In Gettysburg area, three chefs lead a charge for finer dining

GETTYSBURG - A long day scaling Little Round Top and touring the battlefield here can be an engrossing experience - and one that leaves a sudden hunger for a good meal.

The choices in this tourist mecca have traditionally been a cyclorama of junk-food horrors, from endless options for chicken fingers (with an optional ghost tour) to all-you-can-eat Salisbury steak and nachos at a buffet named for Gen. Pickett's Charge.

A quiet but serious culinary revolution, though, has been growing in the Adams County countryside surrounding this historic town. Ambitious wineries such as Hauser Estates have recently popped up, cultivating grapes amid the rolling hills of Biglerville's apple orchards. The Gettysburg Festival, which runs June 18-27, has placed food events at the core of its celebration.

Even more impressive are the everyday efforts of some of the area's best restaurants, including three that feature locally bred chefs who've returned from pedigreed gastromomic adventures farther afield to bring some sophisticated flavors back to their home turf.

House-made charcuterie and wood-roasted Spanish tapas at a tiny apple-country BYOB? A lavish industrialist mansion where the chef creates inventive seasonal fare inspired by local organic farmers and the owners' own herd of cattle? Or how about an elegant meal at a colonial-era tavern in East Berlin from a chef who once ran the four-star kitchen at Manhattan's Lespinasse?

I wouldn't have believed it, either, until I tasted these meals myself. But after visiting this spring, I found that each of these three restaurants add a flavorful new reason to visit Gettysburg this year.

The Sheppard Mansion

Chef Andy Little knows his way around B&Bs, having trained at Virginia's vaunted Inn at Little Washington (after school at the C.I.A.) and made his reputation with Philadelphians as a seasonally minded chef at EverMay on the Delaware north of New Hope. Coming back to his meat-and-potatoes hometown of Hanover, he says, was an unexpected turn. But the rebirth of the Sheppard Mansion as an inn and a serious restaurant has been an ideal opportunity to craft a special fine-dining destination from the ground up.