PORCH+VINE, a new farm-to-table restaurant on Main Street in Luray, isn’t just offering customers a meal. It also hopes to provide them with a unique dining experience.
“PORCH+VINE is a love letter to the Blue Ridge Mountains,” said Tony Villa, who is one of the restaurant’s two owners. “We love the mountains that surround us. They’re ancient. They’re magnificent. They’re a force of ever-changing beauty throughout the seasons.”
The restaurant tries to capture that beauty.
“Everything that you see from the art to the cocktails to the rooms all evokes a love letter to the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Villa said.
Speaking of cocktails, the seasonal cocktail menu is unique. The current cocktails have names like FOREST+FLAME, LEAF+BERRY, and FOG+FIELD, and each is available as an alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink.
“It’s important for us to be able to offer our guests alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails, because sometimes we still want to enjoy and have some fun [without drinking],” Villa said. “We’re over the hangover.”
Of course, these aren’t your average bar-on-the-corner drinks. The seasonal cocktails at PORCH+VINE, many of which are vegan, are made with ingredients like orange zest, maple, hot honey, and various varieties of teas.
“The cocktails are really part of the story,” Villa said, “Something we value here at PORCH+VINE is immersion and connection to nature. You’ll notice many of our menu items, whether it be food or beverages, have an inspiration derived from the Blue Ridge Mountains.”
The restaurant also tries to give diners that experience through scenery. For example, the bar, with its vibrant green walls and bee-inspired decorations, is meant to evoke summertime in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“We want you to feel like this is summertime, and that we’re experiencing a lovely sunset,” Villa said.
Even the two-gender-neutral single-occupancy bathrooms, which are named The Necessary and Nature Calls, are part of the experience.
The Necessary “is a homage to nighttime in the Blue Ridge Mountains,” and, in the Nature Calls bathroom, you can even hear animal noises.
“I wanted to create a little escape, a little something pretty,” Villa said.
The main room, the dining room, has green ferns painted on the walls.
“Now we’re in springtime in the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Villa said. “It’s like you’re dining in the woodlands.”
Many of the furniture pieces are mid-century modern — a style of interior decorating known for its simple, functional furniture and clean lines.
“The ’50s were fascinated by modern living,” Villa said. “That meant that these pieces are comfort-driven; they’re from nature. You can see the real wood.”
The dining room, with its close-together tables, is also meant to foster connections, not just with nature but with other diners.
“Oftentimes, conversations are igniting between other tables, and I love that,” Villa said.
The inside of the restaurant can seat about 35 people, but PORCH+VINE plans to debut an outdoor garden seating area behind the restaurant, expected to seat about 75 people, Villa said.
“It’s going to be gazebos and seating,” Villa said. “One thing is going to hold them all together, and that is, we want all the sofas that you’re sitting on to be swinging sofas so that folks can swing and sip, thus PORCH+VINE. That’s how we came up with our name. It’s a homage to Southern living.”
The restaurant also plans to have live music and entertainment.
Inside the kitchen, Villa said, is where Executive Chef Mat Chapman makes the magic happen.
Chapman, who trained as a chef in Dallas, lives in a cabin between Front Royal and Winchester with his wife, Suzanne Chapman, who is the restaurant’s pastry chef.
“We make everything, from the ice creams to the cakes to the cookies to the panna cotta,” Suzanne Chapman said. “The bread is all made here. The butter is all made here.”
Suzanne said that what she loves most about her job is giving someone a sweet ending.
“I just love creating food,” she said.
At PORCH+VINE, Mat Chapman said, “We are all about the craft and the craftsmen behind the work,” he said.
Mat said he has a great crew.
“I only direct them, and they take full charge creating this beautiful culinary world that we live in here at PORCH+VINE,” he said.
The restaurant’s ingredients comes from farms, including some local ones.
“We try to use local farms and farmers in the area,” said Andrea Hickman, who was the general manager when the restaurant first opened.
She noted that the restaurant even grows some of its own herbs.
Even though the restaurant opened just last month, Hickman said it already has some regulars.
“We have a lot of people that come in every week,” she said.
Villa, 51, who has a background in theater, is originally from Seattle. He came to the D.C. area for school, but now he feels like Luray is home.
“You’re seeing someone on their second chapter,” Villa said. “This is my Chapter Two. We love D.C., with all the fun and wonderful things there, but I felt like country living is better suited for my later years.”
Isaac George and Villa also own two farms, Madeline Farms and Carriage Stone Farm, both in Luray, where they offer farm stays. Now, they also have the restaurant.
“This restaurant was in the works for about five years,” Villa said.
While Villa and George hope to attract guests from across the state, so far, many of the diners have come from the Shenandoah Valley and the neighboring Piedmont Region. People from Page, Rappahannock, Rockingham, and Shenandoah counties have all visited the restaurant, Villa said.
“I think we’re attracting that clientele that is willing to jump in the car for a dinner that is going to be an experience,” Villa said.
Reservations to PORCH+VINE are recommended but not required. If you don’t have a reservation, you will be seated if space is available.
For information on PORCH+VINE, located at 211 W. Main St. in Luray, including its seasonal menu, visit porchandvineluray.com or call 540-880-1010.
Dining and Cooking