In Richmond, countless stores, shops, and restaurants appear and disappear in a moment. Along with the classic strongholds that you’ll forever know, there are plenty of new gems that you’ll nearly side-swipe parallel parked cars trying to catch a glimpse of: “Hey, when did that get there?” These places beg the curious taste buds to try something new. In this case, just neighboring Carytown, on the strip of Belmont between Ellwood and Floyd, there is the Belmont Food Shop.
In Richmond, countless stores, shops, and restaurants appear and disappear in a moment. Along with the classic strongholds that you’ll forever know, there are plenty of new gems that you’ll nearly side-swipe parallel parked cars trying to catch a glimpse of: “Hey, when did that get there?” These places beg the curious taste buds to try something new. In this case, just neighboring Carytown, on the strip of Belmont between Ellwood and Floyd, there is the Belmont Food Shop.
It is an understated, subdued surprise–you could easily miss the bold faced letters of the name, pasted outside on its small sign. The shop resembles what Richmond would have looked like 80 years ago–a large airy storefront window, encasing the wooden features inside. The building at 27 N. Belmont where it is located has in fact been there since the 1920’s. It has been a shoe repair shop, a grocers and a catering service up through the 1980’s. Co-founders Steven Ruscitti of Chicago and Mike Yavorsky of Petersburg gave it the name Belmont Food Shop to honor the original grocery opened at the location, The Belmont Food Store. Their approach is “Back to Basics”–simple American food, utilizing locally produced ingredients. Homemade breads are made daily with flour from Ashland. Their hand cut meats are provided by Buffalo Creek Beef, out of Lexington. The vegetables of the season are from Powhatan County. Honing their “keep it simple” approach, the shop currently serves boxed lunches. When the layout is expanded to the connecting store next door, it will attain full restaurant status.
I visited the shop late in the afternoon, after a long day’s work. The atmosphere was filled with an airy sunlight which contrasted with the hefty wooden bar made from fireplace mantelpieces. Behind the bar, displayed on the wooden backdrop, I spied jars filled with colorful floating pickled vegetables, jelly candies, and chocolate truffles. I was soon greeted by Mike and Steven, wearing 1920’s style bowler hats and presenting me with a chocolate truffle in a gold wrapper. “Try this,” they said. It was no ordinary ball of chocolate. An initial tasty burn from the cinnamon powder coating was followed by a hint of… something. I couldn’t place the precise flavor I had in my mouth until I learned that I had consumed a Mexican Mafia Chile Truffle. It was a great way to whet my appetite while I decided what to order. It had a complex flavor, and yet was made out of the most straightforward ingredients.
I finally opted for the roast beef and caramelized onions on foccacia, with potato salad as a side and an orange tangerine juice by Fruit 66. (Did I mention that these juices are also from our 23220 zipcode?) While I waited patiently for my food, Mike and Steven gave me a little background on the history of the fireplace bar. The mantelpieces that form it are not only a hundred years old, but were plucked from a two-flat on Clark Street, in Andersonville on the north side of Chicago. I was unfamiliar with the area, which they described it as the Carytown of Chicago. They were most certain of the age due to the plethora of dated tobacco cards found in the wood.
Once my food was boxed and ready, I ventured onward to my apartment, pleased that someone else had made my dinner. When I arrived at home, I opened my box to find a diagonal cut focaccia portioned with a generous amount of meat, potato salad which was unexpectedly creamy, and a surprise–pickled vegetables. I love when places throw in something extra. The focaccia was slighty softer than what I am used to, but a perfect base to slow down my ravaging of the meat. The roast beef tasted fresh–not juicy, not dry–with the slight accent of a horseradish spread, which balanced the sweetness of the sauteed onion. The borderline-pureed potato salad was nothing less than spectacular. I would say that it’s 20 times better than my grandma’s recipe, and one hundred times better than Ukrop’s. It is literally the best potato salad I’ve ever had. And while I’d never had a vegetable pickled that wasn’t a cucumber, this mixture of cauliflower (purple and white), carrots, and peppers offered a taste of the summer that I so long for. Overall, the meal was simply awesome. I will be coming back to the Belmont Food Shop. Not only is it way better when someone else makes my meals, I’ve still got several other sandwich/side mixtures to try out.
