Meet this week's guest editor, Whitney Cardozo. Born in the Adirondack Mountains, Whitney is the chef and proprietress of Chez Foushee in Richmond. With a BA, MA, and MFA, she combined her academic achievements with her passion for cooking, attending Ballymaloe Cooking School and training under Jean Pierre Moulle of Chez Panisse.
At Chez Foushee, Whitney oversees all aspects of the restaurant, focusing on a unique dining experience with an all-female kitchen and LGBTQ+ friendly environment. Her diverse background includes catering, food styling, teaching, consulting, and design. She advocates for supportive work culture and equitable pay, values sustainability, and supports local musicians and nonprofits.
Whitney loves solo travel, having walked 200 miles of the Camino de Santiago. She enjoys Twizzlers and gluten-free Oreos, has two daughters (a doctor and an artist), a serial entrepreneur spouse, two geriatric dogs, and a bird.
Take it away, Whitney ...
Ghost Light After Party at Chez Foushee
First on the list is the Ghost Light After Party (GLAP), which is cohosted with Yes, And! Theater Company. One of my favorite evenings at Chez Foushee is the third Friday of each month when the restaurant because a live piano bar after dinner. At around 9 PM, Maggie Roop and Matt Shofner (founders of Yes, And! Theater Group) host the festivities, with JS Fauquet on the piano with the most extensive songbook playing everything from Broadway to Motown. What is heartwarming about this improvised musical collaboration is that it brings out the community in a positive way. It’s a safe space to be everything from a wallflower, cheerleader, or ballad belter.
My amateur garden is an ambitious work in progress, and I source as much as possible for the restaurant tables at Chez. Richmond is home to some incredible gardens; the ones that inspire me are Maymont's Italian Garden, Lewis Ginter's 50 acres of gardens, and the Virginia House's garden designed by Charles Gillette. Their accessibility to beauty through the seasons is incredible and gives me hope, especially the Virginia House's gardens, which took twenty years to complete.
If you have eaten at Chez Foushee, you know each plate is purposely different. I call them 'Granny Plates' and have been collecting them for years. Each plate has its own unique story to tell. One of my top picks is a stunning set of cream and rose dinner plates that a kind customer gave to me because he wanted them to be used. Sadly, the French Company discontinued this particular pattern after 124 years. For much of my dinnerware finds, I love to support small businesses, and the antique and vintage stores in the Richmond metro area have so many hidden treasures. Some of my favorites are RVA Antiques, West End Antiques, and Sheppard Street Antiques.
The initiative I've been working on is an extension of something we had to put in place during the pandemic: an online store, Chez at Home. When we couldn't eat in restaurant dining rooms, we took the restaurant to your home with a three-course dinner box complete with a small vase of flowers for your table. Now we will bring you the plate to put on your table. Thankfully, we can eat inside; the dinner boxes have taken the sideline. Still, alongside some remaining favorite online products, such as the Lemon Butter Cake and Gift Cards, there will be a new offering of vintage tableware in a collection called FOUND.
Food and tabletop objects have a tremendous heart-tugging quotient, and now we will offer a small curated collection of tableware sold through Chez at Home. These are handpicked, one-off pieces I love, like a mini online Parisian Brocante released once a month on our store's website. As a restaurant, we tell our story through the food on the plate, and now we are telling our story through the plate.
We are excited to announce that the first collection is estimated to be available by early fall!
