Virtue Restaurant

"Many of the restaurants on this list were designed to take diners somewhere they’ve never been. Virtue, a multi–James Beard Award-winning restaurant, is about where chef Erick Williams has already been: the American South. Williams gives way to protege Damarr Brown (another Beard winner), and his menu pays homage to his mother, grandmother, and aunts, and the whole tradition of Black cuisine. Which isn’t romance, per se, but it’s love. And delicious too with dishes ranging from warm biscuits and gumbo to blackened catfish with Carolina Gold rice." - Lisa Shames, Samantha Nelson