by Rick Sylvain
FAYETTEVILLE, West Virginia
Cathedral Falls on the road to the national park in Gauley Bridge Photo: Rick Sylvain
To be standing on the canyon rim of America’s newest national park, carved by the one of the oldest rivers on Earth, is rare air for any lover of the outdoors.
New River Gorge National Park is an “almost heaven” slice of the Mountain State cutting through the Appalachians known for its hills, hollers, rushing waterfalls and more outdoor activities than you can shake a trekking pole at.
To all this, August Moore Jr. would like to suggest one more thing that sets West Virginia apart.
Food.
“People don’t think of West Virginia as a foodie state but we’re slowly evolving,” says “AJ” of Adventures on the Gorge Resort. “We delight in showing people the cuisine they can find here.”
Along winding byways where the mountain air is filled with woodsmoke from barbecue roadhouses and cherished eateries, southern West Virginia serves up delicious finds for food lovers.
AJ is Food & Beverage Director at Smokey’s on the Gorge, the resort’s timber-framed restaurant with breathtaking canyon views from an outdoor deck. As morning fog fills the Gorge, AJ’s kitchen stirs to life with a hearty breakfast buffet for actives jacked for a day of whitewater rafting, kayaking, ziplining, mountain biking or hiking, rock climbing, sportfishing, jetboating in Hawks Nest State Park, or inching (carefully, with a lifeline) along the catwalk that spans the New River Gorge Bridge (among the highest in the world and a West Virginia landmark). Adventures on the Gorge is a popular staging center for outdoor pursuits.
When it comes to dining pursuits, West Virginia classics are getting a new spin from talented young chefs like AJ. “Southern cooking, only we try and elevate it a little” is how he describes his kitchen style.
Dinner choices at Smokey’s might be a juicy ribeye or — from AJ’s smoker – mouthwatering barbecue (“we brine the brisket, slow smoke it for 14 hours and wrap it in butcher paper to retain the juiciness”). AJ sources his rainbow trout special from area rivers, dresses it in a black walnut crust and lays out a bed of Boursin grits. Plated mahi over a sweet corn risotto is popular at Smokey’s. More game is envisioned to join the smoked meats and composed dishes on the menu. Like many menus in West Virginia, tried and true starters might include fried green tomatoes or seasonal oysters. A delicious ending might be an apple cobbler, carrot cake or bread pudding.
Maybe the best dessert is the eye-filling scenery. Nothing is “new” about the New River as it pushes its way through the Gorge. Geologists have identified layers of rock created more than 300 million years ago. West Virginia’s landscape is pockmarked with long dormant mine shafts, harkening to when coal was king.
From put-in to take-out, rafting the wave trains along the New and the Gauley Rivers is legendary. In West Virginia, actives power through some of the best whitewater on the planet.
Adventures on the Gorge Resort (adventuresonthegorge.com/resort) is spread around lush green woodlands with cabins that run from rustic to ritzy, trading post shopping, Smokey’s, Chetty’s Pub, outdoor pool, Mill Creek hiking trails and spellbinding overlooks.
“I keep telling people come for the rafting, come for the scenery, come for the environment,” says chef. “But also come for the food.”
Elsewhere Around Southern Precincts of the Mountain State…
Photo: Fruits of Labor
“Food is our love language,” says Valerie Pritt, a publicist who makes her home in Greenbrier County.
Indeed, you haven’t had West Virginia on a plate until you’ve tried buckwheat pancakes with rich maple syrup, homestyle meatloaf, a slaw dog, buttermilk biscuits slathered in sausage gravy, cornbread from a cast iron skillet (paired with pinto beans, thank you), flaky delights from Tudor’s Biscuit World, succulent morels, or the iconic “state food.”
That would be the pepperoni roll.
Invented in1927, the soft roll with pepperoni baked inside was the handy lunch bucket choice for coal miners headed underground. No two West Virginians can agree on who does it best.
The Greenbrier Valley is best known as the home to The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, a luxe resort known for its healing mineral springs, world-class golf and rich history that has known presidents and potentates, royalty and celebrities.
For 30 years, it was also keeper of a big U.S. government secret (see If You’re Going).
Could there be more of a movie set town in West Virginia than Lewisburg?
Photo: Rick Sylvain
This mountain town (pop. 4,000 except during State Fair) so beautifully preserved and a two-time winner as “Best Small Town Food Scene” in USA Today, is home to everything from farm-to-table to mom-and-pop to fine dining. Order up a BLT for the ages at the Stardust Café. Foodies will find a farm-to-table menu that highlights the fresh flavors of the area. Or enjoy white tablecloth dining under chandeliers at an 1897 house, The French Goat. That French onion soup you’re spooning into took 4-5 hours to perfect. Pan Roasted Chicken is a favorite of proprietors Arthur Forgette and Debbie Porter, but you won’t go wrong with the Filet & Frites, Duck Confit, or a rigatoni featuring ramp. Take dessert of crème brulee or chocolate mousse on The Goat’s front porch.
“High-end restaurants around Lewisburg like ours tend to stay in their lane,” says Debbie. “There’s an honest effort to avoid menu overlap. Like we are the only French based option in town. No one else is doing duck. No one else is doing oysters. No one else is doing escargot. Guests come dine in Lewisburg from the Greenbrier nine miles away.”
Did someone mention ramp?
“It’s pungent like an onion, you love it or hate it,” she says. Cooked down as they do at The French Goat, mellowed-out wild mountain leeks make for an onion/garlicky add-on to dishes, often of port products. Done wrong and it’s a stink that can haunt you and your clothes for days.
Photo: Chez Chesak
You may want to deaden ramp breath with the high-octane Appalachian spirits they pour just up the road in Maxwelton at Smooth Ambler Spirits.
All of Ambler’s ryes and bourbons have a high alcohol content. One checking in at 116 proof brings the heat, trust me on this. From simple beginnings in 2009 distilling in a garage, Smooth Ambler Spirits (smoothambler.com) sells in all 50 states and 6 foreign countries. Belly up to their tastings bar to sample true mountain craftsmanship in the golden glow of their whiskies. Please amble responsibly.
“Upscale Southern” defines the cuisine at the Schoolhouse Hotel (theschoolhousehotelwv.com). Classrooms of the former White Sulphur Springs High School have been reborn as a 30-room fully accessible boutique hotel including rooftop bar, and event space recreated from the school’s original wood-floor gymnasium.
For a four seasons mountain escape, West Virginia beckons like few other states. Nearly 80 percent is covered by deep green forests. Here is where the soundtrack of a country fiddle or the strum of a 6-string tells of the simple joys of mountain life.
John Denver got it right. Almost heaven.
#SATWSouthernWV, #AdventuresOnTheGorge, #AlmostHeaven, #VisitWV, #newrivergorgenationalpark
If You’re Going…
Greenbrier Valley Tourism info@greenbrierwv.com
Fayetteville Eats: A handsome country church found new life as the Cathedral Café where locals order up the Taylor Ham sliced thick and grilled, crowned with cheese, over-medium egg and herb mayo, or the teriyaki chicken and cashew salad. You’ll be conflicted at breakfast between the giant cinnamon rolls here or biscuits at the original Tudor’s Biscuit World. At the Secret Sandwich Society dishes are named for presidents and first ladies. Try the Truman (turkey paired with peach jam) with pimento cheese fries or a smoked Old Fashioned flavored with black walnut bitters.
Tamarack and Exhibition Coal Mine. West Virginia’s hardscrabble past of mining Black Gold is told in a ride-through experience into the dark passages of a coal mine.
The Bunker. You’ll surrender your cell phone for a walking tour that goes under the Greenbrier to The Bunker. The Bunker is a gunmetal-gray glimpse inside the Cold War paranoia that gripped America in the 1950s. Behind 25-ton concrete and steel doors, The Bunker was a windowless, thick-walled fallout shelter intended to house Congress in case of nuclear attack, thus keeping American democracy functioning against warring superpowers. Buried 720 feet below ground, it remained hidden from public knowledge until the Washington Post exposed it in 1992. West Virginia’s unique Cold War relic lives on today as a data storage facility for 17 Fortune 500 companies – thus the stowing of bags and personal electronics.
Top: Much photographed New River Gorge Bridge arcs 876 feet above the ancient river in the lushly forested heart of the national park. The majestic steel span and a symbol of West Virginia may be viewed from trails, overlooks, river rafts, kayaks or – for the really intrepid – on a walking tour along the maintenance catwalk underneath the bridge. Photo: Rick Sylvain
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