At Bruno’s Spotted Hare in Barboursville, Chef Bruno Young is cooking up Appalachian cuisine like you’ve never seen it before.
By Katherine Pyles
HQ 128 | Winter 2025
Bruno’s Spotted Hare chef and co-owner Bruno Young has crafted hundreds of restaurant menus throughout his career — everything from gastropub fare to Cuban cuisine. As a chef, he’s never been one to pigeonhole himself into any particular cooking style. But when the time came to develop a menu for a restaurant of his own, the gravity of the moment struck him.
The Lincoln County native, described by colleagues as a “genius” and an “artist,” was unexpectedly at a loss.
“The whole project suddenly became deeply personal,” said Young, who owns the restaurant with Jeff Stevens, Matt Walker and Ben Keenan of Barboursville-based Village Caregiving. “I had always thought that if I ever did anything that was going to be ‘uniquely me,’ it would be some kind of globally inspired Appalachian fare. But I really had to think about what that means to me.”
He realized he didn’t want to create just a restaurant. He wanted to create an experience — an Appalachian experience, centered on kinship and community.
“I started thinking about growing up and getting together with family on Sundays, where it was all about sharing experiences and bringing people together,” he said.
You can see it from the moment you step into Bruno’s Spotted Hare, located at 646 Central Ave. in downtown Barboursville. Every detail — from the décor to the timing and presentation of each dish — is crafted with intention. Many of the creative touches are the work of design firm Ackenpucky, which partnered with local ceramicists, woodturners and other craftsmen to bring the region’s aesthetic to life. The result is an elegant but inviting ambience that is distinctively Appalachian.
“When you’re here, I don’t want you to be focusing on the menu,” Young said. “I certainly want you to enjoy it, but what I want you to be enjoying more than anything is the company you’re with.”
Of course, it’s hard not to focus on the menu. There are the deviled eggs topped with smoked pimentón and trout roe, the rabbit skewers drizzled in a harissa honey glaze, the crawfish fritters served with remoulade sauce — and that’s just the appetizers.
If you come expecting familiar upscale fare (think salmon or crab cakes), you’re in for a surprise. The menu is Appalachian without compromise, Young said.
“You can go to any nice restaurant from Huntington to Charleston and get a piece of salmon,” he said. “This menu is unapologetically what I want to serve and what I want you to experience.”
Featuring locally sourced ingredients, the menu shifts with the seasons, all while remaining rooted in Appalachian heritage. But this isn’t a heritage frozen in time: While one family recipe, Young’s great-aunt Bessie Rencsok’s fried chicken, finds a place on the menu, Bruno’s Spotted Hare is more about redefining the boundaries of Appalachian cuisine.
“This isn’t about just making a great version of something the way it always was,” explained Young, who adds a rosemary and chili-infused maple syrup to his great-aunt’s signature recipe. “It’s not about making a great meatloaf or pepperoni roll. It’s about exploring what Appalachian cuisine would look like if it kept expanding. What would Appalachian cuisine look like if it kept growing and evolving, the same way that we as people should keep growing and evolving?”
It’s a reimagining of Appalachia that is unfolding in real time in the town of Barboursville. The next project for Young, Stevens, Walker and Keenan is Black Fox Social, a speakeasy-style bar in the basement of the historic Thornburg house set to open this spring. If the speakeasy’s ambience is best described as “dark and moody,” its opposite can be found just outside at Thornburg Plaza, also opening soon. Featuring space for friends to gather, hookups for food trucks and an enormous outdoor TV screen, the plaza represents the group’s larger vision for Barboursville.
“We want to continue the momentum that some of our neighbors have started in making Barboursville really unique,” said Walker, pointing to the nearby gastropub 1861 Public House and brewery Köerber Brewing Company. “This whole block is really special to us. We want people to come and say, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this. This is a place I want to be.’ Because that’s how we feel about this community.”
When the goal is creating community, there’s no competition, Stevens added.
“For me these projects are about having a good time together as friends — we’ve been friends a long time,” he said. “If what we’re doing supports other businesses in the area, all the better. And when we say Barboursville, we’re thinking about Huntington too — there’s no Barboursville without Huntington.”
What they’ve created could easily stand alongside any establishment in a major city. But that was never the intent, said Keenan. He said his hope is that others would join in on Barboursville’s ongoing transformation.
“While we give our primary time and attention professionally to Village Caregiving, this is a personal way for us to connect so that it’s good for us, good for our friends and family and good for our community,” Keenan said. “We want this to be the crown spot of Barboursville so that people feel comfortable and excited building around it.”
Bruno’s Spotted Hare is open for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, with the bar starting service at 4 p.m. Brunch lovers, stay tuned! Sunday brunch is coming soon.
