The Charlottesville 29

Suppose the number of restaurants in the Charlottesville area were reduced to a mere 29.  What would be the ideal 29?  This site answers that question.

This may seem an odd premise on which to build a guide to Charlottesville restaurants. After all, Charlottesville has a rich and varied collection of restaurants. Yelp lists hundreds. With so many good dining options, why reduce the number to 29?

A few reasons.

First, it’s a useful principle for a restaurant guide. It provides more structure than, say, naming the “best” restaurants in Charlottesville. That is impossible, in part because of the difficulty in defining what makes a restaurant the “best.” Avoiding that quandary, The Charlottesville 29 presents a simpler task: from Charlottesville’s hundreds of restaurants, assemble an ideal 29.

Legendary Notre Dame football coach Knut Rockne once said: “As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.” Likewise, this site aims to name not the 29 best restaurants, but to assemble annually an ideal collection of 29 from the many that Charlottesville is blessed to have.

Second, the question at the heart of The Charlottesville 29 requires consideration of factors beyond sheer food quality or kitchen talent. For one, type of cuisine. Imagine that Charlottesville were home to dozens of world-class French restaurants, with award-winning chefs. Even then, The Charlottesville 29 would not consist of just French restaurants. As enjoyable as expertly prepared French cuisine can be, you may tire of it if that were all you ate.  You might miss a great sandwich, or Indian food, or pizza, or Thai, or, well you get the idea.

Besides, even if you did not tire of world-class French cuisine, you might go broke eating it. Another factor, then, is cost. If Charlottesville were to have just 29 restaurants, it would be ideal to have many priced for frequent visits, and a handful for more indulgent occasions.

Finally, perhaps best of all, The Charlottesville 29 lets me pretend that the obscene amount of time that I devote to food has some purpose other than stuffing my face. An over-the-top meal is no longer mere gluttony. It is “research.”

Who creates the 29 each year? Answer here.