Tobacco Company Restaurant, courtesy Richmond Region Tourism
Outdoors at Tredegar
Much of that industry took place at the Tredegar ironworks, where most of the Confederacy’s weapons were forged. The ironworks is now the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar, a National Historic Landmark, and it is available for outdoor events for up to 600 in a tented courtyard or for 100 at two smaller patios that overlook the James River.
During events, guests can tour a museum that tells the Civil War story from Union, Confederate and African-American perspectives.
Indoors at the art museum
At the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), five indoor venues welcome events, among them a large boardroom with a balcony; a 476-seat theater; and the Pauley Center, a grand Colonial Revival-style building that was once a home for needy Confederate widows. It’s used for dinners for up to 60 people and receptions for as many as 200.
The museum’s new wing, opened in 2010, has an atrium for receptions for up to 1,000 and two restaurants for after-hours events. Its fine-dining restaurant, Amuse, seats 60 guests for dinners and 150 for receptions.
Owned by the state, the VMFA’s 20,000 artworks include early American, ancient, African, and east and south Asian collections. Admission is free.
Dinners for up to 300 in the Italian pink Marble Hall allow guests to visit adjacent galleries, including one with the largest Fabergé collection in the United States.
Richmond alive
Nearby, a lively 10-block neighborhood called Carytown has enough plenty of shops, restaurants, wine bars and tattoo shops.
Richmond, according to a list of little-known facts prepared by Richmond Region Tourism, is the third-most-tattooed city in the United States, with an average of 14.5 tattoo shops per 100,000 people.
Such stats are part of several tours that tell Richmond’s stories. Segway tours visit landmarks, public art and neighborhoods. Riverside Outfitters offers trips on the James River in a variety of crafts, from canoes to paddleboards. Richmond is the only U.S. city with Class IV white-water rafting in an urban setting.
On Saturday afternoons, Egan’s Real Richmond Food Tours take groups on walks in different parts of the city. Stops at several Richmond restaurants are peppered with stories about the city, then and now.
Egan also leads a Lincoln Legs tour that blends the president’s 1865 visit with details about Day-Lewis’ Lincoln and the filming of the movie.
That tour stops for food at the Acadia Restaurant in Shockoe Bottom along the route Lincoln would have trod on his way to the Capitol.
Day-Lewis’ Lincoln also walked by one day near the end of the filming and stopped for a lunch of Braveheart beef, brussels sprouts and potatoes.
“He was wearing Lincoln gear except for an orange ski cap,” said restaurant owner John Van Peppen. “One of the servers recognized him, so I went over and welcomed him as Mr. Lewis. ‘I’m Dan,’ Day-Lewis replied.”
Another patron snapped a picture; it went viral on the Internet, the first candid photo of Day-Lewis in Lincoln attire.
The photo now hangs above the table where Day-Lewis ate lunch looking out on the street where the real Lincoln had walked.
That’s Richmond for you. The footsteps of its history tread comfortably in modern times.
www.visitrichmondva.com
