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The
Lafayette Hotel
One of the great challenges of maintaining a thriving restaurant in a rural area is satisfying the tastes of two distinct groups of customers: urban sophisticates on the prowl for a special dining experience and locals who offer the potential of being regulars. At The Lafayette Hotel, which is the name of both a restaurant and a bed-and-breakfast in the tiny town of Stanardsville, located about 25 miles north of Charlottesville, owner Whitt Ledford and his partner, Nick Spencer, have been successfully walking that tightrope since they opened the place four years ago. The compromise designed to satisfy the two patron groups has produced a menu that ranges from meat-and-potatoes to delicate sauces that Ledford and Spencer developed during cooking jobs on the West Coast and in the Southwest. The two men met in the 1980s at the Boar’s Head Inn, a business-oriented resort near Charlottesville, where Ledford was the executive chef and Spencer his sous chef. Their middle-of-the-road approach also results in prices that may be a bit steep for the locals but are a relative bargain for what Spencer calls "the Gourmet Magazine crowd," who are no strangers to Washington and New York prices. The 48-year-old Ledford, a native of Hawaii who moved to Greene County after marrying a Virginian, was trained in the classical European cuisine, to which he added American touches while cooking in Oregon and Arizona. Spencer, 38, a native of Philadelphia whose family moved to Virginia when he was 10, learned cooking on the job, behind the grill at the Boar’s Head with Ledford as his mentor. In 1990, he moved to California, where he adopted its nouvelle cuisine, first at a lodge at the edge of Yosemite National Park and then at the Sixth Avenue Grill in Carmel. "We knew we could do anything" at the Lafayette, Ledford said, "but we were not sure what would work" with its diverse clientele. After a period of trial-and-error, the menu evolved into what Ledford calls "simple, comfortable food," with large portions. Which isn’t to say by any stretch that the Lafayette serves truck-stop food, or even up-scale, down-home country cooking. Its regular offerings, which range from duck, lamb and salmon to steak, chicken and pork chops, should please customers fond of fad food at such trendy spots as the Main Street Brewery in Richmond’s Fan District as well as Hungry Jack workers from the Coors brewery across the mountain in Elkton. On a recent visit, I chose the mixed grill, a belt-loosening combo that offered something for every taste: a link of smoked beef and pork bratwurst, a boneless duck breast accented with Cajun spices, two perfectly grilled lamb chops, accompanied by sauerkraut, green beans and carrots, and two vegetable pancakes. The green beans and carrots were prepared what my wife and I call "Donald Dresden style," in honor of the former restaurant critic of The Washington Post, whose reviews 30 years ago introduced us to vegetables cooked firmly, rather than the limp, overcooked style of our mothers, in their Indiana and West Virginia kitchens, God bless them. The pancakes showed off the artistry of Spencer, who does most of the cooking these days, leaving the gregarious Ledford to concentrate on running the b-and-b, greeting guests, preparing a favorite desert, filling-in for Spencer on days off and, the night we were there, waiting on tables.
The pancakes, with smoked trout, are available as an appetizer for a can’t-pass-up price of $4.50. My wife chose chicken breast "Chesapeake," which included a small crab cake, (packaged by the Phillips Restaurant chain), which was delicious even though it was not made with backfin meat. Both the chicken and crab rested on a bed of fresh spinach, were topped with a country cream sauce and accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes. (Is anyone out there old enough to remember when it wasn’t de rigueur to make mashed potatoes with garlic?) Other entrees on the menu, which changes four times a year, included a 10-ounce Delmonico (ribeye) steak with a horseradish sauce; pan-fried rainbow trout crusted with pecans; salmon fillet with grits; pork loin medallions glazed with maple syrup and topped with barbecue sauce; vegetarian lasagna, a blend of sun-dried tomatoes, wild mushrooms, fresh spinach layered with pasta and mild cheeses, and the full portions of the broiled lamb chops and duck breast that were on my mixed grill. Lunch is simpler, featuring soups, salads and sandwiches, such as oyster stew, onion rings and a catfish sub. A Sunday buffet brunch that includes breakfast and dinner items makes the Lafayette an ideal weekend destination, especially for travelers willing to forsake I-64 for the windy but scenic trip along U. S. 33. Dinner entrees range in price from $13 for the pork chops to $19 for a lean New York style bison steak with sautéed onions. The semi-exotic bison are popular with local folks, who are accustomed to seeing the furry creatures grazing on local hillsides. Ledford said newcomers to bison who are bracing for a gaminess similar to venison are pleasantly surprised with its juicy, mild flavor. Bison, which is also called buffalo, also shows up in specials such as chili and short-ribs. The Lafayette offers special entrees, appetizers and desserts daily, including a vegetarian plate. Starters include two soups made fresh daily (we had excellent cups of split pea and black bean), three salads—spinach with red onions, apple smoked bacon and fresh raspberry dressing; a traditional Caesar, and a house that includes a balsamic vinaigrette made on the premises—and half a dozen creative appetizers.
The night of our visit there was only one homemade dessert offering, a chewy bread pudding brimming with raisins and topped with a pair of strawberries. A store-bought "mountain flan" tasted more like ordinary custard. All deserts are priced at $3.75. Our coffee, one regular and one decaf, could have been hotter, but at $1 each, that’s hardly a major complaint. Aficionados can order expresso, cappuccino and café latte for $2.50 each. The wine list is ample and reasonably priced, ranging from $12.50 for a California cabernet from the Mountain View vineyard in Monterey, to $39.50 for a Thomas Jefferson Chardonnay Reserve from Charlottesville. We chose a more-than-adequate Chardonnay, at $24.95, bearing a Lafayette Hotel private label from the Autumn Hill winery, which is located just five minutes away in the Greene County hills. Wines by the glass are available for $3.75 to $4.75. Thanks to a referendum approved by Greene County voters in 1998, the Lafayette has a full liquor license. The Lafayette currently has six guest rooms, priced at $100 for a private bath and $80 for a shared bath. Ledford has plans to open several more rooms, including a honeymoon suite, as time and money allow. Ledford, who has lived at the edge of the Shenandoah National Park for 18 years, passed the white-columned three-story frame structure building each day on the way to his job as a chef at the Boar’s Head Inn near Charlottesville. He occasionally stopped and chatted with its owner about the possibility of buying it and returning it to its original purpose, as an inn. But the owner wasn’t interested. He had converted the structure, built in 1840 as a way station for travelers along U. S. 33, into low-income apartments, which provided a steady, if unspectacular source of income. Then one day about five years ago, the owner had a change of heart and Ledford, after a talk with his wife and several friends, took the plunge. He quit his job—by then he was the executive chef at the Boar’s Head—and gambled on his dream. Engineers determined that 135 years of wear and tear had not harmed the basic structure. Beneath four inches of sheet rock, Formica and paneling, Ledford uncovered the original plaster walls and wood moldings on the doors and windows. The original heart-of-pine floors, still intact, were buried beneath three coats of linoleum and two layers of shag carpeting. They also discovered clues to the building’s multiple uses. For its first two decades it was a tradesman’s hotel, operated by a William Lafayette Pritchard and his wife. A picture of a scowling Mrs. Pritchard now graces the smaller of two dining rooms, a gift from a great, great, great nephew who lives near by. (Although he has no connection to the place, a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette hangs in the main hallway.) During the Civil War, the building was used as a hospital for sick--not wounded--Confederate soldiers. After the war, it reopened as a hotel, including a tavern whose boisterous patrons stomped grooves in the heart-of-pine floor. The hotel attracted professors from the University of Virginia, who came for summer retreats and enjoyed croquet on what then was an expansive lawn. The hotel faded to a boarding house, and shortly after the turn-of-the-century the upstairs became a residence, first for one family and then for apartments, while the first floor housed various commercial enterprises, including the town’s first telephone exchange, post office and a newspaper. Ledford, with help from his schoolteacher wife, Martha, and their four daughters, worked for a year getting the place in shape. They convinced Spencer to return from California, and began serving meals in November, 1996. Meals are served in two dining rooms, each with a fireplace. The smaller room, formerly a tavern, has a small bar, wagon-wheel chandelier, bookcases and a high shelf containing remnants of old tools, including three cooking knives found imbedded in the wall. White table-clothed tables are graced with candles and flowers, delivered fresh from a florist shop owned by Spencer’s wife, Sherry, and her mother. The Lafayette has its own herb garden and this summer plans to turn over part of its large back yard to local gardeners, from whom it will buy fresh produce. The original version of this review appeared in the March, 2000, edition of 64 magazine. DiningPro.com has returned several times since then, and has never been disappointed. |
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The
crispy pancakes began with a batter of pureed potatoes, eggs, garden
herbs, to which julienne carrots and zucchini were added before being
sautéed a golden brown and removed from the deep fryer just short of
being burned around the edges.
Among
that group we opted for oysters Lafayette ($5), comprised of five of the
plump mollusks, topped with bits of sweet pepper, onion and county ham,
broiled to perfection, and a mushroom bake ($4) in which fresh
mushrooms, seasoned with apples, onions and herbs were baked in a pastry
crust, and served with a rosemary apple butter that will remind you of
grandma.