Stove, the restaurant
2622 Detroit Street
Portsmouth, VA 23707
757.397.0900
hello everyone, welcome 2 Stove, the restaurant in sunny PoNo, the historic part of Port Norfolk which is in the historic city of Portsmouth in, this is crazy, historic Virginia.
I'm sydney meers, to the left are shots of stove inside and out. I do a kind of neo-southern style of cooking. Being from Mississippi you'll see a touch of my home state of Mississippi and a bit of what I've learned along the way in my writing and cooking style. my grandmother really taught me cooking and then I added some education from Johnson and Wales university culinary arts program and I studied under some real and good Chefs along the way and voila, here I am.
we use great produce, fish and meats that I get not to far from the restaurant, I grow food for here, make my smoochie bear ham as well as my sausage. I get a great va. style salt cured ham from tom and Dee Dee Darden's farm just southwest of Smithfield, I get some great yellow, blue and brown oyster mushrooms from Dave and Dee out in Sedley va plus my ole frin, Judy Clark of Clarke's farm in Chesapeake and a hole host more so you can count on fresh, local and very good foods here at stove. I'm surrounded by water so fish is the best and I mostly cook fish but in autumn and winter I do a bunch of meat, wild game and pig, love pork bellies, oh my, and I cure my lardo, cure and slow roast the belles, make my sausage and ham and we dry age our meat. I'm getting ready to hang my hams so you can see we really make most all things here, I just can't grow fish or meat right now, not enough room. Anyway you can see we are devoted to preparing real good and healthy foods for our clientele. We support local farmers and fisherman, are a part of the southern food ways alliance and buy local buy fresh. u can join and support as well.
so, call and make a reservation, it's a nice 32 seat restaurant with great art, food and all of this in a quaint setting, join us, want u.
Some of my staff here @ Stove.
NEWS: If you get a chance go to http://southernfoodways.org/ and check it out, join it even. They are devoted to the preservation of the southern foods, history and documenting every part of it. I am a member and it just happens to be about 45 minutes from my house when I lived in Mississippi. It's location is Oxford Mississippi at Ole Miss University. Anyway, check it out and get involved. Another good group is your local chapter of 'Buy Fresh, Buy Local' . They are good at getting the word out to support local farmers, farmer markets, bee honeys and fish, everything. They have seminars for educating the public about facts of small farms and the benefits they offer. Here's a link to our local chapter. http://www.buylocalhamptonroads.org/
I've just posted the 2012 Cooking Class schedule so check it out and come cook with me on Sundays.
Going into our 6th year now we are having fun with our farms that are still growing some really nice produce. I'm just beginning my garden, building a smoked house for my country cured hams, got my honey bees and hives in place and planting my first crops of many to come this year. Judy Clarke of Clarke Farm is now open early, I've been getting asparagus, beauregard sweets and hayman sweet potatoes, baby lettuce, fresh strawberries and now she has her own chickens laying some eggs. The eggs are rich and wonderful to. So, speaking of local, Mike and Lauren Kauffman are honey bee experts and place hives where they can, maintain them and your garden as well as the neighborhood gets the pollinating benefits plus some honey. If you would like to have a bee hive in your yard call them and they'll check out your area to see if you have the spot. Call 757.623.2052 and tell her I sent you.
And just a note, we are small with only 11 tables in the dinning room and 1 in the lounge. We fill up quick so make sure you call early in the week for a weekend night or I'd like to recommend a week in advance. Our early seats are booked for 2 hours so if you wish to linger please book the later seating. Call 757.397.0900 for reservations.
Last but not least and speaking of southern heritage, learn to cook real fried chicken the ole south way which is how I learned from my grandmother Johnson, to taste the real thing check out this link: http://leitesculinaria.com/75694/recipes-sydney-meers-fried-chicken.html