CHEF JOE SPARATTA, HERITAGE, RICHMOND, VA
Do you remember chef Joe Sparatta, who worked at The Ryland Inn under chef Craig Shelton and at Elements in Princeton with chef Scott Anderson? How about his wife, Emilia, who also worked at The Ryland Inn and was GM for the opening of Elements? Does the name Mattias Hagglund ring a bell? He managed the beverage program for chef Anderson at Elements. They can all be found at Heritage in Richmond, Va, where they’ve been receiving accolades for their cuisine. The Safersteins’ recently were in Richmond and dined there.
Executive chef Joe Sparatta
We started with a rich (can it be anything but rich?) steak tartare with a sous vide egg yolk, capers, bold and tangy kale mustard (a first for us and we loved it), and crisp toast; Bourbon Barrel beer-smoked pork belly accompanied by bok choy wrapped around kimchi, Virginia peanuts and ginger sauce. The spicy kimchi, which looked like a green egg roll along with the ginger sauce, provided a multitude of well-balanced flavors. A Bibb salad containing Medjool dates, feta, fennel, pickled onion and date vinaigrette was a refreshing light starter. Kale showed itself again in the creative kale gemelli pasta with cubes of butternut squash, ricotta salata, maple-brown butter, pecans and sage; colorful and deliciously different. A juicy, roasted Amish half chicken was ordered because of the sides of kale, bacon, shallot and what we can never say no to: creamy, cheddar grits. This delightfully different use of ingredients created an attention grabbing dish. For dessert, we devoured the artistically presented chocolate candy bar made with Nutella, candied corn pops, pecan crunch, burnt meringue topped with Nutella ice cream.
Steak tartare, Bibb salad and smoked pork belly.
Thank you chef Joe, Emilia, and Mattias for your warm welcome and Southern hospitality. We miss you in New Jersey.
If you are in the area, be sure to put this restaurant on your must-try list. Also, make a reservation. We found Richmond to have a vibrant dining scene with restaurants abuzz and full on a weekday night.
Chocolate candy bar dessert.
Photos courtesy of Lowell Saferstein
Heritage
1627 W Main Street
Richmond, VA
804-353-4060
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