Our Story
Built on fire,
grown by hand.
Chef & Owner
Nora Bellamy
Nora grew up cooking over her grandfather's backyard fire pit in the Blue Ridge foothills — nothing measured, nothing rushed, just whatever the garden and the weather allowed that day. After a decade in restaurant kitchens up and down the East Coast, she came home to open Fig & Ember in 2016 with one rule: everything touches the fire.
"I wanted a restaurant that felt like the meals I grew up on — a little smoky, a little imperfect, and always exactly what was in season."
Sourcing
We know the hands that grew it.
Our menu is written by whoever calls first — the mushroom forager, the trout farmer, the family with the fig trees three roads over. We work with more than 40 small growers and producers within 60 miles, and the menu changes whenever they tell us it should.
See What's Growing →What We Believe
Three rules we don't break
Live Fire, Always
No gas ranges. Every dish that leaves the kitchen has touched wood coal or open flame.
Know Your Farmer
If we can't name who grew it, it doesn't go on the menu. Simple as that.
Nothing Wasted
Vegetable ends become stock, bread scraps become dessert. A nose-to-root kitchen.
Behind the Pass
The people cooking your dinner
