A Nashville-seasoned soft-shell crab sandwich from Lillie Pearl (Photo courtesy Lillie Pearl)
With the arrival of spring comes its bountiful supply of fleeting foods. We’ve tracked down the restaurants, markets and farmers offering a taste of Virginia, including ingredients sourced from local waterways and fields.
Soft-shell Crabs
After the Atlantic blue crab sheds its hard shell, the crustacean is almost a third larger. Catch them while you can: The shells wrapping fleecy, sweet meat are pliable for mere hours before their protective outside begins to harden again. Net softies from May to September, when warm water triggers shedding.
At multilocation Latitude Seafood Co., the crew batters and deep-fries whale-sized soft-shells for their seasonal two-hander sandwiches.
Lillie Pearl tunes up a heated chorus via its Nashville-seasoned soft-shell crab sandwich, which doesn’t skimp on the accoutrements: ranch slaw, spicy ranch dressing and pickles.
At Vietnamese stalwart Mekong, softies are fried crispy, then gently glazed with either a ginger-scallion or sweet-and-sour tamarind sauce. Grab a beer to wash them down.
Home cooks on the hunt for pristine soft-shells should navigate to Bon Air Seafood, where the counter staff can guide you to the appropriate size and shell texture, from the barely there, paper-thin-shelled crabs to more toothsome options.
Bacon-wrapped shad roe with anchovy butter, capers and lemon at Shoreline Seafood Market (Photo by Jay Paul)
Shad Roe
Shad migrate to fresh water to spawn in the spring. Their eggs are a luxurious, salty oceanic treat that is as short-lived, and as buttery on the lips, as an illicit meetup. Secure that roe while it’s hot.
Shoreline Seafood Market chef Josh Loeb wraps shad roe with bacon before marching it into the pan with anchovy butter, lemon and capers.
Mamma Zu’s legendary shad roe spiedini lives on at Edo’s Squid, where sets of the southern caviar are cleaned, dredged in flour, panned in butter and capers, then served with lemony field greens.
Follow the shad’s Atlantic peregrinations to Tuckahoe Seafood, where the unctuous sea caviar will be available in early April. Pro-tip: Top it with pork belly before pan-frying and serving with lacy, runny eggs cooked in the drippings.
Ramps
Long before they became a trendy farmers market find, wild ramps signaled spring in Southwest Virginia. The estimable Virginia-raised chef Edna Lewis referred to the pungent, leafy allium she grew up foraging as a tonic after a winter spent devoid of homegrown lettuces.
Carytown’s small-batch sausage bistro, The Mayor, mixes its links seasonally, bulking up sustainably sourced, in-house butchered meats with a hangover-curing amount of the onion-scented wild leeks.
Dinamo takes a comforting approach to the ramp, grinding it into pesto and stirring the sharply oily, nutty spread into pillowy gnocchi — one of the eatery’s most sought-after and dreamt-of dishes.
At daytime deli Charlotte’s, chewy wontons are wrapped around fresh ramps, which perfume the broth of chef and co-owner Nikki Gregory’s springy wonton soup.
Though the season for ramps is short, Lindera Farms preserves the bracing bite of the wild onion in its ramp vinegar, which is available online. It makes a randy addition to a bloody mary.
Vegetarian mushroom cavatelli with English peas at Hobnob (Photo by Jay Paul)
Peas
Another verdant sign of spring, peas come in all shapes and sizes, from the swirling tendrils of fresh pea shoots to the starchy centers of baby English peas.
Thirty-year-old favorite Full Kee takes a Cantonese approach to pea shoots, first steaming and then stir-frying them. The result is a spinach-meets-snow-pea creation bursting with garlic and a hint of ginger.
The Prodigal Son cocktail at Heritage is a garden in a glass, with snap pea matcha pulling crisp, herby notes.
Lakeside hangout Hobnob makes a substantial vegetarian mushroom cavatelli with English peas that knocks primavera to its knees.
On Patterson Avenue, Shoreline Seafood Market marries king salmon, spring peas, smoked onion soubise, tangy caramelized cippolinis and Texas tarragon for a seafood sister wife of delicacies.
Asparagus
Local asparagus harvested in April and May has softer stalks and manifests a vegetal depth of flavor straight from the garden of eating. It’s a companion plant to strawberries that proliferate in late April.
Grisette chef-owner Donnie Glass knows that silky egg textures complement asparagus. The restaurant’s asparagus gribiche is a madame-approved combo of chopped eggs, capers, cornichons, herbs, lemon, Dijon and olive oil atop cooked asparagus.
Asparagus goat cheese galettes with balsamic glaze are a flaky treat featuring local stalks at Union Hill’s Fat Rabbit.
River City Bakery offers quiche with asparagus and almond-strawberry tarts using produce from Agriberry Farms. Discover its ephemeral treats at the Pizza Bones Spring Market on April 27, alongside strawberry-chocolate cake, and at Birdhouse Farmers Market starting in May.
Fill your basket with asparagus bundles from Manakintowne Specialty Growers via Little House Green Grocery, where fresh strawberries and ramps will also be on deck. The Bellevue market hopes to have housemade ramp pasta and ramp salt on the shelves this year, too.
Braised rabbit gnudi with spring peas and wild maitake, oyster and chanterelle mushrooms from Revel (Photo by Marcus Ingram)
Wild Mushrooms
Wild mushroom hunting can be fickle, resulting in either a feast of the senses or a famine on the plate. These establishments are sure things when it comes to procuring meaty, umami-rich fungi.
Revel unlocks the ’shroom badge with braised rabbit gnudi: That’s ricotta dumplings bedecked with spring peas and wild maitake, oyster and chanterelle mushrooms.
Farmer and mushroom man Steve Haas of HaaShrooms vends black trumpets and chicken of the woods at the Farmers Market at St. Stephen’s through May, while June brings forth meaty chanterelles and morels.
Yellow Umbrella Provisions scores its chanterelles from a teacher at St. Christopher’s School, who hunts them with his son. The grocer is also a reliable source for soft-shells and shad roe, and they make one heck of a soft-shell sandwich.
Recently opened pizza spot BrickFire tops its hand-stretched dough with bechamel and a blend of Asiago and provolone before piling on wood-oven-baked wild mushrooms, pickled Fresno chiles, and a generous dusting of pecorino and olive oil.
