Where Pasta Limone is Simply Charming and Charmingly Simple
Few chefs can get as up close with their clientele as Courtney White McQuarrie at Blanca, her disarming, idiomatic Riverview restaurant reminiscent of a rustic dining room at a petite auberge you might happen upon while driving through the French countryside.
Her kitchen-bar seats 15, a sizable chunk of the total house, so she chats with diners while preparing their Brillat-Savarin cheese course, savory squash tart or risotto al lamb Bolognese. “It’s a joy to see people eat,” she says. “We talk about inspirations and why I do something a certain way.”
And they provide feedback.
“Will you please put a soft-shell crab on my limone?” once asked a regular (her menu changes frequently but fan faves like pasta limone, fragrant roasted chicken and a crunchy green salad worthy of Vogue’s “best-dressed” list—remain constants). She calls the now-popular, ramp-strewn dish, “A harbinger of spring. Very Virginia.”
It’s emblematic of Blanca’s essence: the regional fare of France, Italy and Spain brought home with local touches like produce from Fritillary Farm in Suffolk and Virginia oysters including the Eastern Shore’s Laughing Kings.
Bread is baked-in house. Even the wood for the main room’s communal table was salvaged from a Nags Head pier.
Courtney majored in political science at University of Virginia but couldn’t shake the cooking bug contracted during European travels. After graduation, she worked at world-famous restaurants in New York and Charleston and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute, which included a program in Emilia-Romagna.
Her culinary calling wasn’t a complete surprise. As a fourth-grader at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy, she dressed like a chef for “Colonial Craft Day.”
Six years ago, she attained the holy grail of chefs: owning a little place with a considered selection of food, wine and craft cocktails. She named it Blanca to honor her folks (her mother is a Spanish teacher, and in Spanish Blanca means White, her family name).
It was her sole focus for so long that she was flabbergasted to find, in late 2022, that becoming a mother was also awesome.
“I just never thought about it,” says apologetically. “But now that I’ve done it, it’s the most natural, beautiful thing.”
So how is she juggling Blanca and a toddler? (Cringe-question. Do male chefs get asked that?) Courtney shrugs it off pragmatically, explaining that neither she nor her husband, a firefighter and lifeguard, has nine to five jobs, and both have supportive families nearby.
She adds, contemplatively, “There is a physicality to carrying a baby for women.” Her guests witnessed her pregnancy progress. She was cooking at Blanca just hours before giving birth to her son.
In some ways, it forged deeper bonds; guests didn’t hold back on solicitous advice.
“Don’t stand on that,” they’d caution when Courtney would clamber up a stepstool. They brought blankets and books. “It was so sweet. Just like a family,” she says.
She’s brought them further into the fold with monthly hands-on cooking classes, prompted by their digging into her beef bourguignon or chocolate mousse, closing their eyes and sighing, “I would love to learn how to make this.”
Her courtyard tables are about to get a permanent roof, but the kitchen-bar perches will undoubtedly remain most coveted. Nothing like the sights, sounds and smells of a front row seat. And the chef’s ear.
Learn more at blancava.com.
See us in The March-April Food Feature.
Marisa Marsey
Marisa Marsey is a food, beverage and travel writer whose awards include 1st place Food Writing from the Virginia Press Association. A Johnson & Wales University representative, she has sipped Château d'Yquem '75 with Jean-Louis Palladin, sherpa-ed for Edna Lewis and savored interviews with Wolfgang Puck and Patrick O’Connell.
