Can you name any beer cocktails besides a Shandy and a Michelada? No? Well, that’s about to change. Try Shock Me, a take on the Old Fashioned from Virtue Feed & Grain in Alexandria, VA. Get the recipe here.

An homage to Irish pubs, built on the great American larder in a wooded warehouse of enormous charm. Best dish: rockfish with colcannon potatoes and cabbage.

Virtue Feed & Grain,  a newcomer in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, particularly embraces the whole-animal philosophy. Chef and co-owner Cathal Armstrong, a Dublin native, showcases his Irish roots with crubeens (pig’s feet fritters) and kidneys in red wine.

[Read the rest of the review at Southern Living online]

Be it spicy, tangy, crunchy or gooey, no one does satisfying bar food like the Irish — and Americans, who have not stopped inventing new pairings of carbs and dairy since popularizing the grilled cheese sandwich nearly a century ago.

Now a culinary star who brought the best of both those nations’ flavors to Washington, Cathal Armstrong, is combining stalwarts from both sides of the Atlantic with the mellow elegance of his Restaurant Eve’s décor and the clever cocktails of his PX speakeasy. The result is Virtue Feed and Grain, a friendly marriage of happy hour and the family dinner table that gives Washington diehards a great reason to Metro out to Alexandria.

[Read the rest of the review at The Hill]

As a young girl, Meshelle Armstrong would meander down Alexandria’s King Street, eating ice cream, hopping cobblestones and visiting the old Olsson’s Books and Records, where she fondly remembers buying her first Bruce Springsteen album.

The city, she says, is charmed. “Few places remain as authentic as Old Town.”

It’s this authenticity that she and her husband, chef Cathal Armstrong, strove to preserve in Virtue Feed and Grain, their most recent restaurant restoration, in the very building that Olsson’s once occupied.

[Read the rest of the review at WashingtonPost.com]

Although Virtue Feed & Grain in Alexandria was brought to life by the team from the nearby Restaurant Eve, Todd Thrasher, one of the four principals, hopes customers can appreciate the differences between the casual newcomer and the polished dining destination.

There are many.

[Read the rest of the review at WashingtonPost.com]