We’re already in the second week of 2023 in the River City, and in the days ahead there’s a celebration of Vietnamese Lunar New Year in Glen Allen, a jazz band collab with the Richmond Symphony, a fishy kind of pop-up dining experience and more to explore. Enjoy!
Building Back
Architectural historian Edwin Slipek discusses “Gabriella Harvie Randolph Brockenbrough: Virginia’s Lost Architecture Patron” in a Historic Richmond lecture on Thursday, Jan. 12, at 6 p.m. at the Tuckahoe Women’s Club. Slipek has spent years researching Brockenbrough’s life and achievements. The daughter of Richmond’s fourth mayor, John Harvie, Brockenbrough befriended and learned from the top architects of her day, including B. Henry Latrobe, Robert Mills and Thomas Jefferson, but her knowledge and influence are often overlooked. Learn why Slipek thinks that she designed the family’s circa-1818 house at Court End herself. Tickets are $25.
⎯Susan Morgan, R•Home Managing Editor
Symphonic Fusion
“Ladies and gentlemen, Butcher Brown is back at it once again,” starts the progressive jazz band’s latest album, “Butcher Brown Presents Triple Trey.” On Saturday, Jan.14, the group’s back for a hometown show with the Richmond Symphony at the Dominion Energy Center. Since 2013, Butcher Brown has fused jazz, funk, hip-hop, rock and soul on its genre-smashing tracks, and the talent of the Richmond Symphony, conducted by Chia-Hsuan Lin, should take things to a whole new level. The show starts at 8 p.m., and tickets are $11 to $85.
⎯Mark Newton, News Editor
Change of Phase
Tết Nguyên Đán, often shortened to Tết, is a Vietnamese holiday welcoming the arrival of spring. The Vien Giac Buddhist Temple is hosting a Tết celebration on Saturday, Jan. 14, from 2 to 7 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 15, from noon to 4 p.m. Enjoy vegan Vietnamese food along with a lion dance, a fashion show and games. The event is free, but special tickets that include food and drink tokens are $50 to $100. Proceeds benefit the Madame Le nonprofit organization, the Vien Giac Buddhist Temple and The Academy at Virginia Randolph.
—Gray Pershing, Editorial Intern
Here Fishy, Fishy
If you thought that pop-ups were on the way out in 2023, think again. On Jan. 15, Cambodian concept Royal Pig will stray from its food stall at Hatch Local for an evening at Cobra Burger in Church Hill dubbed Battle of Five Fish. The bonanza from chef-owners Vanna Hem and Adam Stull promises seafood five ways: filets, whole fish, mussels, ceviche and a sandwich. Dishes will be first-come, first-served starting at 7 p.m. “We feel like now, in our fourth year of being around, we can take traditional Cambodian flavors and flip them on their heads and really expand people’s idea of what Cambodian food can be,” Hem says.
⎯Eileen Mellon, Food Editor
Other Suggestions
- Southern rockers Drivin N Cryin come to the Richmond Music Hall Jan. 14.
- The Virginia Fly Fishing & Wine Festival returns to Meadow Event Park Jan. 14-15.
- “Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour — Frederick Douglass” continues at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
River City Roundup is Richmond magazine’s weekly compilation of the best things to see, do and experience in the region, compiled by our editors. Get each week’s installment directly in your inbox every Monday by subscribing to our e-newsletter.
