Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2015 - 57

Left: A breakfast sandwich with Cottage croissants. Right: The Cottage Café is a community gathering spot.

Canal House Café
1226 West Washington Street,
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
304-535-2880; canalhousecafe.com

Peruvian in the Panhandle
Artist Etel Garro Wheeler serves authentic Peruvian food in downtown
Charles Town. Wheeler taught English and was a school principal in
Peru, but she waited tables at night.
"Cooking is in my genes," she
says. Her mother ran a restaurant,
and in 2014, Wheeler opened the
Cantuta Café in Charles Town, its
name taken from an Andean flower.
"I cook just like I did at home,"
she says. "When I go home to Peru,
I bring back two pounds of dried
yellow peppers for the special sauce
I use. In Peruvian cooking, we work
with what nature gives us-natural,
fresh products."
That yellow pepper sauce stars in
a dish Wheeler made for us called
ají de gallina, a chicken stew served
over rice and topped with roasted
corn. We both declared it one of
the best dishes we have ever eaten.
Ceviche, Wheeler says, has caught
on in Charles Town, too. She makes
it with tilapia and flounder and has
even created a "ceviche wrap."
Cantuta Café
109 West Washington Street,
Charles Town, West Virginia
304-724-1387

Break for Shaved Ice
During warm-weather months, the
Cone Zone in Charles Town does a

brisk business in shaved ice. It has
been in existence for 18 years and
in the same spot, in the Somerset
Village Shopping Center, for 15.
Cone Zone
58 Somerset Boulevard,
Charles Town, West Virginia
304-724-8374

Captivating Croissants
Talk of croissants brought us to
Berkeley Springs, where Mark and
Susan House run the Cottage Café.
He once worked for the U.S. Coast
Guard while she ran Panhandle
Podiatry. Today they operate what
Mark calls "a grab-and-go joint," a
coffeehouse that has become a community gathering spot.
Stan Oaks, a retired microbiologist, lost his wife in 2012. He says
the Cottage Café adopted him. He
visits every day.
Some days, those croissants-
made from a secret recipe-enfold
50 to 60 breakfast sandwiches.
Customers have told Mark that his
croissants are better than the ones
they've had in France.
Coffee beans are delivered fresh
from Ceremony Coffee in Annapolis, Maryland, including a special
Cottage Blend, a perfect match with
cranberry-orange muffins, macaroons, and cinnamon rolls.
"Here, nickels and dimes matter,"
says Mark, formerly of Buffalo, New
York. He gives us a lesson in the frugality of crumb cake, a specialty of
Long Island, where Susan is from.
"It got started from leftovers,

from sugar cookies," he says.
The café also sells a selection of
loose teas from Lovettsville, Virginia, and Doc's Tea, produced and
bottled by Dr. Ken Banks, a dentist
in Inwood, West Virginia.
"It's important that you love
and care for the artisan products
they created for you," Mark says.
Cottage Café
206 Martinsburg Road,
Berkeley Springs, West Virginia
304-258-4002

A Brew with a View
On a bluff above the Potomac River
in Shepherdstown sits the Bavarian
Inn, host to a rousing Oktoberfest
every September.
"This is the old, classic place to
dine," says Shepherd University's
Cecelia Mason. "And the German
theme goes well with the town's
previous name, Mecklenburg."
The inn offers one of the area's
most captivating views, across its
infinity pool toward the river. For
every stay at the Alpine-style inn,
owners donate $1 to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
For the Sunday brunch "European Station," Chef Wolfgang
Vomend prepares dishes from his
homeland: sauerbraten with red
cabbage,
wienerschnitzel,
and
jägerschnitzel with mushrooms,
bacon, and shallots. His meatloaf
is a blend of wild game: boar, elk,
and venison.
Bavarian Inn
164 Shepherd Grade Road,
September/October 2015 57

http://www.canalhousecafe.com

Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2015

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