4 Culpeper Restaurants With Stories That Started Somewhere Else
By Culpeper HQ ·
Culpeper has plenty of restaurants that are local without their stories beginning here.
One started with a 12-year-old working in restaurants in Naples. Another grew from a family that had already spent years cooking in Thailand and the Washington area. Another brought recipes from both North and South India to East Davis Street. And across that same street, one Culpeper restaurant eventually became two.
So this week's assignment is simple: eat somewhere with a story that traveled before it reached Culpeper.
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## Luigi's: A restaurant story that started at age 12
Long before Luigi's became a Culpeper institution, Luigi was a 12-year-old working in restaurants in Naples.
According to Visit Culpeper, he came to the United States at 18, bought Ciro's Italian Pizzeria with his two older brothers and eventually expanded into the Culpeper location that became Luigi's in 2001.
The restaurant describes its food as Southern Italian, and its own history closes on an even more local detail: Culpeper became Luigi's hometown.
More than two decades after Luigi's opened here, the immigrant story and the Culpeper story are really the same story now.
**Go when: **somebody in the group wants pizza, somebody wants pasta, and nobody wants dinner to become a committee meeting.
[Luigi's details](https://visitculpeperva.com/food-and-drink/luigis/)
## Pinto Thai: A family restaurant that chose Culpeper
Pinto Thai's family history says Paranee Hopple, her husband and her mother, Thipphawan Jaipayungton, traveled through a number of small towns before falling for Culpeper and opening the family's first Thai restaurant here in 2004.
Visit Culpeper adds another layer. Chef Thipphawan had previously owned and operated a restaurant in Thailand, later worked for years in the Washington-area restaurant scene, and then opened in Culpeper with her children.
Twenty-two years later, Pinto Thai does not feel like something Culpeper imported. It feels like one of the places that helped make downtown Culpeper what it is.
Pad Thai and tom yum are on the restaurant's own list of signature dishes, and plenty of Culpeper diners have now been eating this family's food long enough to measure the relationship in decades.
**Go when: **pad Thai sounds good but ordering the same thing you always order feels like wasting an opportunity.
[Pinto Thai](https://www.pintothaiculpeper.com/)
## Natraj: Recipes from both ends of India
Natraj describes itself as a husband-and-wife restaurant built around recipes from both North and South India.
Its own story says the founders saw Culpeper as a place ready for something new and wanted to share the food they grew up with.
The story is right there on the menu. North and South Indian traditions meet on East Davis Street in tandoor dishes, curries, biryanis, naan and vegetarian plates meant to be mixed, matched and passed around the table.
**Go when: **you can bring enough people to justify ordering several dishes and passing plates.
[Natraj's story](https://eatnatraj.com/story)
## Dtom Dtun: The second chapter across the street
Dtom Dtun is the newest-feeling story of the four, but it is connected to one of Culpeper's longest-running international restaurants.
Dtom Dtun is less a separate origin story than a second chapter. After more than 20 years running Pinto Thai across East Davis Street, the family opened another restaurant instead of simply making more of the same. This time the menu wanders through Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese and Korean noodle traditions.
Apparently two decades of feeding Culpeper only gave them more ideas.
**Go when: **you want noodles, color and something you have not already eaten fifty times.
[Dtom Dtun](https://www.dtomdtunnoodle.com/)
## Your assignment
You do not have to turn this into a four-stop eating challenge. In fact, please do not blame us for whatever happens if you try.
**Pick one.**
Go somewhere you have not been in a while, or somewhere you have somehow never been at all. Order something you do not normally order. Ask a question if the room is not slammed.
And remember that “local” does not necessarily mean “started here.”
And Visit Culpeper[1], Pinto Thai Culpeper[2], Visit Culpeper[3], Natraj[4], Dtom Dtun Noodle[5] each brought part of this local story into view; that showed us where to look beyond the headline.
Sometimes local is what happens when somebody arrives, stays, builds something and gives the rest of us a reason to keep coming back.