New Food Tour Comes to Downtown Leesburg
With all of the great culinary offerings downtown Leesburg boasts, it can be difficult to decide where to dine. Leesburg alone is home to three of Loudoun’s nine destination restaurants. DC Metro Food Tours takes this tricky decision out of your hands with their new culinary walking tour in Leesburg. These tours will be hosted every Saturday from 2:00-5:30pm and offer what amounts to a very filling meal for $60 per person.
Not only will you sample the cuisine from some of Leesburg’s finest chefs, but you’ll learn about the history and architecture of the area and how these elements relate back to the food you’ll be enjoying. Plus these lessons in architecture and history provide a little downtime between each course to let you walk off some of your meal and make room for more!
A
t Palio’s, Chef Antonio welcomes our group and describes our dish of Cavatelli alla Pugliese: housemade ricotta cavatelli with a lightly spicy lamb ragout and shaved parmesan. The dishes were paired with your choice of red or white wine. On our visit the white wine was from Loudoun’s own, Willowcroft Farm Vineyards. Palio was named for the Palio de Siena, a horse race that takes place around the piazza in Siena, Italy, that has been run since 1656.
At Lightfoot Restaurant, a trio of Chef Ingrid’s favorite dishes: Fried Green Tomato topped with Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese & Sautéed Shrimp, Blue Ridge Spinach Salad, and French Onion & Field Mushroom Soup. The building itself is historically significant, housed in the circa 1888 People’s National Bank building, and overlooks the Loudoun County Courthouse with its silent sentinel, a memorial statue of a Confederate soldier.
Tuscarora Mill Restaurant, a.k.a. “Tuskies” to the locals, featured Pan Fried Oyster with creamed spinach, curry cream, and black lava salt and The Barn Yard “Au Jus” Sandwich featuring slow roasted brisket and pork, caramelized onions, aged provolone, pepper spread, and arugula on parmesan ciabatta. You’ll discover Tuscarora Mill is an actual 19th century mill, reflected in the antique wheels and machinery that decorates the restaurant’s tap room.
Our tour ended at the Loudoun County Visitors Center with something sweet from Lola Cookies & Treats! You’ll have to book your own tour to find out which sweet treat is in the bag!
Today’s blog guest written by Stacey Sheetz, Visit Loudoun’s marketing communications manager. Find her online tweeting @DCsWineCountry and @StaceyEats.
