Chef Travis Milton has spent more than a decade working to restore Appalachia’s historic foodways—longtime traditions he learned from his grandparents’ generation, like canning, raising heritage cattle, and breeding heirloom fruits and vegetables, but that disappeared as coal took over the region’s economy. At Hickory, he presents Appalachian fare as the world-class food culture he knows it to be. The restaurant, a 130-seat fine-dinery, sits on a 480-acre property that includes a golf club, inn, vineyard, glamping yurts, and winning views of the Blue Ridge Mountains—all owned, ironically, by Kevin…
