Photo courtesy of Field & Main
Owner Neal Wavra is recognized as a leading expert on Virginia wine.
Field & Main Restaurant in Marshall has been named a finalist for the prestigious James Beard Awards, cited for “exceptional care and skill” in its wine and beverage program.
The restaurant is about an hour's drive west of Alexandria.
The farm-to-table restaurant is the only Virginia establishment to make the final list for one of the highest honors in the food and beverage industry. It is one of five nominees selected nationwide from among 20 semifinalists in the category of Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program.
The semifinalists were announced earlier this year and included two additional Virginia restaurants, in Richmond and Charlottesville.
Photo courtesy of Field & Main
Field & Main Restaurant in Marshall has been named a finalist for a 2026 James Beard Award. Photo courtesy of Field & Main.
Neal and Star Wavra opened Field & Main in September 2016. The casual fine dining restaurant has a mission of practicing hospitality by using food and drink to build relationships that foster community. Those values also are reflected by the James Beard Foundation in terms of how wine, food and hospitality can bring people together, said Owner Neal Wavra, who is also culinary director and sommelier.
“We as an organization find a great value in what the Beard Foundation stands for and what it promotes and how it promotes ethical workplaces and elevating the standard of hospitality in independent restaurants, which we are,” he said. “So it’s incredibly meaningful to be recognized.”
Using Wine as Tool to Reinforce Connections and Build Community
Photo by Jane Fullerton Lemons
The award nomination specifically honors the restaurant's wine and beverage program, which includes many Virginia wines.
Field & Main is located at 8369 West Main St. in Marshall, about an hour’s drive west of Alexandria in bucolic Fauquier County. It sits on the town’s historic main drag, directly across the street from the renowned Red Truck Bakery. That’s the second location of the Warrenton-based bakery, which was acquired by Wavra’s umbrella organization, FABLE Hospitality, in 2023.
The nomination for its wine and beverage program is no surprise to anyone who has visited the owner-operated eatery that has become a destination for locavores.
Wavra is recognized as one of the leading experts on the Virginia wine industry. He is currently the director of the Loudoun County wine competition and a judge for the Virginia Governor’s Cup. The restaurant’s carefully curated global wine list includes an extensive home state selection that represents viticulture across the Commonwealth — from producers in Northern and Central Virginia as well as the Shenandoah Valley.
The criteria for the award category call for “a restaurant that demonstrates exceptional care and skill in the pairing of wine and other beverages with food,” among other specifications. With that in mind, Wavra see the nomination as a validation of his team’s work and dedication to customer service.
“We’re not trying to build the biggest wine list in the world,” he said. “We’re looking to use wine to connect with people, and it’s a powerful force to do that. It creates community, it links folks together, and it’s a wonderful way to build those connections and to reinforce the connection that we are all one. We all come from the same energy, and that energy makes people, makes grapes, results in wine — and those wines connect all of us.”
Photo courtesy of Field & Main
Field & Main uses its food and beverage offerings to build connections with the local community.
The Field & Main team has been particularly gratified by the response of customers since the semifinalists were announced in January, Wavra said.
“They are part of it,” he said. “There’s an ownership that they’re demonstrating that this is their restaurant that got nominated. And that’s so meaningful.”
Established in 1990 with the first awards given in 1991, the James Beard Restaurant and Chefs Awards have been characterized as the “Oscars of food” for recognizing excellence in the U.S. culinary industry.
The full list of finalists can be found on the James Beard Foundation website. The winners will be announced June 15 at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony in Chicago.
Photo courtesy of author
Jane Fullerton Lemons
Jane Fullerton Lemons is a Virginia-based writer and recovering Washington journalist focused on wine and travel. A 2026 fellow at the Wine Writers Symposium in Napa Valley, she shares stories of the people and places behind the bottles, while also helping American consumers understand agriculture and how it impacts their lives. You can follow her work here.
