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The owners of Trouvaille, Joe Kmetz and Jennie Garriques
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Trouvaille is located at 203 N. Lombardy St. in the Fan, a space formerly occupied by ventures including Brun, Poor Boys, Balliceaux and Bogart’s.
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Scottish salmon with heirloom carrots, chimichurri and housemade salsa macha
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Beef tartare
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The dining area inside Trouvaille
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The bar area at Trouvaille
Joe Kmetz has been itching to own a restaurant in the city since he first dreamed of owning a restaurant at all. A place diners could walk to, whose menu reflected an ethos of quality over quantity and changed according to the seasons.
“The vision I had in my head was downtown … and when the opportunity arose to look down here, we ran with it,” says Kmetz, former chef and owner of The Shaved Duck in Midlothian. “From the inception of The Shaved Duck, we always coined it as a downtown restaurant in the suburbs, and now it’s just a downtown restaurant.”
Named for a nearby alley and French for “lucky find,” Trouvaille made its debut earlier this month at 203 N. Lombardy St. in the Fan.
Kmetz is joined by Richmond native and dining industry veteran Jennie Garriques, whose resume includes Metro Bar & Grill, Capital Ale House, Lady N’awlins, F.W. Sullivan’s, and Curbside Cafe. The pair previously worked together at The Shaved Duck.
“When the Duck closed, he said, ‘Do you want to open a spot?’ and I was like, ‘Yes.’ I’ve been doing this for a long time, so having the opportunity, it only made sense,” Garriques says.
Recognizing that there is an industry ceiling in terms of growth, Garriques says she felt becoming a co-owner and restaurateur was an opportunity she had been waiting for and working toward. As for partnering with Kmetz, she says, their personalities and communication styles aligned, and she describes him as a natural leader.
“We’ve had similar experiences through our different careers to where both of us have big ideas and have always wanted the platform to execute them,” Kmetz says of Garriques, noting that he’s done everything in restaurants from waiting tables to being a general manager and helming the kitchen. “It’s finally like, if I’m going to do this I’m going to go all in.”
The Shaved Duck shuttered in June of last year. Asked when they started looking for a new space, Garriques chuckles and says, “June.” The duo looked at five or six spaces before settling on the building that has previously housed ventures including Brun, Poor Boys, Balliceaux and Bogart’s.
Kmetz says the opening of Trouvaille feels freeing, noting that he’s ditched some of the more suburban-friendly menu items from The Shaved Duck such as tacos and burgers. Garriques, who is used to slinging drinks at high-volume bars, says she is excited to slow down and take her time.
On the menu, diners will find starters including the signature beef tartare served with a potato pave layered with beef fat and butter, topped with horseradish foam and tobiko (flying fish roe); coconut curry short ribs with crispy rice; and beet carpaccio. Mains include a seafood pasta with ramp cream sauce; duck with broccolini, cashew butter, Banyuls syrup (made from fortified wine) and pomegranate; and Scottish salmon with chimichurri and housemade salsa macha. The current dessert lineup features chocolate ganache, strawberry cake, and miso churro ice cream with balsamic figs and bruleed blood orange.
“With the food, everything we do is from scratch, and we want to use what’s in season and accentuate local ingredients and go from there,” Kmetz says.
On the cocktail front, options range from riffs on classics such The Gibster, a play on the Gibson made with olive-oil-infused vodka, amontillado sherry, vermouth and pickled onion caviar, the savory Verandah Views with gin, cucumber, Ancho Reyes Verde and green paprika, and the carbonated True Vibes, a house rum blend with pineapple, coconut, lime and cilantro.
“It’s rewarding to put all these eggs in one basket,” Kmetz says. “Instead of having this idea of ‘What if I owned my own restaurant?’ or ‘If I owned a restaurant I would do it this way,’ let’s just do it.”
Trouvaille is open Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m.
