Hook-U-Up Gourmet
Tuesday - Saturday, 5 - 9
Chef Tim Brown and wife Melanie, veterans of the fine food movement in Eastern Virginia, have made their home in Cape Charles for two decades now, and many residents “can’t live without them.” Their latest bistro venue, Hook-U-Up Gourmet, features nouvelle American cuisine in an unpretentious, intimate setting in Cape Charles.
Chef Brown bases the small, constantly changing menu on responsibly sourced, usually local ingredients and transforms the finest cuts and produce into soul-satisfying meals, perfectly presented and served with aplomb.
In the early 1980s, southeastern Virginia was still a fine-dining desert, but a few seminal chefs had begun to transform the landscape. Tim Brown was in that first wave of pioneers, training under notable creators like Monroe Duncan and rising to become one of his craft’s leading exponents, teaching at Johnson & Wales University before moving to the Shore.
The roots of the culinary experience at Hook-U-Up are surely in the Old World, particularly France and Italy. Each sauce, each garnish, each compôte is housemade with great care and attention to tradition, with many venerable techniques and elements fused with local Virginia specialties to surprise and delight even a cosmopolitan palate.
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