Inside So. Fox, the Restaurant Bringing Seasonal Dining to Virginia-Highland
How the team behind Kinship Butcher & Sundry created a new dining concept in Virginia-Highland
Entering So. Fox, it’s easy to forget that the restaurant once housed a burger joint. The airy dining room’s wood accents glow at golden hour as light streams through the newly enclosed sunroom. The transformation sets the stage for the dishes that follow. For the married couple behind the concept, chef Myles Moody and sommelier Rachael Pack, the Virginia-Highland restaurant marks a return to the kind of elevated hospitality that first brought them together.
Pack and Moody met while working at a Michelin-starred Scandinavian restaurant in New York and bonded instantly. “It was the love of hospitality,” says Moody. “We love food and wine and we also love hospitality and thinking about it in a different way than just food and wine for money.”
They dreamt up three different dining concepts and opened their first, Kinship Butcher & Sundry, in 2021 in Virginia-Highland. “We moved back during the pandemic, and Kinship was technically the last business we were going to open, but it wound up being the first,” says Moody. About three years ago, they began chatting with George Frangos, co-founder of Farm Burger, about taking over the space next door for So. Fox. “We were thinking about our casual concept and it being right next door to Kinship—you really can’t put a better location for this restaurant,” he adds.
The restaurant’s name is short for Southern Fox, a type of muscadine grape native to the Southeast. The couple’s goal was to create a sense of place, not just through the dishes but through the interiors too. Moody and Pack worked with Atlanta companies B10 Union and Silt Studio to craft the oversize wood tables in the dining room and the bars in the front of the restaurant. “I designed what I’m calling a ‘zipper bar.’” says Moody. “It’s basically a floating table where you can have a glass of wine and some snacks and share a meal with people without having to stand shoulder to shoulder.” The hope is that neighbors will stop by for a glass of wine and a bite during their evening strolls.
The meal that plays out on those tables is a whimsical, seasonal fête. Dishes like shaved summer squash atop farmers cheese and thick slices of potato sourdough with house-made butter demonstrate what Moody means when he says his food is Southern but not in the way most people think. A beautifully prepared piece of grouper adorned with peppery nasturtium pairs perfectly with Pack’s choice of Grenache Blanc from California winemaker Âmevive. “It’s subtle enough to let the dish shine and truly uplifts it, but has enough weight and finish to marry those flavors as you sit with the dish 20 seconds after your first bite,”
says Pack.
In reimagining a familiar corner in Virginia-Highland, Pack and Moody have done more than create a beautiful restaurant. They’ve created a place where hospitality and seasonal cooking come together, just as they dreamed of years ago. sofoxatl.com
