Triad City Bites October 2018

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

REINVENTING THE MILL OCTOBER 2018

Curated By:

Also featured in this month’s Issue: The Antibiotics of Chicken

Dinner Guest

Timing and the restaurant biz

Melt Kitchen & Bar $-$$ meltkitchenandbar.com 1941 New Garden Road # 116 GSO 336.763.5445

F

or a time after colSpring Garden Street. lege, in 1993, I At the time, Bert’s was the best restaurant worked at the Scotch job in Greensboro, and the new place showed & Sirloin near Roospromise: a highly curated menu of fusion cuievelt Field Mall on Long sine, with touches like fresh-baked bread, an Island. Mostly I poured extensive wine collection and foie gras made drinks for the lawyers, in house. Bespoke art filled the place, we had judges, probation officers, funky plates and unusual glassware, a comby Brian Clarey high-ranking cops and munity table, and if someone wanted salt you other legal-system types who populated the brought it to them in a little bowl. county courthouse down the road.

I got the most extensive staff training of my The place looked like it hadn’t changed since long bar and restaurant career at Mosaic, the 1970s: natural wood and plaster, with patibecame fluent in the dishes and also the phinaed farm implements on the walls and tucked losophy behind them, sold dozens of bottles of into alcoves and nooks. Waiters in black-andCaymus Conundrum and the blackberry foie whites served steaks — T-bones, NY strips, gras appetizer at $17 a pop. ribeyes, filet mignon and, naturally, sirloin, as But the place was huge, and located in a well as the best prime rib I’ve ever had, cooked neighborhood that, at the time, was called “way properly on all four sides in a rib oven designed out on West Market Street.” People who had for the purpose. Great salad come to know and love Bert’s bar, too. In a separate barroom were confused by the fancified we kept more than 20 kids of menu, and no one wanted to sit IN MY TIME scotch and a huge assortment at the community table.

WORKING WITH of brown liquors, like rye, that And Mosaic had the mishad fallen out of fashion. On fortune to open just a couple FOOD IN THE Mother’s Day I’d make Pink weeks after 9/11, when everyTRIAD, I’VE SEEN thing went to absolute hell for Ladies and Grasshoppers. I’d get lots of martinis, Manhattans a while.

PLENTY OF and one detective who drank a I’m convinced that Mosaic CONCEPTS THAT — or, at least, a restaurant like perfect Rob Roy. Shortly after I moved on, it — would survive today, when THE MARKET the owners took on some new we have more foodies than money, invested in a complete ever in the Triad and an army JUST WASN’T redesign of the interior and of qualified kitchen and frontchanged the concept from clas- READY FOR. of-house staff to feed them. sic cocktails, steaks and chops There would be no shadow of to seafood and neon.

Bert’s to cloud the vision. Even It did not last. The lawyers never came back. that old neighborhood way out on West Market And, ironically, a few years later steakhouses Street seems more accessible today. like the Scotch — Smith & Wollensky’s and In my time working with food in the Triad, Ruth’s Chris among them — experienced a I’ve seen plenty of concepts that the marhuge resurgence. ket just wasn’t ready for: Solaris was servTiming can be everything in the restaurant ing tapas when half of Greensboro thought business. Some concepts are ahead of their you were saying “topless.” Trilogy, another time. Others just can’t seem to hang on. place I worked, had craft beer, fine wine and My first restaurant job in Greensboro was at weird cheese well before there was a popular the Exchange, on Tate Street. New owners had demand for such a thing in the Triad. Now it’s recently taken over what I was told was one of Geeksboro Battle Pub. And before it became the busiest spots in town, but they never recov- Ham’s at the Lake, the White Oak restaurant ered from a change in the menu and a slight on East Cone Boulevard was a white elephant shift in concept at the wrong time. that attempted to achieve fine dining in a 200It’s a wing shop now. seat house.

Later, I took a job at Mosaic, the dream For that concept, the time has not yet come. restaurant of husband-and-wife team Drew and Mary Lacklen, who had seen great success with Bert’s Seafood Grill when it lived on

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Triad City Bites

Melt’s big space on New Garden Road pushes beyond the panini — and was listed as one of John Batchelor’s 10 favorite restaurants in Greensboro. A long list of burgers, sandwiches and wraps maintains the quality — including the award-winning BAT, a bacon-arugulatomato sandwich that relies on Rudd Farms tomatoes, local bacon and the peppery bite of arugula. A short slate of tacos keeps it simple with fish, steak, shrimp or avocado. All the salads are signature items, unique to Melt. They still carry the Sunrise salad — with portabella mushrooms, artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, bacon and a fried egg — that became a favorite among the regulars at the old location. They’ve still got the duck-confit flatbread and duck fries, the pulled-pork nachos and the almost-famous sprouts too. And, of course, everyone loves the panini.

FOOD+DRINK October 2018

Burger Batch $-$$

burgerbatch.com 2760 NC 68 HP 336.875.4082 237 W. Fifth St. WS 336.893.6395

Mozelle’s Fresh Southern Bistro $$ mozelles.com 878 W. Fourth St., WS, 336.703.5400 Sweet-toothed novelty seekers can’t look away from Burger Batch’s playful milkshake menu.

These aren’t the shakes of romantic Norman Rockwell paintings; the decadent concoctions tower over classic milkshake glasses like charming parodies of 21st Century intemperance with ingredients as far ranging as Nutter Butters, caramel corn, fudge, Froot Loops, Graham cracker and marshmallows. The It’s a Surprise shake is the belle of the ball: a cake-batter shake rimmed with rainbow sprinkles and topped off with cotton candy and a slice of birthday cake.

Customers looking for something slightly more traditional will find Banana Time, a banana pudding shake sporting Nila wafers and Captain Crunch, and the Black & White, a classic Oreo shake donning a crown of cookies. Looking for something sweeter than the brunch crew? Try the Breakfast Club, featuring just about every multicolored cereal on the market and a Rice Krispy treat. There’s something for everyone, even the peanut butter devotee in the group.

6th and Vine $-$$

6thandvine.com 209 W. Sixth St. WS, 336.725.5577 6th and Vine, nestled in the heart of Winston’s downtown Arts District, has always been more than a wine bar, known for its cozy, comfy atmosphere complete with vintage couches and walls adorned with local art. Its famous appetizers — puff-pastry baked brie, spicy crab and artichoke dip, or antipasti and cheese platter — have been on the eclectic menu for 13 years, joined by new additions like the sesame crusted tuna with sweet chili and green-tea wasabi or Korean meatballs with Asian slaw. You may be surprised that the menu also boasts entrées such as blackberry duck, mocha sirloin with a white chocolate cognac cream sauce and curried cauliflower rice bowl. The bar keeps a variety of beers, many from local breweries, and an extensive cocktail list including a cucumber gimlet, coconut-macaroon martini and the Dirty South, complete with pimiento cheese-stuffed olives. This wine bar has almost 40 wines by the glass including a NC blend from Jones von Drehle vineyard and many interesting varietals, such as Verdejo, Macabeo, Cabernet Franc, and of course, Malbec, Merlot and your typical favorites. For the holidays reserve a spot in our sofa lounge. Have your party in our living room, not yours!

October 2018

These days it seems like every restaurant has outdoor dining, but no one does it quite like Mozelle’s Fresh Southern Bistro.

Dining al fresco at Mozelle’s is a feast for the senses – pleasant tunes from the curated playlist, intoxicating aromas from the meals around you, the visual impact of coordinated umbrellas and blankets to combat an autumnal chill, and the reassuring taste of classic southern flavors paired with delicious wines. The restaurant does not take reservations for their tables that line Fourth Street’s sidewalk in the picturesque West End. The best way to score a sought-after seat outside is to plan ahead, get there early and bring friends.

1618 Downtown $$ 312 S. Elm St. GSO 1618downtown.com

1618 Downtown fills a narrow, New York-style dining room and expansive lounge on downtown Greensboro’s busiest thoroughfare: South Elm Street. The urban experience begins at Happenin’ Hour, from 3-5 p.m., with cocktails and small plates built to share. Dinner begins at 5:30 p.m. with a chef-influenced meat-and-three on the menu, as well as a composed entrée section. The Later Hour runs 10 p.m. until midnight with a special menu of bites and plates designed to sate the nocturnal appetite. 1618 Downtown offers city dining at its finest, for the people who know where to go.

Triad City Bites

3

THE PERFE

Kayne Fisher has got something brewing at Rev

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Triad City Bites

On a golden, autumn afternoon in Greensboro’s Mill District, Kayne Fisher posts up at the bar and takes meetings conveyer-belt style, one after the other: A liquor rep. A food purveyor. The GM. The butcher.

He’s preparing for something big.

Outside, the grounds of Revolution Mill glow from an October sunlight that touches on the vast lawn, the brick stacks, the patinaed water tower and the barest suggestion of Printworks Mill across Yanceyville Street peeking above the treeline. A Wisconsin company recently purchased that aging husk with plans to turn it into 217 apartments, along with some retail space.

The neighborhood is making a strong pivot towards something bigger, something more.

The same goes for Fisher.

Everybody knows the story of Natty Greene’s: how two frat brothers from UNCG — Kayne Fisher and Chris Lester — joined forces to open Old Town at the edge of campus in 1996. From there came the First Street Draught House in WinstonSalem, and then the Tap Room on Lawndale. And then they sold everything to start Natty Greene’s in 2004, the first brewpub in downtown Greensboro and, eventually, a brewery with regional distribution and a tasting room on Gate City Boulevard.

Their enormously successful partnership came to a close just a few months ago, a mutual parting of the ways not unlike an amicable divorce, when people realize that they simply want different things. Lester kept the downtown brewpub, the beermaking facilities and the Natty Greene’s brand.

Fisher had his eye set on something more: the big space at Revolution Mill and the grounds that surround it, a neighborhood on the rise and the realization of a lifelong dream.

“My passion has always been the food,” he says now at the bar. “I built the menus at Old Town and the First Street Draught House. And this…,” he gestures to the renovated space around him, “this is where I get to really unleash that passion through the food.

“It’s full circle,” he continues. “It’s like when we started Old Town. We’re a small business in a big old building.

He’s almost ready to make the announcement, one that brings together all the elements he’s built in the Mill District.

There’s the long bar, of course, stretching down the south side of the building, or the smaller bar up in the loft, or the more casual Deck, with outdoor seating in the shadow of the Revolution Mill stacks.

The Market,with everything you need for

October 2018

ECT CUT

Kitchen + Market $$-$$$

nattygreeneskitchenandmarket.com 2003 Yanceyville St. GSO 336.656.2410

volution Mill

the evening meal, serves a neighborhood that is coming to life once more.

“We’ve got a butcher back there cutting meat every day,” Fisher says, cutting Black Angus prime cattle into steaks and chops, along with chicken, pork, house-made sausages and whatever else came in that day.

That idea, Fisher says, goes back to his childhood and summers in Detroit spent with his Italian grandparents. He’d go to the market every morning with his grandfather, picking up bread from the baker, fruit from the farmer and whatever was fresh from the butcher.

Then he’d spend the afternoon in the kitchen with his grandmother, transforming those ingredients into the evening meal.

“Everything was all in the same neighborhood,” he remembers. “Everyone knew my grandfather’s name.”

In this massive space, this burgeoning neighborhood, Fisher is bringing it back home.

“Think about the time when these mills were rolling,” he says excitedly. “We’ve got this big, comfortable space, come as you are. We’re doing a meat and two, and cold charcuterie. I don’t see anything wrong with someone eating a plate of wings next to someone digging into a Black Angus prime ribeye.”

It’s familiar territory.

October 2018

Everything Fisher has ever done in this state has been new: a new bar at UNCG, a new draught house in what was once a drive-by strip in Winston-Salem, a brewpub that was at the heart of downtown Greensboro’s resurgence.

Before the brewpub at the corner of South Elm and McGee, downtown Greensboro was a blank slate, too.

“It’s all of it, man,” Fisher says. “It’s everything I’ve ever done; it’s everything I’ve ever dreamed about, everything I’ve ever worked towards. It all comes together here.”

Now his rounds of barroom meetings include web designers, graphic artists and marketing associates. The new logo is coming, along with a new brand that better represents what they’ve built at the Mill.

There will be a party, too, with hundreds of people out on the lawn, milling around the stacks and spilling through the grounds.

Soon.

For now there are more meetings, taken one at a time at the bar.

He likes it out here on his own, with just a single facility to manage and a longtime staff to help make it happen.

“I was ready for the next chapter,” he says. And it’s already being written in the Mill District.

Triad City Bites

5

The Quiet Pint $$

Jerusalem Market $$

Geeks who Drink Tuesday night Trivia ends for the season this month, to resume in March.

In its place come holiday festivities, starting with a costume contest for dogs on Oct. 27 and a for-real costume contest on Halloween night.

New wines and fall cocktails are coming soon, and the Oktoberfest and pumpkin beers are already pouring. Follow the beer menu in real tim with Untappd. Follow the Quiet Pint on Facebook and Instagram for updates and announcements.

Since 1989, the Triad’s favorite Middle Eastern Grocery built a loyal following near Adams Farm with its international market and sandwich counter in the back. Jerusalem Market specializes in imported groceries and ingredients, and the most unusual soft-drink cooler in town. It’s newest location, downtown on South Elm Street, carries a full board of specialty sandwiches using ingredients like Italian mortadella and salami, Turkish dried sausage and in-house butchered lamb and beef. Fresh-made baba ghanouj, tabouleh and “the best hummos in the world” every day, with organic produce and locally-sourced ingredients whenever possible.

Open for lunch and dinner. “You will be pleased.”

facebook.com/quietpinttavern 1420 W. First St. WS, 336.893.6881

jerusalemmarket.com 310 S. Elm St. GSO, 336.279.7025 5002 High Point Road GSO, 336.547.0220

Mary’s Gourmet Diner $$

Mission Pizza $-$$

Mary Haglund owns breakfast in Winston-Salem.

Her first venture, Mary’s of Course!

Which opened in 2000, was the original farm-tofork restaurant in the city. There she solidified her relationships with local purveyors and her commitment to real, local ingredients, as well as her biscuit recipe. Her egg dishes are legendary, her pancakes sublime. And the specials board always has something interesting. Open only for breakfast and lunch and the sweet spot in between, Mary’s Gourmet Diner is a WinstonSalem original.

Finally, a reason to stop eating commodity pizza.

Proper pizza Napoletana.

Classic Italian pastas. Fresh salads and wood-fired veg.

NC craft beer.

Italian wine.

Local food, handmade with integrity. That’s all there is to it.

marysgourmetdiner.net 723 Trade St. WS, 336.723.7239

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Triad City Bites

missionpizzanapoletana.com 707 Trade St. WS, 336.893.8217

October 2018

Flash in the Pan:

The antibiotics of chicken

M

aryn McKenna is a science writer and investigative journalist. Her award-winning book Big Chicken tells the story of how antibiotics came to be used as growth-enhancing drugs, making animals grow faster.

The practice began with chicken and spread to the pork and cattle industries. Big Chicken connects the dots between a thrilling and unexpected discovery by a young livestock scientist in 1948 to the current growing consensus, among consumers and poultry producers, that antibiotic use on

by Ari LeVaux farms has gotten way out of hand.

These dangers include antibiotic resistance in bacteria, like salmonella, that also infect humans. This fear boiled over into reality in 2013, with the appearance of several gruesome infections that were traced to antibiotic use in livestock.

Antibiotics also impact chicken welfare, because in addition to expediting growth they also prevent disease in conditions that otherwise would have killed them.

Dialing back antibiotics involves creating healthy living conditions for chickens, which is good for the birds and the people who eat them.

I recently spoke with McKenna about her book, and she was kind enough to offer a chicken recipe as well, because everybody wants to eat chicken. And we are going to eat chicken. And that is why this book is so important.

Q: Why is everyone so into chicken?

Chicken is the meat we eat more than any other in America, and is becoming the most-eaten meat on the planet. Compared to other meat, it’s relatively lowresource to produce. You don’t need the land or forage or water that you do for a cow. So chicken is becoming the dominant meat of the world, in both developing nations and the US. Nowadays nearly every fast-food chain has a chicken sandwich alongside its hamburgers. That kind of demand pressure drove the fast expansion of the poultry industry over decades, and in an interesting converse of that, it’s that same demand pressure that has driven some of the recent changes around antibiotics. Consumers have such power. They want to eat chicken, but an increasing number of consumers and institutional buyers have said to the chicken producers that, ‘We want meat that’s raised without antibiotic use,’ and there was such a potential market being expressed there that the companies have changed their practices.

Q: One of the many surprises in your book was to see an industrial chicken farm, Purdue, being such a leader in the industry’s pivot away from antibiotic use. Can you summarize that and also fill us in on what has happened since your book came out?

The book came out a year ago, but the narrative ended in the fall of 2016, which was the point at which I had to send the book off to the printers. So it’s partly described in the book, but things have moved on since.

As journalists, we are always meant to be suspicious of corporations, and to assume that they are acting in their own best interests at all times, because that’s what makes money and that’s what corporations are for, is to realize profit. I was in an odd position, as I wrote this book, realizing that in the last section Purdue was going to be one of the heroes in this story. Because they really did step out on their own and make this change that influenced the entire industry. I was not expecting a company to do that.

When Purdue started out on this project of going antibiotic free, in order to shore up their birds’ immune systems they started doing things like purifying their diets and giving them more space, and giving them light by paying farmers to cut windows into the walls of their barns, which is an unheard of thing in the American poultry industry.

Because of that they were led into conversation with animal advocates. And those discussions led them toward wanting to make a further change that they thought would improve meat quality: raising chickens that had been bred to grow more slowly [over] 56-60 instead of 42-47 days.

This means their bodies will be a little less stressed as they grow. Previously the birds’ musculature grew so fast that it was actually a strain on their bones and tendons. There are studies to suggest that conventional chickens are in pain from being distorted like that as they grow.

October 2018

Alas, I have to cut the interview off here to make room for the #RecipePivot.

Please email me if you want the full interview, which includes discussion on antibiotics under Trump, recent FDA guidance, and lessons for the livestock industry from hurricane Florence.

Here is McKenna’s recipe for the slow-grown, antibiotic-free lemon chicken for which Parisians in her old neighborhood would cue up, in a line that circled around the market. It’s a simple recipe; with good chicken that’s all you need.

Poulet Crapaudine Maryn McKenna (condensed and paraphrased by Ari LeVaux) Materials 1 antibiotic-free chicken, preferably slow-grown, 3-4 pounds (retain back bone and giblits) ½ lemon, in wedges 2 tablespoon each thyme and marjoram Fresh-ground pepper Kosher salt Olive oil Kitchen shears that can cut through bone Baking pan Cooking thermometer Potatoes and other roots (optional) Method Remove chicken from the fridge at least a half hour prior to cooking. Mix the herbs with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Let that sit while you prep the chicken.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Spatchcock the chicken, i.e., split it in half by cutting out the backbone. Using cooking scissors, cut the ribs on both sides of the backbone, from the shoulder blades to the “Pope’s Nose.”

Zest two lemon wedges over both sides of the chicken and then squeeze them over both sides of the prepped bird, using the cut faces to rub in the juice.

Spoon the herbed oil onto the bird. Rub it in with your hands, on both sides, carefully, taking care not to hurt yourself on the cut bones.

Sprinkle each side with a few pinches of salt. Add a few pinches more if you are cooking with roots.

Spread the spatchcocked chicken on a baking pan, atop the gizzards and backbone and surrounded by cut roots if using. Bake until the flesh reaches 165 degrees where the leg bone connects to the body, where it is most likely to be undercooked, about 1-2 inches in. It should take about 45-60 minutes to get there. Done properly, the skin “shatters like mica,” McKenna notes. Remove the pan from the oven and rest 5-10 minutes before serving.

Triad City Bites

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Burke Street Pizza $

Local 27101 $

A traditional New York pizzeria with all the trimmings, open for lunch, dinner and latenight feasts. The menu goes beyond thin-crust pizza with salads and subs, specialty pies and appetizers. Both the Burke Street an Robinhood Road locations deliver — order online at burkestreetpizza.com or call the restaurant. Look for upcoming renovations to the Robinhood Road location. Find them on Instagram at @BurkeStreetPizza, or stop by either place for the Halloween special.

Local 27101, located in the heart of downtown Winston-Salem, balances a casual ambiance with local classics re-imagined by Executive Chef Patrick Rafferty, and with the savvy of the management behind the Millennium Center. They feature fresh food made fast, and there’s fare for everyone: Burgers with seasoned crinkle cut and sweet potato fries. A legendary hot dog. Fresh shrimp and oysters for po-boys — grilled, fried or sautéed — and made-to-order salads that go beyond the basic house with Caesar and a Cobb. Local 27101 has local wine and beer, free delivery throughout downtown Winston-Salem and the West End. And they cater, as well — either on location, on site at Local 27101 or one of the many chambers of the Millennium Center. Closed Sundays.

Uncle Buzzy’s Fried Food $

Bites & Pints Gastropub $

Uncle Buzzy’s specializes in carnival food: burgers, hot dogs, ice-cream tacos and the sort of deep-fried experimentation for which the genre is becoming famous.

Owner Dave Hillman partnered with Chef Brian Duffy, best known as the kitchen guy from the television show “Bar Rescue,” to flesh out the carnival-food concept and add classic American street food. A new menu is in the works, but it’s sure to include classic favorites such as the Nashville chicken, smoked pork shoulder and the famous roast beef sandwiches. Uncle Buzzy’s is open now on First Street for takeout only, but you can order online at unclebuzzys.com, at the Facebook page or the ChowNow app.

Chef Kris Fuller, queen of the Crafted empire in Greensboro and WinstonSalem, joined with longtime Westerwood Tavern owner Mike Bosco to create Greensboro’s only true gastropub. Fuller’s menu takes bar food to the next level, with an eclectic slate of delectables suitable for sharing or grubbing down solo: boiled peanuts, shrimp tempura, chicken and waffles, melts, salads, a full component of burgers and hot dogs and even a kids’ menu. Bosco’s bar has all the necessary accoutrements. Open every day in the Lindley Park section of Spring Garden Street.

burkestreetpizza.com 1140 Burke St. WS, 336.721.0011 3352 Robinhood Road WS, 336.760.4888

Find them on Facebook.

1510 First St. WS

thelocal.ws 310 W. Fourth St. WS, 336.725.3900

bitesandpintsgastropub.com 2503 Spring Garden St. GSO, 336.617.5185

Don’t see your business? Call Brian at 336.681.0704 to get listed.