According to the head chef at Twisted Liquid, Brady Stevens, Appalachian cuisine is rapidly gaining international recognition. The region is known for its johnny cakes, brown beans, chowchow, pepperoni rolls, and other centuries-old dishes that were developed with influence from practices of foraging, canning, and preserving. Appalachian food is simple and evolved through necessity. Stevens is creating new traditions in Appalachian kitchens.

The Chef

Stevens was born and raised in Appalachia and moved to New York City when he graduated from college. He eventually moved back to Blacksburg where he decided to quit his corporate job and pursue a career as a chef.  He sacrificed his predictable and secure nine to five career for the turbulence of the restaurant industry.

“For me, money is not everything. Passion and art are just as important,” he said. “I’ve worked corporate jobs where I was making a lot of money, but I was miserable. I got the weekend off then, but it nearly killed me.”

Stevens has been a chef for over 30 years. He was head chef at the Maroon Door before he started his current role as Twisted Liquid’s head chef. Passion is arguably the most important ingredient he cooks with because every dish that comes out of his kitchen has a lot of it in it.

The Philosophy

While he acknowledges Appalachia’s rich culinary history, Stevens says that Appalachia’s pop-culture is about twenty years behind the rest of the United States.

“As far as being in the midst of it (cooking in Appalachia), it’s just steak and potatoes,” Stevens remarked. “That was one of my fears of coming back here [Blacksburg], is that – I don’t want to do just steak and potatoes. I want to do more.”

When Stevens moved back to Blacksburg after his brief hiatus to the city, he returned with a renewed and advanced mindset. He knew that he didn’t want to work a corporate job and that he wanted to push the boundaries of Appalachia’s culinary sphere.

The word that best describes his cooking style is eclectic, but that doesn’t fully encompass it.

“I like having the Appalachian flavor on my palette, but I like mixing with the other colors,” said Stevens, likening combining diverse cooking techniques to painting.  

Steven’s culinary philosophy is founded in research that is fueled by his interest in agriculture and history. When researching about lines of latitude, he found that Blacksburg is the 35^th parallel, and aligns with the Mediterranean Sea, Iran, Turkey, the Ginseng region of China, and South Japan. He found similarities between the available ingredients and cooking methods of all these places and Appalachian cuisine. He once explored the potential of using tree bark as an ingredient and learned that there is a single tree that was discovered by a Virginia Tech professor that is made of edible wood. These discoveries sparked his interest in exploring what defines cultural cuisine and how the distinctions between them can become unclear.

How Stevens cooks is just as interesting as what he cooks. He recently developed a dessert that consists of dark cherry gelato, rosemary crumble, tangerine marshmallows, bourbon syrup, and black pepper cotton candy. While some may say that this is overkill for a bowl of ice cream, he believes that making food the right way is more important than making it the convenient way.

“What I am hopeful to do is to make some sort of dent in the populous wanting more, and sort of demanding more,” he says.

The Restaurant

Twisted Liquid is an upscale modern bar and restaurant in downtown Blacksburg that opened in November of 2022. It specializes in serving unique cocktails and dishes that embody Stevens’ culinary philosophy.

“I somehow seem to always find myself walking a tightrope line between contradictions,” he said. “I like blending seemingly contradictory things together in a way that is cohesive.”

Many of the dishes combine ingredients that wouldn’t typically be on the same plate, like Thai curry pot-pie and an elk burger with strawberry on it. The restaurant aims to bring an urban ambiance to Blacksburg.

“I had the experience one night, before we even opened, when I stepped onto the sidewalk to see it [Twisted Liquid],” Stevens described. “I came back inside, and I had the sensation as I stepped through the door that was like, ‘I’m not in Blacksburg anymore.’” 

The End

Stevens’ culinary journey continues with every dinner service. His story is like the food that he cooks, driven by a passion that is discoverable if you’re willing to take a bite.

Information about Twisted Liquid can be found here.