Sera Petras Photography
Mary Beth Hughes, owner of Montague Kitchen & Cookery School in Urbanna, Virginia.
If anyone ever wondered what would happen if a French-trained chef bought a house in Urbanna, look no further than Montague Kitchen and Cookery School for the answer.
A North Carolina native, Mary Beth Hughes was assisting in cooking classes as early as high school and by the time she was in college at East Carolina University, she was teaching them. Her plan was to get a two-year culinary degree and become a food writer. “But then I fell in love with cooking, and found cooking paid much better than journalism,” she says from the light-filled kitchen at her cookery school. “I finished my communication degree, but I decided to become a chef.”
A two-year stint in culinary school followed. Before long, she was happily ensconced teaching cooking classes at Five Points in her hometown of Raleigh. With an eye toward new challenges, next came restaurant ownership when she bought the Osprey Gourmet in Duck, North Carolina. “I was cheffing on private yachts and being paid in offshore money,” she recalls. “But again, I was also teaching cooking classes during winter seasons.”
After 18 years of cooking, she decided to try something completely different by going to medical school. When Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999, the powerful flood devastated Greenville, where she lived, and sidelined aspirations of a medical career. “That’s when I decided to take a job selling pharmaceuticals, but I told myself it was only going to be for a year,” she says, chuckling. “I ended up spending the last 25 years in the oncology molecular device industry and, for much of the last five years, wanting to get back to my dream.”
That aspiration finally began to come together in November 2023 when Hughes moved from Deltaville to Urbanna. When the clothing boutique Low Tide went out of business at the end of 2024, she saw an opportunity and didn’t hesitate.
“I immediately knew I wanted to put a cooking school in that space,” she says of opening Montague in October of last year. “It’s been incredibly well received and every class sells out. Most of all, I’m having fun!”
Looking at the listing of classes on her website, it’s not hard to see why Montague Kitchen was an instant hit. Class offerings are varied and creative. In February, a Mardi Gras Monday class involved making oysters Rockefeller, New Orleans jambalaya and butter pecan bread pudding. Her focaccia bread art class has sold out four times, with the results completely Instagram-worthy. What aspiring cook wouldn’t want to learn from a pro how to make handmade tamales and street tacos or seafood paella? The list goes on.
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The afternoon of Urbanna’s Holiday House Tour in December, Hughes offered an authentic English tea with scones, marmalade, tea sandwiches and savory tarts. Attendees built their own tea trays and tasted a selection of teas but also had the pleasure of learning the history of tea and its impact on the American colonies. Family Cooking Together sessions have focused on pasta-making, a sure-fire family pleaser. “I’m thinking of doing a four-week series of classes,” she says. “I’d love to do a series on vegetarian cooking or one on sauces.”
For now, Hughes is the sole teacher, which limits how many classes can be offered, because she continues to be employed in oncology molecular diagnostic sales. At least for the moment.
Even so, she’s planning to partner with local businesses and offer some combined culinary travel experiences starting this summer. When it comes to planning each month’s classes, she’s still working around her job schedule so she’s careful not to overcommit. “I want to ensure we’re offering a super-high quality experience to enjoy, a class people can take something away from,” she says. “We’re doing something very special here that’s very different for the area and it’s important to make that special.”
Hughes occasionally brings in local part-time assistant chefs, but she’s extremely careful about who she allows to teach at Montague Kitchen. “I expect a certain level of ability because I need to ensure that customers get what they pay for, that the classes are fun and entertaining and that people are able to learn from them,” she says, adding that her brand team insists they be consistent and intentional about what they do, to maintain the school’s growing reputation. “We have to make sure anyone we bring in cares for our customers the same way we do.”
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On top of the scheduled classes, Hughes does a number of private and corporate classes in addition to community involvement events. Every month, she offers a community potluck dinner for just a dozen guests, each of whom pays $1 and brings their favorite dish. “My goal with those dinners is for people to come together and eat and have a chance to get to know their neighbors,” she says. “Another thing we do is corporate team-building event classes, which are a unique way to bring people together, learn and have a lot of fun.”
Part of her motivation for creating the variety of events Montague offers comes from the simple fact that she thinks Urbanna needs more things for people—both visitors and residents—to do. Her inaugural open house drew 260 curious people from as far away as Charlottesville, Williamsburg, Richmond and Northern Virginia, an indicator of a real interest for some in community culinary experiences.
While there have always been great reasons to visit Urbanna, in less than a year of being in business, Montague Cookery School has made it obvious that it’s one of them. “I think part of that is because it’s a learning experience for any age,” Hughes says. “I hope that people will come enjoy a class as part of their vacation, girls’ weekend, couples’ trip or just their time at the river.”
Class styles include participation, observation and a hybrid of the two, with classes scheduled days, evenings and weekends to accommodate all schedules. Demonstration classes may have some degree of participation. Couples’ classes involve making one or two dishes as a couple and watching Hughes make the main course with volunteer participation. In the hybrid classes, Hughes demonstrates, walking guests through the process, then teaching them how things are done. The group then divides into groups, and each makes a different dish. There’s a class style for every cook, from novice to accomplished.
Because she is still working, Hughes currently offers eight to ten scheduled classes a month, in addition to private events. “I tailor each class to what that particular group wants,” she says. “Because class size is limited, I’ve had people buying out whole classes so they can bring friends or family. Of course, that’s not necessary because I can also schedule a private class for that.”
Guests heading to Montague Kitchen and Cookery School will arrive at a charming, compact building with mature boxwoods anchoring it to Virginia Street. The front steps take you into a shared space: Urbanna Trading Company, with its wine, cheese and foodstuffs, is housed on the left side of the building and Montague on the right.
Inside, a long table for 12 is adorned with a driftwood centerpiece, with views of passersby thanks to the large picture window.
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The cooking island also seats 12 and behind it, shelves hold various Kitchen- Aid mixers and Cuisinarts, ready to be utilized. The vibe is cozy, inviting and functional, with a couple of high-top tables to add flexibility.
Just don’t expect a commercial kitchen. Hughes intentionally designed the space to be more like a home kitchen, making it far easier for attendees to replicate recipes at home. “I want people to be able to go home and know they can cook these recipes in their own space,” she says. “My goal is for you to be able to transfer the skills learned here to your home kitchen.”
If Hughes’ class offerings and teaching styles sound like something you’d enjoy, you’re not alone. By this point, it’s probably clear that openings in classes are limited and coveted. When it comes to scheduling, the time and type of each class is determined by the input she gets from the community.
The upcoming class list is posted monthly, but two months out. That means the April, May and June calendar was posted the first week of February. And fair warning, the summer classes—think ice cream- and custard-making classes, yum—are bound to be popular once warm weather swells the population and everyone is looking for fun things to do.
But here’s a pro tip: if you go to Montague’s website and sign up for their newsletter, you’ll be notified three days before the new monthly schedule is posted. After that, the responsibility to follow through is your own if you want to attend, say, the Macarons in the Afternoon class. Or, for that matter, any of the mouth-watering offerings.
With a goal to keep customers coming back to try new classes, Hughes keeps refreshing her menus and class offerings and sometimes drops in a pop-up on social media at the last minute. It’s partly about engaging customers but also about choosing to keep food seasonal. “I’m hoping to partner with local farms and put the focus on what’s available here in terms of seafood and meat,” she says. “It’s challenging, but possible. I just need to get to a volume where my suppliers know they can count on me. I’ll get there.”
A popular winter class on the Alpine cheese Raclette allowed attendees to taste Raclette from four countries while learning about its history and culture. A class on fondue making, a dish traditionally focused on community sharing, sold out quickly. Montague Kitchen also partners with Urbanna Trading Company to do cheese classes in tandem with their wine tastings, and Urbanna Trading, in turn, sells the cheeses in their retail section. A “Red, White and Blues” class involved tasting red and white wines along with unique bleu cheeses—domestic, English, French and Italian—while listening to big band blues. This is one place where learning and community go hand in hand.
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Much of Montague Kitchen’s upcoming plans involve extending that community cooperation. Hughes will be partnering with local boat captains to create picnic lunch baskets for their charters. Guest chefs, both local and from Richmond, will come do demonstrations and classes. “All our classes are a learning lesson and not just about making something,” she says.
During the summer, she’ll offer kids’ cooking classes and do rainy-day pop-ups to provide an outlet for little ones when the weather doesn’t cooperate. She’d like to engage with local schools by offering after-school activities. “It would be great to teach kids how to read a nutrition label and how to cook quick and healthy meals for family,” she says. “There are lots of opportunities with schools and so much potential I want to explore when time allows.”
Undoubtedly, part of the reason for Montague’s success right out of the gate has been the cultural trend toward eating out more, not to mention how younger generations consider cooking more of a social event. Preparing a meal or baking is no longer necessarily a family affair where children learn basics at home. “We teach skills that aren’t being taught anymore,” says Hughes. “We have younger people who have no culinary skill sets. Teaching those skills is a way of reconnecting with community, family, cooking meals and sharing time together.”
She sees meal-making as not just a way to learn new talents, but as a means of slowing down and coming together to talk and enjoy community. Given the state of the economy, many people have to be economical about how they spend their food budget, all the while trying to make healthy choices. “I’d love to start a community garden in Urbanna,” Hughes says. “There are kids today who have never had a parent or grandparent with a garden, and gardens are a great way of educating people old and young about good nutrition.”
Contributing to the community is a priority for Hughes in 2026 and she’s looking to up her efforts this year. “I want to be part of what Urbanna Main Street is doing because they’ve helped revitalize the community,” she says. “And they’ve been so incredibly supportive of us.”
Sera Petras Photography
Sera Petras Photography
It’s no surprise that Urbanna itself entered into the choice of the name: Montague Kitchen and Cookery School. When Hughes bought her home in Urbanna, there was a picture on the wall of Edward Montague, the Earl of Manchester. When she heard about the Low Tide building coming available and decided to start the school, she was staying at the Montague Hotel in London.
It turns out that some of Urbanna’s founders were from the Montague family. And, coincidentally, Hughes herself is distantly related to the Montagues, albeit the Lynchburg branch of the family. “I was driving down the road and I passed Montague Farms. The name just kept popping up, like it meant something,” she says with a laugh. “I decided it was a nice ode to the history of Urbanna and it stuck.”
So how did a woman trained in the 20th century at Bethesda’s L’Academie Cuisine—the school responsible for training many of the chefs who became part of Washington, D.C.’s celebrated restaurant scene—wind up in the 21st century taking a detour through the medical world only to arrive at opening a cooking school in a little waterfront village in the Middle Peninsula?
Part of it has to do with deferred dreams. Technically, Hughes was only going to work in sales for a year but fell in love with the science and her cooking dreams were placed on the back burner. A quarter of a century later, she made plans to retire in March of this year but was convinced to continue for one more year. “Maybe I’ll work another year or two,” she admits. “But I’m also very close to wanting to do this full time. It’s tough to love two careers when one is your true passion and one does such good for patients.”
At the moment, she’s looking at adding a walk-in unit to the four refrigerators she already has and planning an eclectic schedule of summer classes that will entice people to come learn some new skills before enjoying the delicious, seasonal food they have a hand in creating.
One thing she knows for sure is that once oncology sales are in the rear-view mirror, she’s planning to offer a schedule of 20 classes per month along with pop-ups and private and corporate events. But for right now, she says she’s having fun and really enjoying developing her vision of all the things she can accomplish with Montague Kitchen once it’s her one and only job.
“This is my passion and what I love doing,” says Hughes. “This was meant to be a retirement project. But it became a much bigger thing.”
Montague Kitchen and Cookery School | 260 Virginia Street, Urbanna | montaguekitchencookeryschool.com
