By Amanda Larch

For The Ironton Tribune

It’s all about creating an experience for guests at Bruno’s Spotted Hare, an exquisite Appalachian fine dining establishment.

The restaurant is subtly autobiographical for owner Bruno Young, with personal touches and photos from throughout his life filling much of the space.

“Think about the South or Appalachian culture,” Young says. “It’s a lot of storytelling. Everybody tells a story, and I wanted this to be a place that was telling a story. The customer, the guest, becomes part of that story.”

Attention to detail in the decor was key in bringing Young’s vision to life. He utilized local vendors, like Silver Run Ceramics, based out of Kentucky, for platters and plates adorning the walls, and historic touches, like antique dining cars, enhance the space’s charm and atmosphere.

With a lifelong connection to rabbits, evidenced in photos from Young’s childhood and beyond, it was a no-brainer when branding the restaurant, and the space has countless Easter eggs paying homage to this theme.

Other pieces are specific to the community of Barboursville or to West Virginia, including John James Audubon prints featuring indigenous                   Appalachian species.

“But I am casting a wider net than that in terms of bringing people in from the surrounding areas,” Young says. “Because I do think what I’m doing here is unique.”

Thinking about food for this fine dining experience, Young knew he wanted to reflect Appalachia while adding some international flavor and flair. With offerings like venison, duck and rabbit, there are also staples like trout and fried chicken.

“Appalachian food does have a heart and soul based on certain ingredients that we’re all familiar with, but I realized to make it exciting, fresh and new, it was important to bring in some more global, international flavors,” Young says. “You’re creating something that’s a fine dining experience–it maybe has to be more than just a plate of meatloaf that you charge more for.”

Taking inspiration from his days as chef at Huntington Prime, Aunt Bessie’s fried chicken is also a mostly unmanipulated family recipe menu item, Young says.

“That’s a pretty dead-on rendition of how that was prepared,” he says. “My embellishment to that is the chili rosemary syrup drizzle on top. I had some people in my ear about doing the fried chicken from Huntington Prime. I was like, ‘You guys remember that?’ It seems like a lifetime ago.”

When planning the menu, Young says he thought the beef program, with dried aged and USDA prime steaks, would be what most guests would lean into, but he’s pleasantly surprised by how much venison ragu and rabbit is served.

“Rabbit is on the menu three different ways right now,” he says. “I’ve written hundreds of menus probably at this point, but when it’s suddenly your menu it becomes deeply personal. You want it to convey a message, so there’s tidbits of me in there, from traveling, from growing up. I felt like if I could make it personal, that would transcend to my guests.”

While originally unsure about the customer buy-in of different and new takes on traditional Appalachian cuisine, Young says the support and engagement has been unwavering since the beginning. By and large with the menu, Young has taken a key ingredient and made it the focal point of a dish.

“There are a lot of people who do great versions of what I would call an archival version of Appalachian food, like out of Granny’s recipe box or how their grandmother did it,” he says. “I wanted to focus on proteins, the center of the plate, that people aren’t exploring. This is my way of exploring Appalachian cuisine, taking something that’s comforting and familiar and then introducing something new, exciting and multicultural to that.”

Young says he also wanted to feature a few pasta dishes, harkening back to his culinary background training in Champaign, Illinois under a renowned chef. As a result, Bruno’s Spotted Hare has a healthy menu mix, and a local partnership with Hernshaw Farms provides mushrooms for many dishes, including                    mushroom stroganoff.

“I wondered if that would resonate with people because this is a vegetarian dish, and I’m stunned by how many people order it who are not vegetarians at all,” Young says. “Hernshaw Farms’ mushrooms are spectacular, and they’re absolutely the star of the show.”

Having been open for just a few weeks, and currently open for dinner service Wednesday through Saturday, Young is still adjusting, but he’s already looking ahead for future plans for Bruno’s Spotted Hare, including introducing Sunday brunch in the near future. Young says brunch will be a great opportunity for folks to begin exploring the restaurant at different hours.

“We haven’t started doing specials yet,” he says. “I still want people to explore the menu. More importantly than doing specials, we’ve got Sunday brunch right around the corner. Brunch is a good way for people to see a different side of what we can do; it’s a good place to start. Specials are maybe not far off, but they’re not my one focus            right now.”

While Bruno’s Spotted Hare accepts reservations in an easy-to-use online format, Young says walks in are accepted and welcomed.

“We’re totally fine if somebody walks through the door, but we offer the reservation platform as a way for somebody to know they have a table guaranteed,” he says.

After about two decades in the food and beverage industry, working as a chef, culinarian and mixologist, Young says his passion for the craft is what keeps him motivated and continues to inspire him.

“I took a big leap in terms of how I viewed the industry, and instead of looking at it as a chef would, I looked at the bigger picture, all the details and actually understanding the guest experience and how you elevate that,” he says. “If you’re like me, there’s always an air of at least friendly competition. You want to be the best you can be.”

For some time, Young had been toying with the idea of eventually opening his own restaurant; it was like a natural progression, he says. Located on Central Avenue in Barboursville, the space, which, among other things, used to house a pool hall and a five and dime, had a ton of potential.

“Sometimes the right thing finds you,” he says. “If you can say something is fated as in that’s your fate or kismet, this certainly is. It was people coming together to create this.”

A historic building dating back to the late 1800s, it needed some TLC, Young says. Now, there isn’t a surface inside Bruno’s Spotted Hare that hasn’t been refurbished or touched with wallpaper, a paintbrush or a decoration.

“To me, this is one of the most iconic spaces from Huntington to Charleston,” Young says. “A lot of the things that are amazing about it were already here; they just needed for their potential to be fulfilled. I’ve developed multiple concepts for other people, but this is pretty in line with what I wanted to achieve if it was mine and would bear my namesake.”

The community of Barboursville has shown incredible support for Young and Bruno’s Spotted Hare since it opened. Another collaboration has been with Koerber Beer Company, located down the street, who brews a specific beer for the restaurant.

“The village of Barboursville couldn’t be more welcoming,” Young says. “We’re all in it together, we all frequent each other’s establishments, and the sense of community here is unparalleled. They really go out of their way to help businesses succeed in whatever way they possibly can.”