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This year the local dining community is making sure Richmonders can still celebrate Valentine’s Day in good taste — whether it's with friends, family or simply solo. Feast your heart out on everything from heart-shaped cheesecake to multicourse dinners that definitely pair well with candlelight. However you choose to rendezvous, head below for a sampling of ways to show your love through food.
Stella's Grocery
Stella’s Grocery’s choose-your-own-adventure menu is like a greatest hits list of foods you love from the neighborhood grocer. Mix and match an app and a salad, two entrees (try the sour cherry duck breast), and two sides, plus a bottle of wine and a couple of chocolate-dipped strawberries for an all-out lovers’ feast.
Order: Online
Pickup: At the Malvern Gardens location on Feb. 13
Cost: $125 for two
Cookies and Chill
What says love more than a heart-shaped strawberry Japanese cheesecake adorned with “Valentine’s Day” in powdered sugar? Homebaking service Cookies and Chill is offering the jiggly, airy, delicate creations — also available in classic, chocolate or dulce de leche flavors — for the holiday, in addition to crepe cakes, heart-shaped conchas, seasonal cookies and pieces of sweet bread joined with strawberry jam and slathered with butter and sugar dubbed "Mexican Kisses," along with the regular menu.
Order: By Feb. 10 via Instagram, Facebook or text at 804-380-6650
Pickup: Day of order; delivery available between Feb. 12 and Feb. 14.
Cost: $25 to $50
Secco Wine Bar
This Valentine’s Day, Secco Wine Bar Executive Chef Julie Heins is making sure everybody feels the love. The Robinson Street eatery is offering two menus — one for meat-eaters and plant-powered diners alike — each with three courses. My suggestion: Order each one and experience the best of both worlds.
Order: Online
Pickup: Feb. 13 between 5 and 8 p.m.
Cost: $65 per person; add-on wine pairing, $30 per person
Alewife
After taking a winter break in January, the team behind Church Hill’s Alewife is coming back hot with a three-course V-Day offering. Grilled squid with salsa verde, broccolini and garlic breadcrumbs; house-made ravioli with a mushroom-ricotta filling; seared arctic char; and tres leches cake with ginger, matcha and basil, all grace the menu. Bonus: General Manager and bar wizard Katy Best is also whipping up pink St. Germain spritzers, along with a selection of wine pairings, for boozy add-ons.
Order: Online
Pickup: After 4 p.m. on Feb. 13 or 14
Cost: $45 per person
Nomad Deli & Catering
We like options, and this Brookland Park Boulevard eatery and catering company is offering a pair of ways to celebrate with your partner in crime — an intimate four-course meal or a take-home date-night box. There’s also the option to order a heart-shaped container of wings that just requires your loved one and beer, definitely beer.
Order: Online
Pickup: Date-night box on Feb. 14 between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.; four-course meal between Feb. 13 and 14
Cost: Varies
Longoven
Call dibs on Longoven’s To-Go Valentine’s kit, including sparkling rosé, blinis and caviar, foie gras mousse, a whole roasted duck, and chocolate cake. It’s certain to both wow and woo, so if you have a date you want to impress, go this route. The team is also offering a seven-course tasting menu experience on the heated patio.
Order: Online
Pickup: Between Feb. 12 and 14 between 3 and 5 p.m.
Cost: $170 for two
Intergalactic Tacos
With both couples and singles in mind, Intergalactic Tacos offers a three-course meal with a “Stay at Home and Bone” take-and-bake meal, including a salad and a choice of entrees (including a soy-rizo stuffed acorn squash for vegan friends), plus desserts; or a Heartbreakers Taco Box for one happily single individual, available for preorder, to be claimed when the taco truck sets up in front of Barrel Thief, where you can be sure the suggested wine pairings will be on point. Can’t make it to Barrel Thief? Don’t sweat. Day-of pickups available at The Bearded Kitchen.
Order: By Feb. 8
Pickup: Feb. 13 at Barrel Thief or Feb. 14 at The Bearded Kitchen
Cost: $50 for two; Heartbreakers Box Taco Kit for one, $23, for two, $45
Brenner Pass
The Brenner crew has thought of everything with a romantically intuitive spread starting with a bottle of Cornu Bourgogne Rouge “Les Barrigards” and moving swiftly to velvety oysters, hitting a peppery crescendo with filet of beef au poivre, and ending on a sweet note with a chocolate-caramel tart and white chocolate and chestnut truffles.
Order: Online — only 20 available
Pickup: Feb. 13 between 2 and 8 p.m. at Black Lodge
Cost: $200 for two
Demi’s
Filet, crabcakes and dolmades, oh my. Keeping the menu classic while infusing Demi’s signature touches, this MacArthur Avenue restaurant is offering a multicourse meal complete with arancini, spanakopita and signature house rolls. Dessert? Chocolate-dipped strawberries.
Order: By 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12
Pickup: Sunday, Feb. 14 between 1 and 5 p.m.
Cost: $125 for two
Perk!
Having first opened on Valentine’s Day six years ago, the Perk folks have love in their bones, and they’ve packed up three different bundles of goodies for you and your beloved, with names as clever as candy hearts — Recipe 4 Love, with chocolate-dipped strawberries, Parmesan-rosemary shortbread, bubbly and coffee; Plant 1 on Me, vegan-breakfast-in-bed perfection; and Will U Be Mine, loaded with locally sourced sweets.
Order: Online
Pickup: On Feb. 13
Cost: Starting at $20
The Broken Tulip
The Broken Tulip’s “Le Tres Romantique” V-Day menu is charming and punny, like a nervous chap on a big date. Are you a nervous chap on a big date? Fill your basket with TBT’s blinis and caviar or their Sri Lankan-style lobster bun, and you’re destined to impress. Add on a few honey buns for the morning after, because why should dinner get all the romance? Bonus: Get a selection of professionally arranged flowers in swoon-inducing antique vases, ranging in price from $15 to $125.
Order: Online
Pickup: On Feb. 13 between 3 and 7 p.m.
Cost: Between $10 and $60
Lehja
Lehja is here for couples and families with two options for the big day — a five-course dinner for two or a selection of vegetarian or meat-inclusive options to serve four or five. Whichever you choose, don’t snooze on Lehja’s award-winning wine selection, including 30% off Lehja’s Barboursville Winery selections.
Order: Online
Pickup: At Lehja; delivery available through GrubHub and DoorDash
Cost: Starts at $99 for two or $85 for the vegetarian feast
Lunch & Supper
If you let Lunch & Supper take the reins, the hardest part of your Valentine’s Day will be deciding between the wedge salad or the steak and onion bialy on this three-course takeout meal. Choose from risotto, rib-eye steak or carrot pasta and finish off with a mini red velvet cake with white chocolate buttercream. Or stock up for a great V-Day morning with Lunch & Supper’s Valentine’s Crate, full of goodies like truffles, bubbly, coffee and, of course, pickles.
Order: Email catering@lunchorsupper.com
Pickup: Saturday, Feb. 13 or Sunday, Feb. 14
Cost: $100 for two, add $20 for bubbles; Valentine’s Crate, $80
Shagbark
For an elegant evening, look to Shagbark’s five-course heat-and-eat tasting dinner for two. It’s easy to envision a scenario wherein you pick up your truffled potato-leek bisque, gulf shrimp salad, slow-braised short ribs, lobster ravioli and molten lava cake, ferry them to your kitchen, toss a bit of flour on your apron as you warm them, per Shagbark’s instructions, and then claim to have made the entire meal from scratch. Your secret is safe with Chef Walter Bundy and us.
Order: Online
Pickup: Saturday, Feb. 13, between 1 and 3 p.m.
Cost: $160 for two
Old Original Bookbinder's
Bookbinder’s Seafood & Steakhouse is offering a special Valentine’s Day menu for both dining in and takeout. Whether you're searching for a socially distanced, white-tablecloth night out or an elegant homebound rendezvous, the Shockoe Slip restaurant has diners covered with a three-course menu featuring everything from their famous crab cakes to a filet mignon served with their classic green peppercorn sauce.
Order: Must be placed by Feb. 11
Pickup: Between Feb. 12 and 14
Cost: $70 per guest
