Richmond, VASoul Food

Mama J’s serves soul food in Jackson Ward with Velma Johnson’s cabbage, mac and cheese and fried catfish. Collard greens and Southern-style crabcakes sit alongside the mains, and coconut pineapple cake gives the meal a generous finish.

At The Roosevelt, chef Leah Branch draws on Southern family meals and the African roots of ingredients such as benne and cowpeas. Her Church Hill menu has paired smoked collards and pepper vinegar with a confit turkey leg, while cornbread with whipped maple butter remains a familiar anchor.

Lillie Pearl brings chef Mike Lindsey’s Southern cooking to Jackson Ward. The menu has drawn on West African ingredients and North Carolina traditions, with dishes such as pork belly in peach barbecue glaze. The restaurant moved into the former And Dim Sum space on Brook Road.

Croaker's Spot has spent a quarter century in Richmond's Southern soul-food story, with its Manchester dining room carrying the Eggleston family's legacy. The reported menu favorites are fish boats and cornbread, a pairing that speaks to the place's roots rather than a trend. Order the fish boat with cornbread; this is the Hull Street location already featured among the city's Southern kitchens.

Marylou's serves soul food in a Main Street dining room with a rooftop and wine bar. The kitchen's short ribs and skillet-baked cornbread are the reported reasons to sit down, and the restaurant also runs as an evening social space. Start with the cornbread and make the short ribs the center of the meal. The 2024 restaurant feature names this exact Fan address.