Will Smiley holds up a glistening lump of blue crab backfin meat. Dipped in a bowl of apple cider vinegar, then dusted with Old Bay, the bite is a portal to the Chesapeake and all her treasures. There’s no question: you are here.
Smiley, the Tides Inn’s resident ecologist, demonstrates how to expeditiously exhume the crabs, crustaceans he pulled from Carter’s Creek less than an hour ago. No mallets, picks or crackers. Just a simple butter knife, a trick he learned from the professional pickers of Maryland’s Smith Island many years ago.
“The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America, it’s great for blue crabs,” says Smiley. “They’re really well protected here.”
Tides Inn ecologist Will Smiley leads the Beautiful Swimmers signature experience, which includes pulling up crab pots from Carter’s Creek.
Guests who book the Beautiful Swimmers experience get to feast on the crabs they catch—here is backfin crab meat.
The hauling up of three of Smiley’s muddy crab pots, measuring the Jimmies to make sure they’re at least five inches across and steaming the bounty on the dock is all part of Beautiful Swimmers, one of the Tides’ “signature experiences.”
Anyone, not just overnight guests, can reserve one of these experiences, which range from catching crabs and cruising the Rappahannock to sorting, grading and grilling oysters.
The oysters are a particular passion project of Smiley’s. He holds a masters in sustainability and since starting at the Tides in 2021, Smiley has worked tirelessly on the Inn’s 18,000 square-foot shoreline restoration project. To date, Smiley has created eight oyster reefs which filter approximately 50 million gallons of water daily.
Smiley has been working on growing and harvesting oysters since he joined the team in 2021.
What was once a muddy creek is now a thriving ecosystem, home to the native aquatic plant Widgeon grass, Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, Eastern oysters, blue herons, ospreys and more.
As of this August, the Tides has officially launched their signature oyster, the Widgeon Oyster (named after the essential grass). While Smiley started growing oysters primarily to bolster the creek’s ecosystem, there are now enough to become the inn’s trademark bivalve, exclusive to the resort, plus any offsite events.
“They [Widgeon oysters] fit the Chesapeake very well,” says Kyle Perkins, executive chef of Salt & Meadow at the Tides.” “They’re middle of the line in terms of salinity and minerality. I think the best part about them is they’re highly approachable for someone who may not have had an oyster before—it’s not like you’re licking on a mineral block.”
Chef Kyle Perkins heads the culinary offerings at the Tides.
Like Smiley, Perkins aims to honor the quiet creek on which the nearly 80-year-old inn sits.
His menu at Salt & Meadow boasts a smorgasbord of regional vendors including Steamboat Wharf Oyster Co. (White Stone, Va.), Miss Mary Seafood (White Stone), Anson Mills (Columbia, S.C.), Sam Rust Seafood (Hampton, Va.), Little Bay Seafood (White Stone), Young Overholt Beef (Gloucester, Va.), Chapel Hill Beef (Berryville, Va.), Lakeview Apiary (Lancaster, Va.) and Dixie Knoll Farm (Dutton, Va.).
Fish Hawk Oyster Bar has an extensive menu of surf and turf.
“We are constantly pushing the expansion of local products,” says Perkins. The laid-back, upscale Salt & Meadow opened in spring 2024 and Perkins became executive chef of the restaurant in 2025. He also oversees the more casual poolside concept, Fish Hawk Oyster Bar, which opened in 2019.
Salt and Meadow restaurant is upscale but not stuffy.
“I think as far as the evolution of the overall construct and our branding guide it’s remained pretty consistent from day one,” Perkins says of the two eateries. There’s a traditional Southern influence, of course, but that is not the chef’s sole compass. His map of influence includes his Vermont roots—his home state and where he attended culinary school—and his West Coast stint working for celebrity chef and restaurateur Michael Mina in San Francisco.
When Perkins came back East, he headed to his old New England stomping grounds and worked with Twin Farms resort chef Nathan Rich. From there, he moved to Tanzerra Resorts sister property, The Tides, where he cooks with the seasons, the local bounty and the clientele in mind.
“We like to approach it as welcoming people into our home,” says Perkins of the culinary experiences at the inn. The well-appointed Salt & Meadow is a beauty to behold—the gently curved walls and deep, high-backed leather dining chairs soften the space, which looks out over a nearly 360-degree view of Carter’s Creek.
The Salt and Meadow bar
From the kitchen, chilled Rappahannock and Steam Boat Wharf (and soon, Widgeon) oysters come out by the dozen; chicken fried lobster tails serve as an appetizer homage to the chef’s geographic influences; fat globs of burrata nestled between grilled peaches capture the last of summer’s warmth; and perfectly seared scallops perch ever so gently atop a fuchsia beet risotto that will have you rethinking the entire concept of the root vegetable.
Reservations are encouraged at the restaurant, but the cozy bar area is first-come, first-served. A dirty martini, side of fries and crunchy, tangy, slightly sweet green goddess salad at the bar is an image easily, delightfully conjured. If only the creek were not so far away.
It’s not too far, of course, to take a day trip to the Tides. Less than an hour-and-a-half from downtown Richmond. Book a signature experience, hang at the bar or settle into the Salt & Meadow dining room for a multi-course meal. Or, do as chef Perkins would do and keep walking down the steep steps to Fish Hawk Oyster Bar. A hand-painted wooden sign points you in the right direction.
Fish Hawk Oyster Ba is a casual poolside concept.
Interior of Fish Hawk
“If I had any place to dine it would be at Fish Hawk, it’s a nice casual experience with delicious food, it’s very family-oriented,” says Perkins. “We wanted to get away from the stereotypical beachfront restaurants with seafood baskets, where everything is fried. We have seven salads, poke, oysters, it’s an extensive menu.”
On Thursdays the bar hosts a seafood boil, on Sundays a fried chicken night. Order a Cirrus Jalapeno-Pineapple vodka mule and mosey down to the slip of beach while you wait for your food. You’ll likely spy a few crabs clinging, slipping, sliding up and down the poles of the pier wrapping around the living shoreline: you are here.
Dining and Cooking