Orange County
Dining Spots

Palladio Restaurant
17655 Winery Road, Barboursville

Winemaker-manager Luca Paschina is a food and wine connoisseur, so you’d expect his dramatic new restaurant at the vineyard to be great. And it is, according to all reports – "world-class," exclaimed one innkeeper after her first dinner there. Advised Luca: "Palladio fulfills our dream of offering food and wine pairings on a permanent basis." Ensconced in a brick building between his office and the Tuscan tasting room, the rustic yet elegant, 38-seat dining room is likened to being in a private country villa. The cuisine of James Beard Award-winning Chef Marcel Desaulniers is contemporary northern Italian. Meals are prix-fixe for both lunch and dinner, with suggested wines paired to go with. The menu changes weekly. A typical weekend dinner menu ($54 for four courses, or $75 with wines) offers an exotic antipasti of prosciutto-wrapped grilled shrimp with gorgonzola, followed by a primo course of chilled sorrel soup or risotto with asparagus and mushrooms. The main course involves a choice among poached halibut in saffron broth, roasted quail stuffed with pancetta or an herb-crusted lamb chop with sausage-wrapped lamb loin. Dessert could be chocolate amaretto custard and panna cotta served with vanilla-scented berries. Espresso or cappuccino follow. The meal, served at a single seating, typically takes three hours. Similarly extravagant lunches are available in two to four courses ($25 to $38), again paired with recommended wines.

Firehouse Cafe
1737  West Main St., Orange

The old firehouse with its high ceilings, tall front windows and abundant greenery provides lots of atmosphere for this cafe and market, which features gourmet foods and Virginia wines. New chef-owner Jonathan Hayward, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, expanded the meal hours when he bought the establishment in 2001 after stints at leading Charlottesville restaurants. He also added the Hideaway Lounge, which includes a pool table and large-screen TV, in a separate room at the rear. At a couple of lunch visits, we enjoyed a cup of gazpacho, a pasta salad, and a vidalia onion quiche with house salad on one occasion, and a goat cheese quesadilla, a cup of sweet onion soup and half a pastrami sandwich the next. Specials included cold curried broccoli and cold zucchini soups, minted fruit salad and chocolate-almond torte. The dinner menu reflects higher aspirations. Typical main courses range from grilled salmon fillet with spicy pipian sauce to lamb shanks braised in red wine and balsamic vinegar. Maple-corn-crusted trout, grilled chicken breast with pineapple and cherry chutney and grilled bourbon-soaked pork chop typify the seasonal offerings. Starters include sautéed shrimp with garlic, white wine and chives over bruschetta and fried calamari marinated in ginger ale with green onion sauce. Among desserts are crème caramel and chocolate-praline crunch cake.

Willow Grove Inn
14079 Plantation Hwy., Orange

The rural setting is tough to beat and the dining rooms are as luxurious as can be. The dining experience has its ups and downs, according to local reports, at what most concede is Orange’s most ambitious food and lodging undertaking. Dining is in three interior venues, plus a garden veranda in season. The Jefferson Library is a comfortable room dressed in white with different floral china at each table (as is the case throughout the inn). The larger and more formal Dolley Madison Room has a crystal chandelier, Queen Anne chairs and deep rose swags over the windows. The casual, ground-floor Clark’s Tavern sports a bar of heartpine, hand-hewn beams and assorted antique china on the tables. Service was leisurely at lunch (no longer served), when we sampled a mesquite chicken salad and poached salmon with a cucumber salad. We also enjoyed the inn’s specialty, Willow pie, a decadent concoction with chocolate chips, walnuts and bourbon in a puff pastry shell topped with real whipped cream.The cuisine is regional American, and four-course meals upstairs are prix-fixe. Typical main courses are seared diver scallops with ratatouille, pan-seared duck breast with blackberry gastrique, and rack of lamb crusted with peanuts and pecans and served with fortified lamb jus. Starters could be shrimp and corn chowder, oyster fritters with caviar, and crab étouffée with smoked tomato sauce and corn fritters. For dessert, how about orange-white chocolate mousse, dark chocolate cake with raspberries and chocolate ganache, and sweet almond and hazelnut crisp with homemade vanilla ice cream? Virtually the same menu is offered à la carte downstairs in the tavern. A vocalist and pianist entertain on weekend evenings. Live jazz is played at brunch.

Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2003.

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