Ian Boden’s culinary passion blossomed as a kid, as he helped his family craft traditional Jewish dishes like potato latke and chicken matzo ball soup for parties. His mother was so impressed she arranged an internship with Marc Fusilier at his Manassas-area fine dinery, Chez Marc Café 28, when Boden was just 13.
The mentorship lasted through high school. Boden matriculated to New England Culinary Institute and landed a breakthrough job with star chef Alain Lecompte at Prince Michel Restaurant in Madison County after graduation. Next came a 10-year run at famed New York eateries like Home Restaurant, Payard Patisserie, and Judson Grill.
But the advent of reality TV shows that launched chefs into mega-stardom changed things. “Everyone started jockeying for attention,” says Boden. It stopped “being about working as a team to create the best food and dining experience you possibly could.”
Boden moved to his parents’ adopted hometown of Staunton in 2006 and launched his first restaurant, The Staunton Grocery, a year later. But the farm-to-table movement was in its infancy and the city wasn’t the tourist haven it is today. Most residents preferred baby back ribs to, say, a short rib bourguignon made with locally sourced ingredients. Boden struggled to fill the Grocery’s 60 seats, and it closed after five years.
Still, he’d won an underground following among refined regional eaters, which led to a lead role at Charlottesville’s now legendary Glass Haus in 2013. Praise from Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema and others landed Boden a spot on 2013’s James Beard Best Chef semifinalist list, yet he stepped away before the winners were announced.
Why? Owners wanted to make him a celebrity while 80-hour work weeks and 45-minute commutes to and from Staunton meant he rarely saw his wife and kids. “I felt I was losing myself and getting away from what was most important,” says Boden.
He and his wife, Leslie, hatched a plan: gamble their life savings on turning a cinder block building on the outskirts of downtown Staunton into a tiny, food-first eatery with minimal overhead. The Shack opened in 2014 and was soon celebrated by power eaters like the late Esquire food critic Joshua Ozersky. Boden earned a second James Beard semifinalist nod in 2017.
But as The Shack approached its 10th birthday, he grew restless.
“That’s a long time for any [restaurant concept], and we’d talked time and again about doing a culinary inn,” Boden says. When an acquaintance offered the couple a deal on the “perfect property, we said, ‘Screw it, let’s bet everything on our dreams and shoot for the moon.’”
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This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue.
