The Long and Winding Road to Richmond's Most Ambitious New Restaurant—in One Dish | Bon Appétit
"Run by Andrew Manning, Megan Fitzroy Phelan, and Patrick Phelan, this restaurant grew from a bi-weekly DIY pop-up into a brick-and-mortar after a multi-year renovation, with the team juggling day jobs in butchery, catering, and pastry while refining dishes through late-night calls. Their defining item is a savory egg custard they continually rework: a November 2016 version used jasmine-rice–steeped milk and egg yolks, steamed and finished with crunchy cauliflower mushrooms, yuzu jelly, and Maine uni; an August 2017 summer iteration became a corn custard piled with Chesapeake blue crab, both shiitake jelly and mushrooms, a seaweed-cured egg, and shiso; and a June 2018 take paired asparagus with blue crab and was crowned with summer flowers—this last version secured the custard’s place on the debut menu in the new space. The dish showcases a chawanmushi-inspired technique, obsessive tinkering, and a willingness to top a single custard base with wildly different, seasonally driven accents." - ByElyse Inamine
