Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar in the Main Street Market.
PHOTO BY NED OLDHAM

An elephant is like a tree—at least that’s what the blind monk who felt its leg deduced; his five fabled brethren felt differently. If Orzo Kitchen and Wine Bar in the Main Street Market can be likened to an elephant, it might have to be one of those that famously traversed the Mediterranean areas working for Greeks, Romans, and North Africans because here owners-chefs Ken Wooten and Charles Roumeliotes have created a polished paean to Mediterranean cuisine via the Market space’s top-shelf position in Charlottesville’s foodie-fantasy, at the intersection of Local and Fine Taste.

I am not a blind monk; I am The Eater. It’s the variety of the layout that got me thinking of the elephant parable as we stopped first under sleek, dangling, swirled orange-and-blue glass lights over wooden stools and bar with coat hooks underneath. Here, a few over-40, country-club types were (more)

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“Our new people have been here for six or seven years, that’s ‘new people,’” Duner’s owner Bob Caldwell tells me over the phone. “Most nights, I know almost everybody in the room.”.
PHOTO BY RYAN HOOVER

When I find myself explaining my city to outsiders, I’m not just recalling the cosmopolitan restaurant scene, the organic locavore movement, or even the community’s infatuation with grocery stores.

I think of institutions, a handful of local restaurants where the cooks flatten hamburger buns, the cashier does magic tricks with spare change, and the owner visits tables to make sure customers are happy– after all, he started out as a line cook when his restaurant opened in 1983.

“Our new people have been here for six or seven years, that’s ‘new people,’” Duner’s owner Bob Caldwell tells me over the phone. “Most nights, I know almost everybody in the room.”

He estimates that his Ivy restaurant has served more than a million meals. He calls it a “neighborhood bistro,” I call it an institution.

An old friend and I met at Duner’s one Monday evening in February. It was early when we arrived, and the two small dining rooms and bar soon swelled with salt-and-pepper couples and ripe families around us. Our waitress appeared to sense that we were catching up after two years and slowed our meal to a leisurely gait. (more)

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