Southern Kitchen - New Market, VA

Posted by Michael Stern on December 28, 2009

Like veined cheese, sourdough bread, and vintage wine, great country ham awakens that special fascination taste buds have for flavors that teeter on the refined side of rot. Southern Kitchen country ham is brick-red, salty, and powerfully tasty, not for palates who crave the blubbery pink stuff that comes in cans from the supermarket. For true ham-lovers, it is divine, especially with a side order of sweet stewed tomatoes to balance the savory smack of the griddle-sizzled slices of pigmeat.

Ham is great for breakfast, lunch, and supper. The Southern Kitchen’s other four-star specialty is something you want only for lunch or supper: peanut soup. A true Virginia treat, peanut soup can vary from bisque-thick to brothy; the version made by this kitchen tends towards the velvety kind, rich with butter but not thickened with cream, onion-sweet and silky. It is a satisfying soup, but it leaves you enough appetite to move on to one of the other gratifying cafe meals available here, such as ham with raisin sauce, fried chicken, or pan-fried trout from the James River. To finish any one of these exemplary western Virginia spreads, have a wedge of apple or coconut cream pie.

The Southern Kitchen is a supremely casual café that serves locals as well as tourists on their way through the Shenandoah Valley to the Luray Caverns. Seating is at a counter or in booths, and decor includes deer trophies above the booths on the paneled walls as well as beautiful whole hanging country hams (for sale). Place mats are paper; and service, by uniformed waitresses, is speedy and pleasant.

Overall: Worth driving from anyplace

11 out of 13 people found the review helpful. Was it helpful to you?

Reviewers "Must Eats" List

Fried Chicken ($10.00)

Stewed Tomatoes (N/A)

Glazed Carrots (N/A)

Peanut Soup ($3.00)

Country Ham ($8.00)

Coconut Creme Pie ($4.00)

Sausage ($2.00)

"Note the softened saltine cracker among the stewed tomatoes that accompany this dinner-size slab of country ham; it's traditional in stewed tomato recipes to include either crackers or white bread, probably to soften the sugar punch."
Michael Stern

"I love country ham so much that I have given fried chicken short shrift in past visits to the Southern Kitchen. That's a mistake I won't make again. This is four-star chicken, with skin so luscious it brought me to my knees in gratitude."
Michael Stern

"A close view of Southern Kitchen peanut soup shows that it isn't quite as smooth as it feels on the tongue. Little bits of nut and onion give it extra character. In my book, this is the definitive peanut soup."
Michael Stern

"The sun was just coming up as the front door of the Southern Kitchen opened at 7am."
Michael Stern

"What a lovely country breakfast: cured ham, oven-hot biscuits, and a pair of sunnyside-up eggs. Whole hams, wrapped in burlap, are available for sale near the cash register."
Michael Stern

"A choice of mementoes in the corner of the dining room near the cash register: Post cards are twenty-five cents each; whole hams can cost nearly fifty dollars."
Michael Stern

"What decade is this Formica from?"
Michael Stern

"Paneled walls, mounted trophy, juke-box, and well-upholstered benches: a booth at the Southern Kitchen is an only-in-America place to eat."
Michael Stern

"Interior of the Southern Kitchen. "
davespeterson

"A great time warp experience."
davespeterson

"Top-of-the-line breakfast at the Southern Kitchen is built around a couple of lovely slices of grilled country ham."
Michael Stern

"A blurry picture of a sharply-seasoned sausage patty. Maybe not as wonderful as the ham, but one of the best breakfast sausages I've had in ages."
Michael Stern

"The peanut soup at the Southern Kitchen is worth the trip."
davespeterson

"The evening's last slice of coconut pie!"
Michael Stern

"Before dinner: the Southern Kitchen at dusk."
Michael Stern

"After dinner: the Southern Kitchen sign glows. It is a beacon of good food in the Shenandoah Valley."
Michael Stern