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Capellini alle vongole, angel hair pasta with clams
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Carrot cacio e pepe
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Oro’s 100-layer lasagna
Richmond chef Laine Myers has contemplated leaving the restaurant industry more than once during her long-tenured culinary career. Like many who live and breathe their craft, she battled self-doubt, at times an unhealthy dedication to her work, and an underlying feeling of “so close, but not quite.” Luckily for devotees of her cooking, the 32-year-old has not only endured, she’s thriving.
“It was just kind of always an uphill battle,” Myers says. “I have given my life to this, and nothing felt like it had paid off fully, but here I was doing a little bit less about everyone else and a lot more about myself, and people responded, and fast.”
Chef Laine Myers
After stepping away from restaurant kitchens and out on her own with the Italian-inspired pop-up Oro, now is the moment Myers has been waiting for. Since its debut, the handmade pasta concept has solidified that kneading dough, wearing an apron dusted with semolina, is exactly where the chef should be.
“I think a lot of it is nostalgia for me,” says Myers, a Connecticut native who was raised in Albermarle County. “I grew up with my mom making Italian food, and I didn’t appreciate it. When you’re young, you don’t. I never recognized that it was so special.”
In 2008, she moved to Richmond to attend VCU, double-majoring in environmental studies and political science while also working in area kitchens. Post-graduation, she recalls contemplating, “Do I go and pursue [what I studied], or do I try to pursue this new thing that I have totally fallen in love with?” She went with her heart.
It was at the now-shuttered Richmond location of Graffiato where Myers would become enamored with the finesse of pasta making, the rhythmic motions, the process of learning how dough responds to the touch and how each shape is unique.
I was doing a little bit less about everyone else and a lot more about myself, and people responded, and fast.
—Laine Myers
During three years at the Italian concept from onetime celebrity chef-restaurateur Mike Isabella, Myers would also endure some of the most traumatizing culinary experiences of her life. The headline-grabbing restaurant closed in 2018 following a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former Graffiato manager, as well as the surfacing of controversial nondisclosure agreements Isabella had employees sign upon hiring.
“I look back on it now and am like, ‘How did I stick around, how did I manage to deal with that?’ ” Myers reflects. “It was such an impressionable time. I was super-obsessed with my knives and wanted to stage everywhere, and, you know, you were just inspired through the abuse. It didn’t matter, [I thought,] because one day I’ll surpass this.”
After leaving Graffiato, Myers worked briefly at L’Opossum before landing in the kitchen at Metzger Bar & Butchery. There, she adopted an ethos of seasonality, and it’s where her creativity began to blossom. Two years later, she entered the kitchen of the rustic Italian den Nota Bene. Although the now-closed Shockoe Bottom restaurant presented her with a chance to flex her pasta-making skills, it still had its restraints. At the end of 2019, she introduced Oro, and six months later, Myers left Nota Bene to pursue it full time.
Following her first residency pop-up at Hatch Cafe, Oro’s Instagram went from 300 followers to 2,000.
“My phone was exploding, and I never really put value on that,” Myers says. “But I was so touched and grateful and felt so realized.”
In the beginning of 2022, Oro started selling at the Birdhouse and St. Stephen’s farmers markets. Neither had a pasta purveyor, but the markets were receptive to the idea of a familiar product with a chef’s thoughtful touch — and so were their shoppers.
“I was so surprised at how much conversation I have with every single person that comes up to our tent at the farmers market,” Myers says. “A myriad of Q&A sessions with everybody, and it’s great.”
With Myers as the sole pasta maker, Oro’s market booth is typically managed by her partner, Adriana Simmons, a bubbly and welcoming burst of energy and knowledge, and their two dogs, Ginger Cookie and Eva, who hang out nearby in a hand-pull wagon.
Most of Oro’s pastas are unfamiliar to the average consumer, and education is as important a pillar of their business as the locally sourced ingredients and thoughtfulness behind each offering.
“They’re learning about fresh pastas, and we’re teaching them to look beyond the $2 box at Kroger,” Myers explains. “The lot number of that [grocery store] box is like one of 500,000. Mine is like one of 40.”
From plump, Sardinian-inspired culurgiones, which double as works of art dotted with delicate imprints, to wavy red-wheat radiatorre with grains sourced from Virginia and seasonal hits such as ramp or corn ravioli, Oro is reimagining the pasta scene in Richmond.
While farmers markets and its own CSA have allowed Oro to gain a faithful weekly fan base, pop-ups allow Myers to “scratch the itch of being a chef.” They are also where the true magic unfolds, drawing diners who seek intricate creations such as a 100-layer lasagna at sold-out events hosted by The Jasper and Celladora Wines.
Despite its lack of a brick-and-mortar space, this year Oro was recognized by Eater DC as one of the Top 22 Restaurants in Richmond, and the goal is to find a permanent home.
“We are dying to do a restaurant,” Myers says, noting that she also hopes to land Oro in markets. “I want a space somewhere where I can have a small dining room and a large enough kitchen to do the retail and the restaurant, everything, under one roof.”
