The White Dog Bistro

The White Dog Bistro is on Virginia and National historic registries. Our property houses fine dining, two bars, two dining rooms & a wedding event center. We offer on & off-site catering. The 1840’s Georgian mansion is the perfect setting for your special event. We are full-service and recommend reservations.

About Us: 
Chef Walter Wilkes describes his culinary career as beginning humbly 25 years ago with an opportunity to take on an apprenticeship with a highly decorated ACF Mentor and Culinary Institute of America Alumni. The establishment, dubbed The Red Sky in Deltaville, Virginia is what he calls “hole in the wall fine dining”. Changing the menu nightly and eventually working through all the positions of kitchen, the owners named him Executive Chef in the wake of his mentor striking out on his own. From there, doors opened to move quickly in the ranks of five star rated establishments such as Colonial Williamsburg’s famed Trellis Restaurant, and The Red Fox of Snowshoe, West Virginia, described by Fodor’s Travel Guide as one of the Top 25 Restaurants in the US.

Incorporating his barrage of experiences into his own style of “Refined Comfort Foods,” he has merged his classical European training, the Creole and Italian influence of his mentors, and his own Chilean roots into his own very unique “Cuisine Without Borders,” as he describes it. His passion for fresh food leads him to seek out the local watermen and farmers in the area for the best of what Rivah Country has to offer. Likewise, it is his desire to turn that into an overall dining experience that is also the best of what the Rivah country has to offer. It seems to have worked.

For six years now, as the Bistro’s Executive Chef, he has racked up over 60 coveted “Best Of” magazine awards from Coastal Living, Chesapeake Bay Magazine, Virginia Living, The Rivah, and more. In 2015, his Clams Espağnole took him to the Final Four of the “Virginia is for Lovers Culinary Madness Challenge” to cook for several celebrity judges, including the First Lady of Virginia.

And now, in a well deserved and planned out move, Bistro visionaries Mac and Jc Casale, as of late 2017, have leased the White Dog Bistro over to Chef Walter as the new business owner of his own Taste and Sea LLC which continues to trade as The White Dog Bistro. He is joined by his wife Amanda as the General Manager and his daughter Allison as his kitchen apprentice. Together they invigorate the warmth of the Bistro’s small town charm. He insists that fine dining should not be pretentious, and is often heard saying that “good food is only great food when enjoyed in the company of great people.” To that end, he can often be found as much in the dining room, chatting with old friends and newcomers alike, as he is in kitchen bouncing from stove to stove in concert with his adept Chef de Cuisine, apprentice, and line cooks. Just don’t ask what he recommends, because he is convinced every menu item is his favorite, depending on the time of day. Why else would he put it on the menu?