Seven years ago, before opening his restaurant, Foraged, chef-owner Chris Amendola looked into buying a food truck to get his farm-to-table concept off the ground. But the logistics of mobile service in the city were daunting, so Amendola found a brick-and-mortar space in Hampden instead.
The James Beard-nominated chef moved his restaurant to Station North in 2021, but just a few months ago, he got another chance to serve meals on wheels, when Black Ankle Vineyards co-founder Sarah O’Herron called him for advice.
“We have hosted food trucks for a while, and we decided a few months ago that we wanted to bring the food in house, rather than have a rotation of people coming through,” says O’Herron of her Mt. Airy winery. “We are dedicated to growing all of our grapes very painstakingly—we have a super high-quality product grown on our farms—and we want to have food that is going to reflect that and pairs well with our wine.”
O’Herron told Amendola, “You guys have a fabulous product and it really lines up with what we’d like to achieve, we love the focus on seasonal.”
But instead of dispensing advice, Amendola decided to put himself in the driver’s seat. “Chris said, ‘I can’t just tell you how to do it—I’ll do it,’” recalls O’Herron of Amendola’s response at the time.
The Foraged food truck, which was fabricated by the U.S. Food Factory in Waldorf, is a tricked-out, 28-foot trailer including friers, a range, a convection oven, a flattop grill, and refrigeration.
“It’s literally a full-fledged kitchen,” says Amendola. “It’s actually bigger than the kitchen in our old Hampden location. If we didn’t have any limitations at the old place, the sky is the limit here.”
Now open Friday through Sunday at the winery (Fridays: 4-9 p.m.; Saturdays: 12-8 p.m.; Sundays 11 a.m.-5 p.m.), the truck serves dishes that are hyper-seasonal, just as they are at the brick-and-mortar location.
“It will be a bit more casual,” says Amendola, adding that the price point will be under $25 per person, “but definitely very similar. We want to utilize the location and we want to pair it well with the food.”
With chef de cuisine Tony Castellon at the helm, the opening menu includes Amendola’s signature “crab cake” (made of Lion’s mane mushrooms), roasted street corn with garlic aioli, ricotta and marinated peaches atop sourdough foccacia, and curated charcuterie boards.
“We will also do tomato salads, catfish, and lots of vegetarian dishes,” Amendola says, mentioning a range of five-to-seven menu items that will rotate weekly.
For O’Herron, having the truck posted up on the property is a dream come true.
“We are super excited to see how this is going to come together,” she says. “It’s always such a gift for us to taste our wines with fantastic foods, so to have it set up and be able to share with customers who come out for these really delicious meals on a regular basis will make the experience so much better. It’s like our fairy godfather has landed.”