Richmond Tattoo & Arts Convention

The neighborhoods each have their own gravity. Carytown is a mile of independent shops and old theater marquees. The Fan is Victorian rowhouses and porch culture. Church Hill is steep brick streets and a new wave of chefs cooking Southern food that refuses to sit still. Scott's Addition, once a warehouse district, is now the densest concentration of breweries and distilleries in the state. Jackson Ward carries the weight and pride of being the historic center of Black commerce and culture in the city, sometimes called the Harlem of the South.

Underneath all of it is a food and music scene that has quietly become one of the best kept secrets in the country. Chefs here have Chesapeake oysters, Virginia beef, and four real growing seasons to work with, and they use them without pretense. At night the city moves between a two hundred person rock club, a jazz set at a neighborhood bar, and a riverside amphitheater built into an old ironworks. Richmond does not perform for tourists. It just happens to be extraordinary, and it lets you find that out for yourself.