Virginia Tidewater

Once you’ve tasted what lies inside the rugged shell of a Virginia oyster, you can begin to understand the history that flows through the winding, sumptuous tidewaters of the state’s eastern shore. The small but mighty morsel represents survival, its brininess born of the sea from which it was first harvested by Native Americans and by hardworking watermen today. Virginia is home to a variety of oysters, each with a very specific flavor; the distinctness is a story of cultural fusion in this eastern coastal community, and the freshness is a sign of thriving life.

Some define Virginia’s Tidewater region as the portion of land east of the Fall Line, west of the Chesapeake Bay, and in between the James and Potomac Rivers, while others generalize the term to include a larger portion of the low-lying plains named for the rise and fall of changing tides. Within