Virginia Restaurants You’ll Want To Road Trip To This Weekend

Hungry for an adventure that satisfies both your wanderlust and appetite? Virginia’s countryside is dotted with hidden culinary gems worth the gas money.

From rustic farmhouses serving grandma-worthy comfort food to elegant inns dishing up farm-to-table masterpieces, these spots turn a meal into a destination.

Grab your keys and an empty stomach. We’re hitting the road for Virginia’s most mouthwatering detours.

1. Tanglewood Ordinary: Time Travel Through Your Taste Buds

Good lord, the fried chicken here will make you slap your mama. Tanglewood Ordinary isn’t just a restaurant, it’s a 1940s roadhouse that’s been feeding hungry travelers along historic Route 6 since before your grandparents were dating.

Family-style platters arrive overflowing with Southern classics that would make any church potluck jealous. The biscuits float to your table like buttery clouds, and the sweet tea comes in glasses big enough to swim in.

2. The Palisades: Cornbread With A View

Where has this place been all your life? Tucked into the New River Valley, The Palisades serves cornbread so moist it should be illegal in at least three states.

Housed in a century-old general store with creaky wooden floors that tell stories with every step, this joint has been feeding hungry hikers and locals for decades.

Their signature peanut soup might sound bizarre. But trust me, it’s a velvety, nutty revelation that’ll haunt your dreams.

3. The Farmhouse Restaurant: Where Calories Don’t Count

This place makes diet plans go to die. The Farmhouse Restaurant sits on acres of rolling countryside, where many ingredients make the shortest commute possible, from garden to plate in minutes flat.

Country ham biscuits arrive steaming with honey butter melting into every crevice. Their apple butter is made from orchards you can see from your table, and the mac and cheese could make a grown man weep with childlike joy.

4. Old Chickahominy House: Colonial Comfort On A Plate

Though you might come for the antiques, you’ll stay for the ham biscuits. Old Chickahominy House is part museum, part time machine, part carb-loading station for the historically inclined.

Their Miss Melinda’s special, country ham on fresh-baked biscuits, should be designated a national treasure. The Brunswick stew simmers with generations of secret family recipes, and their homemade pies prompt otherwise reasonable adults to order dessert first.

5. Red Fox Inn And Restaurant: George Washington Ate Here (No, Really)

Are you fancy enough for this place? Maybe not, but they’ll let you in anyway. The Red Fox Inn has been serving travelers since 1728, making your favorite restaurant look like a newborn infant.

Stone walls and crackling fireplaces frame a dining room where history literally happened. Their Virginia peanut soup could convert even the most devoted soup-hater, and the game dishes feature local quail and venison that taste like the forest in the best possible way.

6. Field & Main: Farm-To-Fork Nirvana

When farm-to-table stops being a buzzword and becomes a religion, you get Field & Main. Chef Neal Wavra doesn’t just know the farmers who supply his ingredients, he probably helped name their children.

The open kitchen with its wood-fired hearth isn’t for show, it’s the beating heart where seasonal ingredients transform into edible poetry. Their bread arrives still steaming, with house-cultured butter that makes store-bought spread look like sad yellow plastic.

7. Hunter’s Head Tavern: British Pub Meets Virginia Farm

Did someone teleport an English countryside pub to Virginia? Hunter’s Head Tavern feels like you’ve stumbled into a secret British enclave, complete with proper fish and chips that would make a Londoner homesick.

The organic ingredients come from their own Ayrshire Farm next door, where happy livestock live their best lives before becoming your dinner. Their sticky toffee pudding will make you consider moving into the coat closet just to be closer to the kitchen.

8. The Vineyards & Winery At Lost Creek: Sips With Your Supper

Hence the reason your designated driver will hate you. Lost Creek isn’t just another vineyard with a sad cheese plate, it’s a full culinary experience that happens to include award-winning wines made right outside the window.

The seasonal menu changes faster than Virginia weather, always featuring what’s freshest and paired perfectly with their vintages. Their patio overlooking the vines turns lunch into an all-day affair, especially when they bring out those ridiculous chocolate truffles infused with their own port.

9. The Conservatory At The Inn At Little Washington: Mortgage-Worthy Meal

However much you think this meal costs, add another zero. The Conservatory at The Inn at Little Washington isn’t dinner, it’s performance art with Michelin stars that will ruin all future meals for you.

Chef Patrick O’Connell creates dishes so beautiful you’ll feel guilty destroying them with your fork. The cheese cart is wheeled out on a cow-shaped trolley by a bow-tied attendant who knows more about fermented dairy than your entire family combined.

10. Sally Bell’s Kitchen: Lunch Boxes Of Legend

When a lunch box makes you emotional, you know it’s special. Sally Bell’s has been wrapping their iconic cupcakes in wax paper since 1924, and biting into one feels like accessing a happiness time capsule.

Their boxed lunches come tied with a string like a present from a more civilized era. Each one contains a perfect sandwich, potato salad, cheese wafer, deviled egg, and that famous cupcake, all made exactly as they were nearly a century ago.

11. Ashton Family Restaurant: Pancakes Bigger Than Your Face

This place serves breakfast platters that require Olympic training to finish. Ashton Family Restaurant looks unassuming from the outside, just another roadside spot you might drive past without a second glance.

Inside, however, pancakes arrive wider than dinner plates and fluffier than your favorite pillow. The sausage gravy contains magical properties that cure hangovers and bad moods simultaneously.

Their coffee keeps flowing like it’s free, served by waitresses who call you “honey” and actually mean it.

12. The Shack Virginia Beach: Seafood Worth Fighting Over

Though the name suggests otherwise, don’t expect a ramshackle hut. The Shack at Virginia Beach elevates oceanfront dining without the white tablecloth pretension that usually accompanies views this good.

Their crab cakes contain approximately 99% crab and 1% magic, with barely enough filler to hold together the sweet lump meat. The seafood towers arrive looking like Neptune’s personal snack plate, and their key lime pie strikes the perfect balance between sweet and tart that makes your mouth pucker in delight.