The Charlottesville 29

Tarik Sengul is a James Beard Award semifinalist. Less than four years after arriving in Charlottesville to open Smyrna with his friend Orhum Dikmen, Sengul has earned recognition from the nation’s most prestigious culinary awards.

The James Beard Foundation’s regional Best Chef Awards honor chefs in thirteen regions around the country, including the Mid-Atlantic, where Virginia is joined by Washington, D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. For the 2026 awards, Sengul is one of twenty semifinalists in the region, the foundation announced today. This is the first year Sengul was eligible, under the awards’ requirement of three years’ presence in a region.

At Smyrna, Sengul applies French classical training and Aegean flavors to Virginia ingredients to create a style of cuisine all his own. His excellence was immediately apparent to those in the know upon opening in 2022, as it became an instant chef favorite. Some foresaw Sengul’s success even earlier, like Christophe Bellanca, with whom Sengul worked at NYC’s  L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. An award-winning chef himself, Bellanca calls Sengul one of the best he has ever worked with, and “easily” worthy of a James Beard award. “No question,” Bellanca said.

From the list of semifinalists, five nominees will be announced on April 1, and winners will be announced June 15 at the 2026 James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards in Chicago. Charlottesville chefs who have received James Beard semifinalist nods in the past include Jose de Brito, Angelo Vangelopoulos, Melissa Close-Hart, Peter Chang, and Ian Redshaw.

Charlottesville’s favorite restaurant has reached a milestone. Bodo’s Bagels’ current owners have now owned it longer than the founder did. What makes this remarkable is not just longevity, but consistency. Even with ownership that has outlasted its founder’s, Bodo’s remains the happy experience it has always been.

That takes vision — and execution.

Founder Brian Fox’s vision was somewhere everyone would feel love. “Right from the start, people came in on foot, came in pushing shopping carts, and came in Rolls Royces,” Fox once said. “And everybody got in line, and everybody smiled at each other, and it felt wonderful.” While day one was 1988, Fox’s words could just as easily describe today.

Fox also envisioned a place that feels like Charlottesville. When Bodo’s opened, Fox was still a newcomer to Charlottesville, having fallen for the city while searching for a place to relocate his family from Vermont. From his first visit, he found Charlottesville to be a wonderful place, full of warm and hospitable people — and he wanted his place to reflect that. Bodo’s warmth comes from Charlottesville, and Charlottesville’s, in turn, from Bodo’s.

That synergy also drives the execution of Fox’s vision. For the past two decades, credit belongs to the current owners and staff. Longtime employees before buying the business in 2006, John Kokola and Scott Smith understood the pillars that sustained Fox’s vision and have never let them erode. Any changes have come quietly and carefully: a new item, an improved ingredient source. And so, under their care, Bodo’s remains as congruous with Charlottesville as Fox intended. “Charlottesville is home to great people, who both responded to my efforts and seeded my enterprise with wonderful employees, without whom I wouldn’t have been able to carry it off,” Fox said this week, reflecting on Bodo’s legacy.

Scott Smith and John Kokola

For that, no one is more grateful than Fox. When he sold Bodo’s, Fox declined investors’ overtures because he thought his staff had the best chance to sustain what he built. For two decades, that decision has paid off for him, for Charlottesville, and for the owners themselves. “What a blessing it’s been to have so much continuity in Bodo’s, where the hands-on of John and Scott have done nothing but improve what I left behind,” said Fox. “I am more than grateful, not just for the continuity, but for the fact that the enterprise now benefits those friends that I love like brothers, and their families as well.”

Now 80, Fox still drops in on occasion to savor what he calls the good vibes among public and staff, the magical machine of people and food humming along. “What a privilege to be a witness,” Fox said. “How lucky I am to be here and now. Gratitude.”

Lucky indeed. Almost forty years after its founding, and nearly twenty after its sale, Bodo’s is the same as it ever was. Just the way Charlottesville likes it.

—

For a full history of Bodo’s, visit here.

My standard order at a good cocktail bar is: “I’d like a cocktail, please.”

What some call a “dealer’s choice,” it usually results in bartenders whipping up whatever inspires them. Sometimes, there are questions first. Spirit preference? What do you usually like? I always decline to answer, not to be difficult, but because my interest is in trying what inspires the creator, without my influence.

On a recent visit to Bar Baleno, my request prompted a question I had never heard before. “Is it okay if it doesn’t have any alcohol?” Though that had not occurred to me, I did not hesitate. “Of course!” The bartender replied: “Great, because if you’re interested in what inspires me, that’s been my passion lately.” Exactly!

I did not regret it.

The bartender is Rani Morris, and her alcohol-free cocktails have developed a buzz around town since she launched a menu of them last year. What sparked her passion? FOMO, she says. “I got sober a year ago, and I have found fantastic support outside of the bar, but also inside it,” said Morris. “My colleagues and the management team at Lampo have lovingly encouraged me.”

A goldsmith and jewelry artist, Morris poured her creativity into her new passion, and guests were eager taste testers of her experiments. Over time, she tried to construct nonalcoholic cocktails with their own identity, and now she has a whole menu of them.

The Herbal Bee, for example, is built like a Bees Knees, a Prohibition-era cocktail of gin, lemon juice, and honey. Morris replaces the gin with another aromatic beverage: a tisane of 13 herbs and spices, including hibiscus, juniper, lavender, bay leaf, and pink peppercorn. “The hibiscus gives the drink its delicate pink hue,” said Morris.

While The Herbal Bee is a refreshing apertif, the Dandy Old Fashion is one to sip and savor over a conversation, Morris says. In place of whisky in the typically boozy Old Fashioned, she makes an infusion of roasted dandelion root. And instead of a sugar cube, there’s honey syrup. Served on the rocks with lemon and orange twists. “Bold and earthy, with toasted caramel that lingers on the palate,” Morris said.

Whether Dryuary or not, Morris’s cocktails can sustain the interest of any drinker, while also promoting their health. “I view this as an opportunity to serve drinks with beneficial, healing qualities,” said Morris. Dandelion root, she notes, supports digestion and liver function. Plus, the drinks are worth gathering for. “For me, bartending is about creating space for conversation, connection, and respite, regardless of whether you are drinking booze,” said Morris.

Cheers to that!