March 2004

The 50 Best Restaurants in Hampton Roads

Going out can be an adventure or a disaster. Here’s our list of the best regional eateries

It is the age-old questionÑwhere do you want to go eat?

Hampton Roads certainly doesn’t lack for a good assortment of quality restaurants. From Williamsburg to the Outer Banks, one can find most anything from American to Continental to Italian to Seafood.

But can there be too much of a good thing?

Nah. Not unless you are given the task of selecting from thousands of eateries a list of just 50. The best of the best. The kind of places you want to keep going back to over and over again. The eateries where you take out-of-town guests to showcase local cuisine. The restaurants where, when someone asks your favorites, the names just roll off the tongue.

That’s what we’ve done here.

To find out the best restaurants, we gathered the best restaurant critics, folks who do this for a living: Food writers/editors for both local newspapers. Culinary arts instructors. Owners of kitchen and gourmet food shops. Graduates of such culinary schools as Le Cordon Bleu, Johnson & Wales University and Culinary Institute of America. More about the panel accompanies this article.

These folks were willing to give their time, and their opinions, to help create what we feel is the fairest, most comprehensive list of the top 50 restaurants in Hampton Roads. Some selections you will agree with, others you won’t. It is all about opinions, after all.

A few trends emerged when the final tally was done. Most of the top 50 restaurants were in Norfolk or Virginia BeachÑnot surprising when you consider they are the two of the most populated, most urban and most visited cities in the region.

Norfolk is home to Granby Street’s downtown Restaurant Row and a big collection of eateries throughout Ghent. Virginia Beach has restaurants all along the Oceanfront and Shore Drive, and the Town Center is emerging as a restaurant magnet.

Next in line was Williamsburg, again not a big surprise because of the tourist draw and the presence of the College of William and Mary.

We’d be surprised not to see more restaurants listed on the Peninsula next year. With the development of the Port Warwick project and other areas of growth in Hampton, Newport News and York County, we hope to see more restaurants emerge, like 99 Main Restaurant, Cowboy Syd’s and Delargy’s Bistro.

We also see good things happening in Suffolk. A few eateries just opened in the historic downtown area, and rumors are more are on the way. In Northern Suffolk, we are hearing good things about Harborview CafŽ and other ventures there. It will be interesting to see how things develop in Peanut City.

Take some time and look over the list. Maybe some of your favorites are here, and maybe some will soon be favorites of yours. It’s a big regionÑexplore.

For the rest of this story, you can order the March 2004 issue of Hampton Roads Magazine.