson's Mama J's Kitchen in Jackson Ward has run the city's standard plate since 2009; Croaker's Spot on Hull Street in Manchester adds fried whiting alongside the chicken. Leah Branch at The Roosevelt frames her fried chicken in conversation with Virginia African American culinarians.
Where to try it: Mama J's Kitchen, Croaker's Spot, The Roosevelt
Shad roe is the seasonal James River delicacy: the egg sac of the migrating American shad, pan-fried in butter with bacon. Available only March through April.
History: American shad spawned in the James River for centuries; the spring shad run was a key food source for Indigenous Powhatan peoples and colonial Richmond alike. Industrial damming and pollution decimated the runs through the 20th century, but contemporary restoration efforts brought the fish back. The shad-roe season runs March through early April; Richmond fish markets receive limited supplies, and Lemaire and other downtown kitchens build short-window menus around it.
Where to try it: Lemaire, Rappahannock, Acacia Midtown
The Hanover tomato is the local-pride summer tomato, grown in the sandy loam soils of Hanover County north of Richmond. The variety appears at farmers markets through July and August.
History: Hanover County, immediately north of Richmond, has the right combination of sandy-loam soil, drainage and summer heat to produce a tomato that locals defend with religious intensity. The Hanover tomato has no formal geographic designation but anchors weekend conversation at South of the James, the 17th Street Market and Birdhouse from July into early September. Restaurants from Lemaire to The Roosevelt feature it on tomato-season menus.
Where to try it: The Roosevelt, Acacia Midtown, Lemaire
Perly's house-cured pastrami on rye, with mustard, the Richmond version of the New York deli sandwich. The Grace Street counter has run since 2011 with house-baked rye.
History: Richmond's Jewish community traces back to Beth Ahabah Synagogue in 1789. Modern Jewish-deli culture arrived later: Perly's opened on East Grace Street in 2011 with house-cured pastrami sliced on a Berkel and folded into rye baked in-house. Boychik's Deli in Glen Allen (Henrico) carries a second-generation interpretation. The pastrami sandwich now anchors Richmond's downtown daytime lunch counter.
Where to try it: Perly's Restaurant and Delicatessen, Sally Bell's Kitchen
Sub Rosa's country sourdough loaf is the Richmond bread standard. Naturally-leavened, formerly wood-fired (now electric), with stone-milled local grain in every batch.
History: Evrim and Evin Dogu opened Sub Rosa Bakery on North 25th Street in Church Hill in 2012, baking naturally-leavened country breads in a wood-fired oven. Multiple James Beard Outstanding Baker semifinalist nominations followed across 2017 to 2020. A fire in November 2024 closed the bakery for over a year; Sub Rosa reopened December 16, 2025 with an electric oven (the wood-fired oven did not survive) and a renewed commitment to stone-ground flour in every loaf.
Where to try it: Sub Rosa Bakery, Lemaire, Adarra
Richmond's signature dishes include Brunswick stew, Smithfield ham biscuit, Chesapeake Bay oysters, Virginia peanut soup, She-crab soup. See our signature dishes chapter for where to eat each.