Lindsey Nair

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While some of his peers were banging pots and pans in a restaurant kitchen, Rives Elliot was banging the drums.

After cutting two records with a West Coast indie rock band called Old Time Relijun, the Community School graduate returned to Roanoke with little more than a cooking hobby and bills to pay.

Just 3^1/2 years later, he has opened the Local Roots Cafe on Grandin Road Southwest with the intention of using as many fresh, locally produced ingredients as possible.

"I came into food pretty late in the game," Elliot said. "What separates me from a lot of chefs -- who, I'm sure, could thoroughly cook me under the table -- is the energy that I put into sourcing my ingredients."

The 23-year-old's first job in Roanoke was as a dishwasher at the now-defunct Angler's Cafe, where he met girlfriend April Yancey, a 38-year-old holistic health and nutrition counselor.

In his spare time, Elliot started reading Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions," a cookbook that challenges the modern ideal of a low-fat diet and champions old-style foods such as cultured dairy products and lactic acid-fermented fruits and vegetables.

Fallon argues, for example, that animal fats are a healthful and necessary part of the human diet. She also points out that other cultures enjoy lacto-fermented foods, such as Korean kimchi and Japanese pickled plums, every day.

Elliot took what he learned in Fallon's book to the Happy Belly Deli at the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op, where he gradually rose from a dishwasher to a cook and weekend manager. His freedom to experiment there resulted in signature specials such as saag paneer, beet salad with feta, pumpkin fritters and green pea soup.

"I played around a whole bunch," he said. "I would cook there and then I'd go home and cook."

"I was the happy recipient of that," said Yancey, laughing.

A home-grown menu

Eventually, the couple decided to put their beliefs about food into a business model -- a restaurant that, like Chez Panisse of Berkeley, Calif., builds its dishes around ingredients raised within a certain radius of the establishment.

The Local Roots Cafe is not the only restaurant in Southwest Virginia that serves local products. More and more chefs have developed partnerships with farmers and ranchers, and are inventing dishes that showcase those fresh foods.

But Elliot said he believes that sourcing those ingredients before his cafe even opened gave him an edge. For several months before the December opening, he and Yancey, the cafe manager, sought out producers who could sell them meats from pasture-fed animals, farmstead cheeses and chemical-free produce.

As a result, almost every item on his menu includes some local ingredient. His menu includes such dishes as a pulled pork sandwich and a Reuben sandwich made with pasture-raised meat from Mountain Run Farm in Bedford County.

On a recent weekday, I scarfed down the Reuben, savoring the house-cured corned beef from Mountain Run Farm in Sedalia, homemade dressing and tangy, lacto-fermented sauerkraut. The sandwich may have been more healthful for me than the average Reuben, but it sure didn't taste like it.

The only downside: At $8.50, that sandwich also cost more than a typical Reuben.

Elliot explains that it costs more to buy the kind of quality ingredients he's using.

"You get what you pay for," he said. "I charge what I have to to keep a place like this afloat."

Also on the menu are a cheese plate featuring cheeses from Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax and a pumpkin-mascarpone ice cream that Elliot makes with cream from Homestead Creamery in Franklin County.

As winter subsides, Elliot plans to broaden his menu beyond this season's offerings of winter squash, sweet potatoes, kale and the like. He also plans to make his own sauerkraut and other fermented foods.

When it comes to supporting local producers, Elliot and Yancey don't stop at the food. Their tables were handmade by Phoenix Hardwoods of Floyd County and the fair trade, organic coffee is purchased from Star City Coffee Co. of Roanoke. Paintings by local artist Katherine Devine hang on the cafe walls, and other local art will be featured on a rotating basis.

"I want people that are doing things locally to have some support and a chance to showcase things," Elliot said. "If I came into Roanoke, I would want to come here. It represents what the artisans in Roanoke are doing."