“It’s always nice to pull the chef out of their environment and give them a different type of cuisine and see what they’ll do with it,” Keene says. Participating chefs include Tim Bereika of Secco Wine Bar, Ryan Evans of Mint New Casual Cuisine, John Maher of spoon, Aaron Hoskins and likely a chef from Comfort, she says.
In addition to the kimchi dishes, guests will receive small hors d’oeuvres, and some local brewers will also be on hand. The kimchi event will be held at 6 p.m. at Kitchen Thyme, 7801-25 W. Broad St. Tickets are $50 each, available for purchase in advance (cash only) at The Empress and Kitchen Thyme.
Meanwhile, Keene is also preparing for Broad Appétit on June 3, when she and Maher will be working with Kitchen Thyme owner Melissa Krumbein at her tent.
Keene is also fine-tuning plans for Ginkgo, a restaurant that will serve Korean barbecue, and scouting possible locations.
Originally from South Korea, Keene was adopted as an infant by a family in Syracuse, N.Y. She came to Richmond to study interior design at Virginia Commonwealth University. However, she quickly realized that hospitality is what she really enjoys. A self-taught cook, Keene has always loved making meals for her family and holding dinner parties, and Korean food is her specialty.
Korean barbecue is marinated meat that’s grilled and, in most cases, served on top of something else. However, Keene is incorporating Latin flavors to ease people into it. “A lot of people haven’t tried it, but you can get someone to try it if it’s in a taco,” she says.
In addition to the barbecue, Ginkgo will serve Korean sushi, which is a little bigger than Japanese sushi and contains cooked meats and fish rather than raw. Koreans also place a lot of emphasis on presentation, so their sushi tends to be colorful, she says.
Ginkgo will be small and cozy, seating about 25 people. Keene says she would like to have a big bar with a wide selection of craft and local beers, as well as a large family-style table in the center. Because she knows that Richmonders enjoy dining outside, she would love to find a location that has a patio.
Though she is still looking for the perfect location, she is focusing her search in the Museum and the Fan districts. Keene says she has most of the logistics figured out and hopes the restaurant will open by the end of year.
“We’ve outgrown this kitchen,” co-owner Dawn Schick says of the cupcake shop she opened with her husband, Albert, in October 2009. Lately, the co-owners of The Grace Manor Inn have been baking cupcakes at the kitchen in their bed-and-breakfast and delivering the baked goods to the retail space in Carytown.
Schick expects construction in the new space to be completed this week. She plans to open the store to customers in the last week of May.
“When we’re done baking the day before, we’ll move the ovens down and it’ll be magically ready for the next day,” she says, adding that she plans to stay open during the transition.
In addition to installing a kitchen and a bathroom at the new location between Galaxy Diner and Carey Burke Carpets, the owners are painting the storefront pink, painting the interior walls pale pink with green trimming and installing black and white diagonal checkered tiles on the floor. Construction will cost about $40,000 and the additional equipment will cost about $30,000.
The new location will have a large viewing window between the retail shop and the kitchen with a bar at the window. “So you can sit at the bar, eat cupcakes and watch them being made and decorated right through the window,” Schick says.
She also plans to increase the daily flavor offerings from 13 cupcakes to 18. The menu includes five classic flavors and a rotating selection of specialty flavors created around a weekly theme, such as Italian desserts, wine country or ice cream-flavored cupcakes. The expanded menu will allow the shop to increase its gluten-free and vegan cupcakes.
The couple created a Kickstarter page to raise money for the extra amenities they want to offer customers. "Lots of little things that would just put the finishing touches on everything,” Schick says. They’re asking for $8,000 to pay for extras including a black and white awning over the cupcake bar and detailing on the custom-built cupcake case. As of Monday afternoon, seven contributors had kicked in $311, but the donations will be accepted through Sunday night. The way Kickstarter operates, the project will only be funded if at least $8,000 is pledged.
For each dollar Brown raises, she is given a point toward the society’s campaign. Essentially, the candidate with the most points/money raised by June 13 will win the title. However, for Brown, it isn’t about the competition.
“I’m most interested in involving the school [Virginia College] and myself in the community,” Brown says. Culinard’s campus on Midlothian Turnpike across from the old Cloverleaf Mall opened in January 2011.
Brown, who moved to the Richmond area from New York City a year ago, is hosting three cooking classes and a five-course tasting menu as a part of her “Woman of the Year” campaign. With the help of some of her colleagues at Culinard, there will be a “Cooking with Mom” dinner on May 12, a Spanish tapas date night on June 2, and a “Cooking with Dad” class on June 16. Each class costs $50, and all of the proceeds will go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
The five-course tasting menu, the RVA Tasting Class, will be offered on May 28 and will involve multiple chefs, including Brown. The cost for the class is $75 per person or $125 per couple. Participants will watch the chefs and then eat each course as it’s prepared.
Culinard instructors Patty McGuire, a former executive chef at Siné Irish Pub; chef David Hughes, former owner of Graffiti Grill; and Daniel Graban, a chef from Spain; are assisting with the events. To register, contact Brown at larava@aol.com.
Each “Man and Woman of the Year” campaign is inspired by the “Boy and Girl of the Year,” children who are battling blood cancers. This year, the Virginia chapter’s boy and girl are Wyatt and Eleanor, both of whom were diagnosed at very young ages with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
After meeting the young survivors, Brown was even more motivated to be one of the candidates. “Meeting them touched my heart and I thought, ‘This is something I should do,’ ” she says.
All of the money raised by Brown and all other candidates will be used to help the society discover blood cancer therapies and cures for children like Wyatt and Eleanor.
for Capital Ale House. (Photos courtesy Capital Ale House)
This person is responsible for creating and designing the menus as well as figuring out the culinary direction for all five locations, and Simmons says that William Erlenbach has the qualities that his management team was looking for.
Erlenbach, originally from Indiana, has been with Richmond-based Capital Ale for about two months, and he says that he is more than content with the feedback so far from patrons as the new menu is gradually presented.
He graduated from Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island and has cooked in Boston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Before joining Capital Ale, he worked as a private consultant to hotels, restaurants and catering companies in the District of Columbia, where he lived for 17 years.
Though Richmond is slower-paced than D.C., Erlenbach says he loves it here and plans to stay put for a while. His main goal as corporate executive chef, he says, is not to change Capital Ale House, which is celebrating its 10th year in 2012, but to continue to make it better. Though the concept is the same, the goal is to tie all of the elements together, including the restaurant group’s extensive craft beer selection and its focus on Virginia products and ingredients, Erlenbach says.
Customers can expect to see some twists on dishes that are already a part of the menu, he says. For instance, some items will incorporate a local beer or malt in a sauce. Another subtle difference that people may start to notice about the menu is that dishes will be more straightforward. “If it looks like salmon, it’ll taste like salmon,” Erlenbach says.
In fact, one of the menu additions is grilled salmon with a barbecue dry rub, served on a bed of spinach with corn relish, sliced mushrooms, pickled red onions and lime-buttermilk dressing.
Among the other menu items Erlenbach has added are:
— Virginia Oysters tossed in cornmeal then sautéed and set atop wilted spinach and Jamestown ham and finished with a roasted-garlic-and-white-bean sauce;
— Pork and Grits: hominy grits and aged cheddar cakes topped with house-pulled Virginia pork, then accented with Capital Ale’s coffee-scented barbecue sauce;
— The Richmond Chicken Sandwich: basil-marinated chicken breast grilled and served on sourdough bread with red-pepper mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and Virginia peanut slaw; and
— Lamb Burger: seasoned ground lamb grilled and topped with caramelized onions, feta cheese and house-made pomegranate barbecue sauce on a sourdough bun.
A native of Long Beach, Calif., Allen has lived in Richmond for nearly 30 years. She taught culinary arts at Richmond Technical Center, and has also done catering work and home-based baking. And though she received culinary school training, she says that much of her knowledge about baking and cooking comes from visiting her two Creole grandmothers, one in New Orleans and one in Newport News. From them, she learned to make beignets as well as gumbo, which she plans to serve when Ingrid’s expands to include a café in a few months.
Allen credits her team of helping hands, including her daughter and other family members, with helping her dream take shape.
Located in the building that previously housed Lucille’s Bakery (now on North Meadow Street), Ingrid’s Bakery welcomes customers with cheerful green and yellow colors outlining its front door and window. Allen says she chose those colors to enhance the atmosphere; the green represents earth and being grounded, while yellow stands for sunlight and positive energy. Inside, in addition to mouthwatering smells, there are pictures by local photographer Mickey Murphy.
Ingrid’s Bakery prepares cakes, Danishes, cookies, pies, muffins, pudding, breads, and cupcakes, with vegan and gluten-free options available.
“The bakery is for everyone,” Allen says. She uses locally produced eggs, and flour from a supplier in Lynchburg, and she says she hopes to find a local berry supplier.
One of her specialty sweets is the Cary Street Danish, loaded with caramel, rum raisins and walnut pieces, then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and garnished with an apple.
Breakfast sandwiches will soon be available, Allen says, and in June, she plans to begin offering cake-decorating classes at the bakery. Perhaps by August, she hopes to expand the bakery to a café where customers can sample her gumbo and other Southern favorites like catfish, collard greens, cabbage and sweet potato hash.
Ingrid’s Bakery is open from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Mondays, 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.
