We’re profiling five of 2017’s most exciting new restaurants in the South—one per day, in the order they opened.
Brenner Pass
brennerpassrva.com
Richmond, Virginia
Opened: June 2017
For their first restaurant, Metzger, chef Brittanny Anderson and her partners found their niche, serving a modern take on the fare of German-speaking countries with a deep list of Austrian and German wines. But there’s only so much schweinshaxe (crispy pork shank) a gal can sling.
“I was missing cooking French and Italian food,” says Anderson, a Richmond native who studied culinary arts in New York and cut her teeth at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. “I wanted to find a way to tie what I was doing into something a little more global.” So she let geography be her guide.
Photo: Kate Thompson
Executive chef and owner Brittanny Anderson.
Named for the mountain pass that leads from Austria to Italy, Brenner Pass serves Alpine food, a kind of Venn diagram–menu of all the national cuisines you’d find in European high country. “I’m doing classic big portions and old school flavors,” Anderson says. “We’re got full-table experiences, like large format fondue, a French farm feast with beef bourguignon and family-style sides, and an Italian bollito misto.”
Photo: Mel Calabro
Fondue.
You can hear the joy in Anderson’s voice as she talks about the platters of tinned European seafood served with grissini and spent-grain bread from the house bakery, and the groaning-board cheese cart that rolls through the dining room with dozens of choices. “We taste everyone on cheese, and we sell a lot.”
Don’t miss: Boneless lamb leg with chestnut-armagnac purée, mushrooms, and prune jam.
