Restaurants in Newport News

Since 1999, Rajput Indian Cuisine has been delighting taste buds with authentic Indian cuisine that's garnered glowing reviews and accolades, including three 2012 Virginian-Pilot Readers' Choice Awards for Best Vegetarian Menu, Best New Restaurant, and Best Indian Cuisine and a 2011 Hampton Roads Magazine Platinum Plate Award. Diners settle into crimson dining rooms with white-tablecloth-draped tables before savoring curries, tandoori delicacies, and spiced seafood with foliage and framed artwork hanging overhead. The restaurant welcomes vegetarian diners with an extensive roster of meat-free fodder, and chefs keep the operation green by incorporating organic ingredients and high-fiving every tree limb they pass.

Mediterranean Cuisine’s Lebanese owners craft a battalion of freshly prepared, authentic fare from scratch. Taste expeditions commence with appetizers that sample grape leaves stuffed with spiced rice and hummus blended with chickpeas whipped with tahini, garlic, and lemon. After a light and lemony fattoush salad, guests can tuck into full platters of succulent meats, such as chicken tawook and beef kebab, complemented by fuchsia pickled turnips and soft pita disks, used to scoop up bites or act as edible frisbees.

For the past 18 years, the chefs at India Palace have been making their northern Indian food burst with flavor rather than an overly spicy kick. To do so, they harness traditional spices such as anise seed, cardamom, and turmeric to concoct their aromatic curries, vegetarian entrees, and gluten-free dishes from scratch. They can customize each of their biryani and masala entrees to individuals' preferred levels of heat and sentience, and they diligently bake naan in a clay oven to sop up every last drop of vindaloo sauce. India Palace also offers an expansive lunch buffet that brims with traditional Indian morsels.

Perhaps it’s the dining room’s glittering chandeliers that make diners feel as though they’ve stepped back in time, or maybe it’s the silver tea sets displayed atop baroque-style tables that bring to mind a bygone era. Though it’s difficult to single out the one element of First Ladies Tea Parlor that transports diners to the past, it’s evident that owner KJ Jordan has realized her vision. KJ’s passion for all things old-timey manifests itself in the parlor’s varied schedule of events, from historic fashion shows and presentations by authors and historical interpreters to speakeasy dinners that keep the spirit of the 1920s alive via live jazz and free admission for ghosts. Away from the sun-dappled dining room, chef Gabby Bauman and her culinary crew bustle about the kitchen whipping up light lunches featuring entrees named after first ladies, including the Lady Dolley sandwich filled with roasted turkey and avocado and the Lady Betty salad dappled with salmon fillet and apricot-ginger dressing.

If the murals in Tuscany Ristorante Italiano's dining room didn't tip you off to the eatery's Italian influence, the scents coming from the kitchen would. In there, chefs sauté Gulf shrimp, cuts of veal, and fillets of fish before tossing them with the house's pasta and sauces. They also craft traditional thin-crust pizzas using their own freshly made dough, basil, and natural cheese to capture traditional Italian flavors. The shop opens its doors from breakfast onward and begins building light breakfast dishes as well as bistro sandwiches and salads that burst with spinach, grilled chicken, and goat cheese, just like a farmer's piñata.

Melding the refreshing iciness of the polar ice caps with the sweet bounty of the fruit market, each cup of berrybody frozen yogurt takes taste buds on a globe-trekking journey of refreshment. Made only with natural ingredients and full of healthy nutrients and probiotics, berrybody yogurt is nonfat, contains less than 20 calories per ounce, and is much tastier than gnawing on a crabgrass salad or frozen crab-icicle. Visitors can savor original tart or green tea frozen-yogurt flavors available in small ($3.75), medium ($4.75), or large ($5.95) sizes. Crown your treat with three of 30 available toppings, such as watermelon, coconut, blueberries, and Oreos. New yogurt flavors are available every week for “Flavor Friday,” and patrons can also treat themselves to additional menu items such as the sippable blender ($6.95) or spoonable blast ($5.95).