THE INDY ’S 2019
FOOD and
DRINK ALMANAC
The Triangle’s
ESSENTIAL GUIDE to EVERYTHING EDIBLE + RESTAURANTS OF THE YE 019 TRIANGLE FOO
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EAT. DRINK. BE MERRY. The world feels so precarious some days: Donald Trump, climate change, white nationalism, political instability, war, mass shootings, refugee crises, gaping inequality, you name it. It’s everywhere, every time we turn on the news or log into Facebook, this pervasive sense that our species is dangling its toes over a cliff as we stare out into the abyss. That’s a hell of a way to kick off a food magazine, isn’t it? Fear not. We’re not here to bum you out. Rather, The INDY’s 2019 Food & Drink Almanac is meant to offer a break from the chaos. More than that, it’s meant to be a celebration of a shared thread of humanity that stretches back eons, one that’s shaped the course of our existence and evolution. Sustenance and libation. Most of human prehistory was defined by the search for calories, through hunting or foraging, until we figured out, about ten thousand years ago, that if we domesticated our animals and crops, we’d have more sustainable supplies. From this came civilization. Millions of years before that, pre-human primates developed a taste for fermenting wild fruit—i.e., alcohol—that’s still hardwired into our DNA. There’s even a theory that it was the desire to make beer, not bread, that led our ancestors to domesticate grains. To be human is to eat and drink. The act itself is quotidian and necessary. It quells hunger pangs and releases endorphins. But for most of us, meals are about more than survival. They’re sensual. They’re communal and experiential. They’re about the people we’re with and the laughs we share and the ambiance of the
room. They’re about the subtle notes of oak in the wine and the way the filet melts on your tongue and the coffee’s deep chocolate aroma. They’re about the saltiness of the oyster and the boozy heat of the cocktail and that sauce that … well, you can’t put your finger on the flavor, but damned if it isn’t delicious. They’re about the memories we make, whether we’re dropping a paycheck on an anniversary dinner or a few bucks on lunch tacos, whether we’re having a beer with old friends or a Bordeaux with a new flame. That’s what we want to celebrate here: community, memories, experiences. And that’s why we created this inaugural Almanac— to help you navigate the Triangle’s diverse, bountiful food and drink landscape and make the most of your culinary adventures, so you can live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, as Thoreau put it (in a wildly different context). Our goal was to direct you to the best of everything: worldrenowned restaurants and holesin-the-wall, elegant speakeasies and overlooked dives, burger joints and food trucks. Some places will be familiar. Others won’t. That’s great. Go try something new. We think every restaurant and bar and brewery and retailer in here deserves your time and your business. Life is short. Indulge your gluttonous instincts (and blame your primate ancestors). Besides, if the world’s going to burn, I’d rather watch it happen with a full belly and a drink in my hand. Eat, drink, and be merry, y’all. Donald Trump has the nuclear codes.
Jeffrey C. Billman Editor, The INDY’s 2019 Food & Drink Almanac
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CONTENTS F E AT U R E S
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SOUTHERN EVOLUTION The best thing about Southern food is that it keeps changing By Kelly Alexander
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THE 10 BEST CHEFS IN THE TRIANGLE And five more you should keep on your radar By Layla Khoury-Hanold
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THE BESTS THE BEST OF LOCAL FOOD THE BEST OF LOCAL DRINK
Cover photo by LAUREN ALLEN. Venue provided by SAINT JAMES SEAFOOD.
FOOD TRIANGLES
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UN EXCELENTE AMIGO Crook’s Corner chef Bill Smith’s legacy will endure long after his retirement By Victoria Bouloubasis
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HIGH ON THE HOG Firsthand Foods is disrupting the way meat is eaten in the Triangle By Layla Khoury-Hanold
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MORE THAN A MEAL Carroll’s Kitchen doesn’t just want to feed Raleigh. It wants to change lives. By Katie Jane Fernelius
ABOUT THE ALMANAC OUR MISSION
The INDY’s 2019 Food & Drink Almanac is your comprehensive guide to the very best of the Triangle’s thriving culinary and beverage scenes. From restaurants to breweries, steakhouses to farmers markets, splurges to cheap eats, breakfast to latenight bites, cocktail bars to coffee shops, wine shops to dives—whatever you’re looking to eat or drink, you’ll find the crème de la crème in the pages that follow.
HOW TO USE THIS MAGAZINE
The Almanac is divided into three sections. In the first, you’ll find an essay by Kelly Alexander—a former editor at Saveur and Food & Wine magazines who now lectures at Duke University—on the evolution of Southern cuisine (page 6). Then, Almanac project manager Layla Khoury-Hanold
brunch, biscuits, bars, burgers, breakfast, highlights the ten hottest chefs in the Trias well as things that don’t begin with the angle, as well as five up-and-comers you letter b. should be watching (page 9). Skipping ahead to the third section, we’ll HOW WE DID IT present the INDY’s Food Triangles, the anThese recommendations don’t have bynual honors we bestow on those in the food lines. They’re the product of collective wisand drink industry making their communidom, both from the contributors included ty a better place. This year’s recipients: loon the masthead (page 4) and countless cal legend and retiring Crook’s Corner chef others who offered their advice, suggesBill Smith (page 91); Tina Prevatte Levy and Jeffrey C. Billman tions, and expertise. (For categories in Jennifer Curtis of Firsthand Foods (page which there was an analogue, we also in92); and the nonprofit Raleigh cafe Carroll’s cluded readers’ choices from the INDY’s Kitchen (page 94). Editor, The INDY’s 2019 Food & 2018 Best of the Triangle poll.) Final deThe second section, The Bests (beginDrink Almanac cisions lay with editor Jeffrey C. Billman, ning on page 22), comprises the bulk of The Twitter: @jeffreybillman project manager Layla Khoury-Hanold, Almanac. It’s an exhaustive compilation of and INDY arts and culture editor Brian lists, subdivided into two parts: The Best Howe. Tweet us @indyweek or email us at of Local Food, and The Best of Local Drink. food@indyweek.com to tell us what you Here we’ll tell you where to get the best of think we missed. —Jeffrey C. Billman pretty much everything edible: booze, beer, 2019
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PUBLISHER Susan Harper
EDITORIAL
EDITOR Jeffrey C. Billman ART DIRECTOR Shan Stumpf PROJECT MANAGER Layla Khoury-Hanold CONTRIBUTORS Kelly Alexander, Victoria Bouloubasis, Sarah Edwards, Katie Jane Fernelius, Curt Fields, Kaia Findlay, Veda Gilbert, Julia Henderson, Brian Howe, Lauren Kruchten, Sharon Kurtzman, Matt Lardie, Debbie Matthews, K McKay, Amy Sentementes, Elizabeth Syzpulski, Michael Ventuolo-Montavani PHOTOGRAPHY Lauren Allen, Alex Boerner, Bob Karp FILE PHOTOGRAPHY D.L. Anderson, Justin Cook, Jeremy M. Lange, Ben McKeown, Caitlin Penna
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DIRECTOR OF SALES John Hurld MARKETING EXECUTIVES Amanda Blanchard, Kathryn Cook, Kim Cordray, Sarah Schmader, Hanna Smith GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Steve Oliva, Christopher Williams
CIRCULATION
CIRULATION DIRECTOR Brenna Berry-Stewart DISTRIBUTION Laura Bass, JC Lacroix, Richard Lee, Marshall Lindsey, Gloria McNair, Terrance Phipps, Timm Shaw, Freddie Simmons, Trudi Vass, Hershel Wiley The INDY’s 2019 Food & Drink Almanac is a publication of INDY Week.
INDY WEEK
P.O Box 1772, Durham, NC 27702 DURHAM 320 East Chapel Hill Street, #200, Durham, NC 27701 | 919-286-1792 RALEIGH 227 Fayetteville Street, #105, Raleigh 27601 | 919-832-8774 WEBSITE indyweek.com FACEBOOK @independentweekly TWITTER/INSTAGRAM @indyweek Email the editor: jbillman@indyweek.com. For inquiries about the INDY’s food and drink coverage: food@indyweek.com. For advertising inquiries: advertising@indyweek.com. To learn how you can support local, independent journalism, visit indyweek.com/supporttheINDY. CONTENTS © 2019 INDY WEEK All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced without permission.
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ABOUT THE INDY The INDY’s 2019 Food & Drink Almanac is a publication of INDY Week, a
free weekly newspaper that has served the Triangle since 1983. Since you’re here, we wanted to tell you about ourselves. Née the Independent Weekly, the INDY was founded in 1983 by Steve Schewel, now the mayor of Durham. It is now owned by Richard Meeker, whose brother Charles was mayor of Raleigh from 2001–11. Since day one, our mission has been to use our journalism to effect change in our community, speak truth to power, and afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
Over the last thirty-six years, the INDY has earned a reputation for dogged investigative reporting, fearless political commentary, and unrivaled arts and cultural coverage that is reflected in the hundreds of state and national awards our writers, designers, photographers, and cartoonists have won. Every Wednesday, we distribute about twenty-five thousand copies of the newspaper at more than six hundred locations throughout the region. To find a location near you, visit indyweek.com/findapaper. Our print publication is read by an estimated ninety thousand people each week and two hundred thousand people per month. But you don’t have to wait until Wednesday to catch up on news, food, arts and entertainment coverage. Every day, our writers and
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editors update our recently redesigned website, indyweek.com, with breaking news and incisive commentary you won’t find anywhere else. On our homepage, you can sign up for our newsletters to get the latest local news, events, and food coverage delivered straight to your inbox. For links to stories, photos, and occasionally witty banter, follow us on social media: @indyweek on Twitter and Instagram and @independentweekly on Facebook. As a free publication, the INDY depends on its advertisers. If you value independent local journalism, please consider spending your money with those who support us (and tell them we sent you). If you’d like to learn how you can support our work directly, please visit indyweek.com/ supporttheINDY.
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SOUTHERN
By Kelly Alexander Photos by Alex Boerner
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EVOLUTION
The best thing about Southern food is that Southern food keeps changing
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FACING: CHOCOLATE CHIP SCONES, LA FARM
ave you ever been to La Farm on a Sunday morning? The Cary bakery’s brunch rush is a zoo, with folks queuing up in lines almost out the door to order their bacon and eggs. One recent morning, I couldn’t face the hustle, so I hit the takeout counter for a sausageasiago-herb scone. “Goddamn, this is delicious,” I exclaimed as I ate in my car. Then it hit me: This wasn’t some French concoction from the noted patisserie. It was a new and sophisticated version of a Southern breakfast staple—a good ol’ sausage biscuit.
Sausage biscuits are part of the Southern food canon, a long list of iconic dishes that includes pimento cheese, deviled eggs, blackeyed peas, collards, catfish, pulled pork, cornbread, mac ’n’ cheese, biscuits ’n’ gravy, shrimp ’n’ grits, fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, and fried okra—things we generally agree are “genuine.” But to understand the state of Southern food in the Triangle, we need to look at something else: evolution. The French have held sacred their five “mother sauces” since the mid-1800s, and their chefs are required to master them. But Southern cuisine is beloved beyond the Mason-Dixon not just because mason jars are cute and fried chicken is delicious, but because our way of cooking is flexible and inclusive. We’ve had no choice. While our temperate region’s soil, winds, and weather give us a long growing season, the South has also struggled with periods of crushing poverty. So we’ve learned how to be thrifty, to make our meat and our veggies last. We are picklers, preservers, user-uppers of leftovers, nose-to-tail butchers, farmers, and gardeners. Because of this “elegant sufficiency”—a term coined by Southern historian John Egerton—our cuisine is mutable in the best sense. But we also just like variety. You think your grandmother’s biscuits are the best, but I think my grandmother’s are better—though we recognize that the world is big enough for more than one version of a delicious Southern biscuit. (I can, in fact, name ten kinds of Southern biscuits off the top of my head: angel biscuits, beaten biscuits, buttermilk biscuits, catheads, cream biscuits, cream cheese
biscuits, drop biscuits, hardtack, raised biscuits, sweet potato biscuits.) Appalachian studies folklorists have found more than one hundred versions of cornbread in South Carolina alone. All of this shows that, while Southern food certainly has a playbook, chefs and home cooks interpret and express it in very different ways, and as they do, Southern cuisine keeps evolving. I’m here to celebrate the cooks in the Triangle who keep Southern food traditions alive by helping them evolve, by reinventing classics or blending them with cuisines from around the world or through sheer force of imagination. The following list pairs places and people creating particularly exciting expressions of what Southern food is—and what it can be.
The Classics
Crook’s Corner has been a mainstay not only locally but also of Southern cuisine in the nation since it opened thirty-six years ago; it has twice won the James Beard Foundation’s Award for America’s Classics, which recognizes regional restaurants that “carry the torch” between the past and the future. Original chef-owner Bill Neal elevated Southern dishes to their most stylish iterations on a menu that managed to be both homey and haute. His shrimp ’n’ grits showcases the elegance that a peasant dish can achieve; his rich and warming persimmon pudding is as luxurious as it is heartfelt. After Neal died in 1991, Bill Smith (see page 91) picked up the reins and imbued Neal’s graceful vision with his own whimsical humor. Smith’s honeysuckle sorbet is a lark in a glass, a thing of subtle-sweet beauty. His “Cheese Pork!” (listed on the menu with an exclamation point after it) is the best Southern take on schnitzel I’ve ever seen.
As new owners Gary Crunkleton and Shannon Healy, both of whom have long histories with the restaurant, prepare to take over with new head chef Justin Burdett, all eyes will be on them. While the shrimp ‘n’ grits will remain a forever staple, Burdett has already begun putting his stamp on the menu with dishes that push the boundaries of Southern cuisine. Take, for example, his funky “cassoulet,” which reimagines a French classic with Southern ingredients, including house-made duck sausage, sautéed mustard greens, and Anson Mills heirloom peas. All eyes have been on Andrea Reusing’s Southern-chic dining room The Durham since it opened in 2015. The best thing about dining there is that you can experience a new and sophisticated version of Southern entertaining—an upscale picnic, if you will. You’ll feel that vibe immediately when you see the relish tray, a modern version of old-school Southern hors d’oeuvres lined with pickled and preserved radishes, carrots, and cauliflower along with olives and hickory-smoked pecans, or the charcuterie board with little jars of hand-cut homemade potato chips and slices of local ham. These fancy shareable snacks make you feel like a cool kid while you sip your equally fancy cocktail—the “Undeniable Truth,” with Durham Distillery’s Conniption Gin, orange bitters, and dry vermouth, is killer—in a space with a soaring ceiling and elegant upholstery. If Mad Men had been filmed in the South, it would take place here. There are other re-imaginings of Southern food on the menu as well, including a pig tail lacquered with cider vinegar and honey, which combines what was once considered the lowliest part of the hog with a very sophisticated set of flavors to highlight just how high that tail can climb.
COLLARD GREENS, PIZZERIA MERCATO
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Because of this “elegant sufficiency,” our cuisine is mutable in the best sense.
The Italians
From the day it opened in 2016, Pizzeria Mercato had pedigree: Chef-owner Gabe Barker is the son of Ben and Karen Barker, whose now-defunct but much admired Magnolia Grill put Durham on the culinary map in the nineties. Barker doesn’t see his brick-oven Neapolitan-style pizzas as definitively Southern, but he makes a huge effort to live up to the “mercato” part of the name by showcasing produce from the nearby Carrboro Farmers Market. Sure, you can find a trusty pizza Margherita here, but you can also find salads of Sun Gold tomatoes and bowls of sweet potato soup garnished with a Southern essential: spicy pig jowl. And longtime Barker fans will be delighted to discover that Gabe carries a small torch of Magnolia Grill with the desserts his mother created: The ethereal lemon custard cake is made with a bit of cornmeal to give it a nice heft, and the changing gelato flavors always show off the South. (If you’re a boiled-peanuts person, the “peanut butter blondie” gelato, all sweet and mushy, will make you weep.) Durham’s Gocciolina, on the other hand, felt like it came out of nowhere when it opened among a rather dull strip of shops in 2014; the pedigree only showed in the food. Chef Aaron Benjamin’s deceptively simple-sounding dishes are all touched by northern Italian rusticity (the restaurant’s name means “droplet,” by the way). You can easily discern the South if you pair the grilled sea bass or the local Lady Edison pork chop (the preparation changes daily) with a few of the farmers market vegetable sides, such as whole roasted heads of broccoli, brussels sprouts, or sautéed greens with good olive oil, lemon juice, and chili flake. Imagine an Italian-style meat-and-three—one where you can get fresh pasta on the side instead of cornbread or grits—and you’ve got the idea of how Benjamin fits the South into his menu.
The Southeast Asians
Vimala’s Curryblossom Café quietly grows in Chapel Hill’s Courtyard. What opened in 2010 as a tiny fifteen-seat spot serving soulful versions of Vimala Rajendran’s native Bombay street food is today a community center of sorts, a place twice its original size but with even more heart, where local music performances, reading series, and social justice meetings thrive alongside the vegetable curries, addictive dosas, and wild mushroom or green chile-and-cheese uttapams (mercy, they’re good). Historian Marcie Cohen Ferris has described the ways in which food fueled “intentional communities” committed to countercultural causes in the South as early as the racial protests in Tuskegee, and at times you can feel that air of resistance brewing at Vimala’s. That said, her food is hardly just fuel. Her commitment to local sourcing and her connection to area farmers is all over 8
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the menu—you don’t have to look beyond the bhaji (an Indian-style fritter fried in chickpea flour) with okra and diced potatoes to see how even something as basic as Southern fried okra can take on a new personality. Raleigh’s Bhavana Brewery is as fashionable as Vimala’s is comfortable. The sister restaurant of popular Laotian hotspot Bida Manda bills itself as a place devoted to creating “encounters”—in other words, where fancy homebrews meet dim sum. There’s something distinctly Southern about the way the restaurant has a flower shop and a bookstore situated right in its center, which gives it the kind of intentionally thrown-together feeling Flannery O’Connor described when she wrote that Southerners are graced with seeing “the comical side of life.” It’s a feeling of lightness and whimsy, but it’s curated quite intentionally—the books of Rumi poems, the artfully arranged native wildflowers, all anchored by really good food. There are pan-fried turnip cakes that cushion dried shrimp and Chinese sausage in a way that combines the coastal South with Southeast Asia; steamed spareribs with boiled peanuts, two distinctly Southern favorites that get slathered in garlicky black bean sauce; and crispy pig ears—a Southern peasant snack if ever there was one—paired with that most Asian of all condiments, nước chấm, a Vietnamese fish sauce, for dipping. Those are some beautifully eclectic encounters.
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The Bakeries
La Farm pays homage to the finest boulangeries of France, but master baker Lionel Vatinet does it in a way that feels distinctly Southern. Look no further than his breadbasket, which overflows with offerings baked with local and heirloom grains like Abruzzi rye (originally a Roman variety that, for the last fifty years, has been one of the South’s most versatile crops) and Piedmont wheat flour. Your croque madame is stuffed with local Firsthand Foods city ham; there’s Carolina-grown rye in your black bean burger (the bun is, of course, homemade); and N.C.-ground wheat berries dot your kale salad. Also, La Farm offers an exceptional people-watching opportunity, a great way to take in the vast spectrum of diners—locals, transplants, and tourists—in the Triangle. If La Farm’s parking lot is lined with too many Lexuses, find a different cross-section of locals at Ali Rudel and Ben Filippo’s East Durham Bake Shop, where there is no parking lot at all but instead a hotdog stand, a pupusa truck, and a historic church across the street. EDBS’s list of local farmers, producers, and suppliers is way too long to list. Best known for its quirky pies—rosemary honey apple and sour cherry honeysuckle are two favorites—this lovable spot also offers the single best croissant this side of Paris: flaky-crispy, tenderly caramelized, and buttery throughand-through. C’est maginifique. It’s so good you don’t mind shelling out $3.50 for one. All of the pastries are made by hand, which means that butter is folded in not by a machine but by an actual person. Machine-made pastries can be delicious, but handmade ones are homier, a little less perfect, and require more of the kind of passed-down knowledge that Southern cooks are famous for sharing. If you like your madeleines (made with Raleigh’s Videri chocolate and Southwind Produce buckwheat), buttermilk scones, and breakfast burritos with a side of man-buns, you’ll find that EDBS offers a cozy a momand-pop experience that feels like it couldn’t exist anywhere but in Durham. n
SHRIMP ’N’ GRITS, CROOK’S CORNER
THE 10 BEST CHEFS IN THE TRIANGLE ASHLEY CHRISTENSEN
SEAN FOWLER
B Y L AY L A K H O U R Y- H A N O L D
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very region has chefs who stand above the rest, culinary geniuses and innovators who astonish the taste buds and have turned cooking into art. The Triangle is no different. Our gastronomic elites are distinguishing themselves by embracing our unique sense of place—Southern, local, cosmopolitan—and filtering it through their own philosophies, backgrounds, and experiences into beautifully composed dishes. These ten chefs—James Beard Award winners, empire builders, repeat Best Of nominees—have not only mastered their craft, but they’ve also fostered a community beyond their restaurants. They give their time to local organizations, tackle industry-wide issues such as sustainability and substance abuse, and shape the evolving narrative of Southern food— which is no small reason we have such a dynamic and exciting food scene. As both diners and citizens, we’re all the better for it.
ANDREA REUSING
RICKY MOORE
CHEETIE KUMAR
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F I V E C H E F S T O WAT CH Kevin Callaghan [Acme Food & Beverage Co.]
Since opening Acme in 1998, Kevin Callaghan has been churning out “damn good food” with honest yet creative Southern dishes inspired by ingredients from local farms and artisans. Callaghan’s plates also reflect the Southern foodways he grew up with in his native Charlotte: pecan-crusted fried chicken paired with butter beans, cornbread made with Lindley Mills cornmeal, and spring risotto with sweet peas and Chapel Hill Creamery cheese. Callaghan’s annual Salt & Smoke Festival is one of the area’s most sought after fall events; partygoers feast on whole hog barbecue using pasture-raised, local hogs sourced through Firsthand Foods and oysters from Virginia’s Shooting Point Oyster. All proceeds from Acme’s Chocolate & Charity dessert, a box of three chocolate truffles, benefits the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation, a nonprofit that supports teens with cancer at UNC Hospital.
Ashley Christensen [Poole’s Diner, Death & Taxes, other AC Restaurants]
All-around badass Ashley Christensen, who won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Southeast in 2014 and is a semifinalist for Outstanding Chef in 2019, is locally revered as the impresario of some of Raleigh’s most popular eateries. It all started with Poole’s Diner, where you’ll find reimagined takes on classic diner comfort classics, such as the legendary macaroni au gratin. Her fine-dining spot Death & Taxes is her ode to the technique of woodfired cooking, from ember-cooked vegetables to grilled steaks. Beasley’s Chicken + Honey is a casual spot for fried chicken biscuits and mason jar cocktails, Chuck’s is her burgerand-shake joint, and Fox Liquor Bar, below Beasley’s, is a subterranean craft cocktail den. Soon, she’ll get into the pizza game with Pooleside Pies. The “Don’t Forget Kindness” tagline printed on all her restaurant windows serves as a keen reminder of the inclusive culture she’s fostered for her staff and diners alike.
journey, also founded the Raleigh chapter of Ben’s Friends, an organization that helps hospitality workers battling substance abuse.
and joined the state PTA’s Reimagining School Meals initiative to increase awareness of and funding for school meals.
Oscar Diaz
Cheetie Kumar
[The Cortez Seafood + Cocktail, Jose & Sons]
Whether it’s stuffing tamales with braised collard greens at Jose & Sons or riffing on ceviche prepared with N.C.-caught fish at The Cortez, chef Oscar Diaz has a knack for blending his Mexican heritage and multicultural Chicago upbringing with local ingredients. The Mexican- Southern mashup almost defies definition—what do you call barbacoa braised in local Crank Arm Brewing beer?— but his singular style landed him in a 2018 feature in Time magazine’s special “American South” issue and a James Beard Award semifinalist nod in 2019.
Sean Fowler [Mandolin]
Located in Raleigh’s Hayes-Barton neighborhood, Southern farm-to-table restaurant Mandolin is a literal outlier from the DTR restaurant scene, but its hidden-gem status reflects the understated qualities of chef-owner Sean Fowler, too. Take his signature chicken and waffles, a deceptively simple dish of buttermilk fried chicken, braised collards, and buckwheat waffles topped with a bacon mushroom emulsion and a truffle honey drizzle, which belies his fine-dining technique (he honed his craft at New York City’s Le Bernardin) and penchant for local ingredients, many of which he grows on his own farm. Local, sustainable ingredients—and access to them—is one of Fowler’s biggest causes: he serves on the board of Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, whose programs connect families to nutritious food, KEVIN CALLAGHAN
Scott Crawford [Crawford and Son]
Scott Crawford, a five-time James Beard Award semifinalist, is the chef-owner of Crawford and Son, a sleek American restaurant in Raleigh’s Person Street neighborhood that exudes equal parts cool and comfort. That’s true of the menu too, where Crawford imbues his impeccable technique into beautifully plated dishes that wow while maintaining approachability, as in the chicken confit paired with white beans and rosemary jus. Crawford will soon expand his restaurant footprint next door with Jolie, a French bistro, and to Cary, with steakhouse Crawford Brothers. Crawford, who’s been vocal about his own sobriety 10
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[Garland]
The three-time James Beard Award semifinalist has earned acclaim for Garland, her downtown Raleigh restaurant where she combines Southern ingredients with Asian influences and her Indian heritage. Think pakora, fritters of julienned farmers market vegetables with chutneys, corn cakes with field peas, and panseared N.C. catch in an aromatic broth swimming with local vegetables. The food is deeply flavorful, vibrant, and a pleasure to eat, but it also stirs conversation about what these kinds of cross-cultural influences bring to Southern food. Take, for instance, giant shell-on shrimp, coated in green coconut chutney and served with thinly sliced okra and charred onions; it’s prepared in the style of Indian coastal-style black pepper shrimp but calls to mind peeland-eat shrimp, with vegetables you’d find on a meat-and-three plate. Kumar has brought her talents and voice to the Brown in the South Supper Series, a collaborative dinner series featuring chefs of Indian descent who call the South home, benefiting the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Mike Lee
[M Sushi, M Kokko, M Tempura]
Mike Lee has built an empire of popular downtown Durham eateries rooted in Korean and Japanese cuisines, including M Sushi, where Lee and his team precisely cut every piece of super-fresh fish according to its individual texture; M Kokko, which specializes in Korean fried chicken; and M Tempura, which is dedicated to the Japanese art of
THE PIZZA KING Teddy Diggs [Coronato]
MIKE LEE
executive chef of The Durham Hotel’s restaurant. Since opening Lantern in 2002, she’s championed local farms and sustainability, an ethos she upholds at The Durham, too. But instead of preaching, Reusing delivers her message by punching up dishes with a wallop of flavor, careful technique, and a heady dose of understated creativity—say, sweet potato soup with apple and miso or charbroiled oysters with chili oil and vermouth. She’s also an activist for many food-industry issues, serving on the board for the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, which develops and promotes just, equitable farming systems, and as chair of the James Beard Foundation’s Impact Programs Advisory Committee, helping to advise on topics such as food waste reduction, sustainable meats, and childhood nutrition.
Angela Salamanca [Centro]
lightly battered and fried food. The presentation is so seamless, the flavors and textures so pronounced, that it’s almost impossible to fathom the attention to detail Lee puts into each piece of sushi, every chicken wing, every lightly fried scallop. Lee’s prolific contributions have made an indelible mark on Durham’s restaurant scene; next, he plans to open a nonprofit restaurant in downtown Durham—a fast-casual, healthy Asian-style bento-box concept—whose proceeds will benefit local organizations.
Ricky Moore
[Saltbox Seafood Joint]
Durham chef Ricky Moore’s Saltbox is no stranger to best-of lists—most recently, Taste of the South’s annual Taste 50 list as a must-visit place. Moore, a North Carolina native, honed his culinary chops in fine-dining kitchens around the world, but he’s really making a name for himself with his take on a coastal Carolina fish shack, where he’s shining the spotlight on sustainable, N.C.-caught seafood. It’s why you’ll see lesser-known native species such as amberjack and sheepshead on the daily menu, and whole, bone-in grilled fish like mullet and bluefish, too. His local seafood knowledge runs deep. Even sides get the chef-y touch, including hush honeys, a cornmeal-fritter-meets-zeppole creation drizzled in spiced honey that’s so good, Moore trademarked them.
Since 2007, Angela Salamanca, the Columbian chef-owner of Centro, has celebrated her love for and interpretation of Mexican cuisine. She founded Centro with her uncle, and the restaurant, as well as Salamanca’s approach to cooking and hospitality, remains a true labor of love. One of the dishes that most embodies her style is the mole poblano, a beautiful, complex chili-chocolate sauce in which each of the twenty-plus ingredients must be treated with special care—peppers roasted, seeds and spices toasted, components blended, strained, cooked, and seasoned. Her labor of love extends to the Latin American community, too, by providing a stable, safe space for her staff of largely Mexican immigrant women to work, and hosting the annual Dia de los Muertos 5K to benefit the Brentwood Boys and Girls Club’s after-school programs, which serve a largely Latino population. Next, she’s opening ExVoto Cocina Nixtamal in the Durham Food Hall, where she’ll transform heirloom corn into masa and tortillas for tacos and tamales. n
THE SEAFOOD MAESTRO Eric Montagne [Locals Oyster Bar]
Eric Montagne has long had an affinity for seafood, and while working at the now-shuttered Standard Foods, he demonstrated his ethos for using all parts of an animal, marine or otherwise. His passion, technique, and whole-animal philosophy unite at Locals Oyster Bar (located in Raleigh’s Transfer Co. Food Hall), where he serves N.C. seafood—think ceviche, grouper collar confit, and tuna prosciutto—sourced by namesake purveyor Locals Seafood.
THE PASTRY WHIZ Krystle Swenson [Crawford and Son]
On Crawford and Son’s menu, desserts are listed under “Save Room,” but pastry chef Krystle Swenson’s desserts plead for changing that title to “Start with Dessert.” Her technique is precise, the plating is beautiful, and desserts are often imbued with a dose of whimsy. Take the posset, an English-style custard garnished with citrus segments and tarragon tapioca pearls, or the coconut layer cake with paw paw sherbert.
THE BREAD NERD Andrew Ullom [Union Special]
After working as Ashley Christensen’s executive pastry chef for seven years, baker and chef Andrew Ullom, along with his wife, Jess, will soon open Union Special, a bakery-cafe in Raleigh’s Gateway Shopping Center. Ullom experiments with fermentation and local ingredients for his freshly baked goods, such as buttermilk croissants, Geechie Boy Mill blue cornmeal cookies, and sprouted grain loaves.
THE CREATIVE GENIUS Jake Wood [Plates Neighborhood Kitchen]
At Plates Neighborhood Kitchen, Jake Wood has free reign to let his creativity fly with a menu of clever small plates inspired by his Southern roots and local ingredients. To wit, redneck caviar service pairs Marshallberg ossetra caviar served with crispy chicken skins and sorghum crème fraîche, while Granny Helen’s fried chicken does a two-step with brown butter hominy and creamed collards.
Andrea Reusing [Lantern, The Durham]
Andrea Reusing is a James Beard Award-winning chef (Best Chef Southeast in 2011), owner of Chapel Hill institution Lantern, and
Teddy Diggs honed his chops at upscale Italian restaurant Il Palio in Chapel Hill. Now he’s getting his own digs in Carrboro for his first solo venture, Coronato, which will specialize in cracker-thin Roman-style pizzas, fashioned in classic combinations or topped with seasonal local produce, alongside his signature pillowy focaccia, seasonal antipasti, and creative small plates such as fava bean falafel with spiced tahini yogurt.
ANGELA SALAMANCA
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THE BEST IN LOCAL FOOD
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THE BEST Restaurants in Durham....................................14 Restaurants in Orange/Chatham....................17
Restaurants in Wake........................................ 20
Bakeries.............................................................. 22
Barbecue............................................................. 24 Breakfast............................................................ 26 Brunch................................................................ 28 Burgers............................................................... 30 Cheap Eats......................................................... 32 Desserts............................................................. 34 Dumplings.......................................................... 36 Food Trucks....................................................... 38 Fried Chicken.................................................... 40 Ice Cream/Frozen Treats................................. 42
Late-Night Eats................................................. 44 Noodles.............................................................. 46 Pasta................................................................... 47 Pizza................................................................... 48 Sandwiches........................................................ 50 Seafood/Sushi.................................................... 52
Small Plates/Tapas............................................ 54 Steak................................................................... 56 Tacos................................................................... 58 Vegan/Vegetarian.............................................. 60 Wings.................................................................. 62
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- RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR -
GOCCIOLINA
Food writers have been gushing over Gocciolina since the day it opened in 2015, and deservedly so. What’s not to love? A small spot—get reservations—nestled in an unglamorous shopping strip, this Italian small-plates restaurant showcases chef-owner Aaron Benjamin’s house-made pastas, but the antipasti shouldn’t be missed. Order the spicy chickpeas or the crispy eggplant, then split some entrées between your table: something from whatever’s on the ever-changing blackboard, definitely; the Carbonara is a signature dish, so get that, too; and the gnocchi is always outrageous. Add a side of sautéed brussels sprouts and a bottle of wine. And whatever you do, don’t leave without ordering the gelato.
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Best in Durham County
3314 Guess Road, Durham gocciolina.com
- BEST NEW RESTAURANT -
HUTCHINS GARAGE 402 West Geer Street, Durham
In summer 2018, with a Pizzeria Toro
alum as chef, the owners of downtown Durham mainstay Bull McCabe’s filled a much-needed niche in the Rigsbee/ Geer scene: late-night pizza. Featuring New York-style pies, a quality beer list, and craft cocktails, all in the remnants of the automotive supply store from which it gets its name, Hutchins is also great for pre-Motorco dinner, a Sunday-afternoon indulgence, or an evening out with the fam.
Best in Durham. County 2019
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ROSE’S NOODLES, DUMPLINGS & SWEETS
121 North Gregson Street, Durham rosesdurham.com At Katie and Justin Meddis’s airy-yet-intimate eatery, dig in to bowls of noodles, particularly those featuring Justin’s long-simmered broths, steamed dumplings, and seasonal salads, but be sure to save room for Katie’s desserts, particularly the seasonal ice cream sandwiches, mochi cakes, and macarons (try the crème brûlée).
SAINT JAMES SEAFOOD
10 OTHER PLACES YOU HAVE TO GO DASHI
M SUSHI
415 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham dashiramen.com Dashi is all about the ramen, categorizing each option by the nature of the broth— pork, sea salt, soy, miso, kimchi—rather than the protein or vegetables it contains. That’s downstairs. Upstairs, the small plates in the izakaya, or Japanese speakeasy, might be even better, including townie favorites like black nori popcorn, grilled edamame rubbed with irresistible spices, and tender buns with lamb or spicy tofu. The bar offers copious shochu, sake, and Japanese spirits by the flight.
311 Holland Street, Durham msushidurham.com Each meticulously crafted piece of sushi from chef Michael Lee’s M Sushi is designed to showcase each fish’s textures and flavors, from Japanese snapper and scallops to local tuna and flounder. Don’t miss Lee’s nextdoor spot, M Kokko, for Korean fried chicken and ramen, or M Tempura a block away, for omakase tempura dinners and donkatsu-style lunch sets.
MATEO BAR DE TAPAS
THE DURHAM
315 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham thedurham.com/dining As with her menu at Lantern in Chapel Hill, James Beard Award-winning chef Andrea Reusing focuses on North Carolina ingredients for The Durham Hotel’s namesake restaurant. The menu changes frequently, but signatures include dry-aged burgers and steaks, roasted oysters, and seasonal vegetables. Head to the hotel’s rooftop bar for a cocktail, a round of bar snacks, and sunset views.
GOORSHA
910 West Main Street, Durham goorshadurham.com Goorsha serves a variety of Ethiopian fare atop injera, a traditional flatbread used to scoop up flavorful salads, curried vegetables, and lentils. It’s a favorite spot for vegans, but carnivores will find plenty to love among the tibs (or meat strips) and appetizers such as kitfo, a minced beef tartar. 16
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109 West Chapel Hill Street, Durham mateotapas.com Matt Kelly’s Spanish tapas spot is always in the conversation for Durham’s best restaurant. Its small plates garner rave reviews (the patatas bravas!), its sangria is made with Cheerwine (!), and the ever-changing entrée blackboard always has something interesting. But the real reason to go: the pan con tomate—bread, tomato paste, and, if you’re feeling frisky, manchego.
PIZZERIA TORO
105 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham pizzeriatoro.com At Pizzeria Toro, chef Gray Brooks uses a mix of soft and high-gluten flours for his rounds and bakes them in a wood-fired oven to create pies with a crisp, charred crust that lands somewhere between Neapolitan and New York-style. You can’t go wrong with classic combos, but don’t miss the one with chanterelle mushrooms and garlic and the seasonal Meyer lemon pie. Round out your order with the kale salad (no, seriously) and suppli al telefono (fried, cheesy rice balls).
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806 West Main Street, Durham saintjamesseafood.com The main draw at Saint James is a raw bar with all manner of oysters, from fat and briny to mild and sweet. But if you want to go all in, there are seafood towers overflowing with lobster and crab, beautifully plated entrées, and—oddly enough for a seafood restaurant—some of the best brussels sprouts and french fries around. And the cornmeal hushpuppies with honey butter and country ham? Unreal. It won’t be cheap, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better dinner in the Triangle.
SALTBOX SEAFOOD JOINT
608 North Mangum Street, 2637 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, Durham, saltboxseafoodjoint.com Saltbox serves as both chef Ricky Moore’s take on a modern fish camp and a love letter to North Carolina seafood, where he fries (or grills) whatever catch is fresh that day—say, a basket of fried shrimp or bonein croaker. Don’t miss the hush honeys, a honey-glazed hush puppy-zeppole hybrid. Bonus: The second location, which opened in 2018, has indoor seating.
VIN ROUGE
2010 Hillsborough Road, Durham vinrougerestaurant.com This is a restaurant dedicated to opulence, and the menu is an extension of that philosophy: sauteed calves liver, oysters served with Gruyère cheese, crème brûlée. Come here for a special occasion. Wear loose pants.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best New Restaurant in Durham County: Saint James Seafood. Finalists: Goorsha, Jack Tar and the Colonel’s Daughter, Namu.
- RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR -
LANTERN
423 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill lanternrestaurant.com
Best in ORANGE & chatham Counties
If there’s one restaurant Chapel Hill is known for, it’s chef Andrea Reusing’s Lantern. The James Beard Award winner’s haunt has garnered acclaim for its seamless marriage of classic Asian flavor with local North Carolina ingredients. Ask about the flash-fried cilantro—or the crispy local okra with hot tomato chutney, or the tea-smoked, pasture-raised chicken, or anything else on the menu, really. Reusing, who grew up in New Jersey and began working in New York City kitchens while in film school, opened Lantern in January 2002, and it’s been a Chapel Hill fixture ever since. Don’t miss out on the beautiful back garden, which is ideal for sipping one of Lantern’s inventive and expertly crafted seasonal cocktails.
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10 OTHER PLACES YOU HAVE TO GO ACME FOOD & BEVERAGE
110 East Main Street, Carrboro acmecarrboro.com At Acme, a twenty-year-old Carrboro institution, Southern staples don’t get fused and abused, but they sure do clean up nicely. Chef-owner Kevin Callaghan chases seasonal ingredients and nostalgic flavors through brunches and dinners laden with cast-iron skillet cornbread, pecan-crusted fried chicken, and overnight-smoked pork. Craft beers and shrubby signature cocktails hold down the right side of the ampersand.
CROOK’S CORNER
610 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill crookscorner.com Often credited with putting Southern cooking on the gastronomic map, Crook’s Corner blends homestyle with haute. To say the shrimp ’n’ grits are world-famous would be an understatement. Longtime chef Bill Smith just stepped away from the kitchen (see page 91), but Crook’s remains in good hands.
THE FEARRINGTON HOUSE RESTAURANT
2000 Fearrington Village Center, Pittsboro fearrington.com A pinnacle of fine dining, The Fearrington serves sharply focused, often-changing menus that rely on seasonal ingredients, draw on Southern traditions, and incorporate chef Colin Bedford’s European training. It won’t be cheap—especially if you pair your courses with Fearrington’s exceptional wines—but your meal, served in intimate dining rooms in a former farm homestead in the country, will be an experience to remember.
MAMA DIP’S KITCHEN
408 West Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill mamadips.com Since 1976, Mama Dip’s has honed the “dump cooking” method—that is, cooking to taste, rather than from a recipe—for everyone from locals to students to sitting presidents. Proprietor Mildred Council recently passed away, but the Rosemary Street establishment keeps her spirit alive.
OAKLEAF
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best New Restaurant in Orange and Chatham Counties: Mystery Brewing (closed). Finalists: Postal Fish Company, Village Diner, The Pickle Jar Cafe.
310 East Main Street, Carrboro oakleafnc.com This casual but sophisticated farm-to-table restaurant moved from bucolic Pittsboro to Carrboro in 2018, inching toward urbanity. It’s pure foodie bait. A mercurial seasonal menu swirls with rich fare like caramelized duck and ricotta gnocchi.
RUMI PERSIAN CAFÉ
PANCIUTTO
TANDEM
PIZZERIA MERCATO
VIMALA’S CURRYBLOSSOM CAFÉ
110 South Churton Street, Hillsborough panciuto.com Chef Aaron Vandemark enjoys no shortage of accolades. At Pancuito, the perennial James Beard Award semifinalist explores Italian cuisine with Southern ingredients from local farmers. The menu changes with the seasons and Vandermark’s whims, but be sure to try the homemade pastas and ragùs. 408 West Weaver Street, Carrboro pizzeriamercatonc.com Mercato has pies, sure—creative, expertly charred Neapolitan-style creations topped with ingredients sourced from the farmers market across the street. But the term pizzeria isn’t quite right. It’s more than that. Chef Gabe Barker puts the same locavore spin on pastas and salads, too, in a lively postindustrial room that’s noisy but not overwhelming.
306 West Franklin Street, Suite G, Chapel Hill, rumipersiancafe.com Rumi serves up Persian cuisine with personality by the heaping paper plateful. Grab a quick lunch to go Wednesdays through Sundays, or slide into a counter seat and take your time sampling the flavorful dishes on display. 200 North Greensboro Street, #1A, Carrboro, tandemcarrboro.com This relative newcomer has already earned local acclaim for its elegant surf-and-turf entrées. Upscale but not snobbish, the restaurant’s globalist menu is full of surprises, from a bone marrow appetizer to mushroom risotto, Moroccan lamb shank to open-faced ravioli.
431 West Franklin Street, #415, Chapel Hill curryblossom.com Vimala Rajendran’s farm-to-table family restaurant is the best place around to have a home-cooked meal when you don’t have time to cook at home. More focused on community than commercial glitz, it serves filling, fresh dosa and uttapam (our faves), snacks like samosas and chaat, and classic Indian entrées that won’t break the bank.
- BEST NEW RESTAURANT -
LULA’S
The newest venture of chef William D’Auvray simultaneously honors his grandmother’s heirloom recipes and livens up a pizza-laden college town with a menu of Southern-focused “simple food, made the hard way.” The crispy shallow-fried chicken shines between a buttered biscuit or atop brunch-ready waffles, especially when paired with the spun sage honey.
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LANTERN AND LULA’S PHOTOS BY BOB KARP
101 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, lulaschapelhill.com
- RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR -
CRAWFORD AND SON 618 North Person Street, Raleigh crawfordandsonrestaurant.com
Best in WAKE County
Chef Scott Crawford has built his career on innovative dishes imbued with equal parts technique, flavor, and presentation. At his namesake restaurant, his deft touch with vegetables is on display in the menu’s “raw” section—a winter salad of cured yellow beets with a creamy horseradish sauce has been known to convert the beet-averse, and a fall salad with shaved apples and turnips delivers the kind of can’t-put-the-fork-down reaction you’d typically associate with anything other than turnips. You’ll also find an expertly executed beef tartare, often plated with an oversize pork rind. The restaurant’s buzzy vibe and spare yet warm décor—a polished quartz bar, exposed brick walls, and honey-hued wooden chairs—makes it feel both like a dining destination and a neighborhood gem. No matter the occasion, the service is always seamless, attentive, and warm. Bookend your meal with pastry chef Krystle Swenson’s warm malted wheat rolls with hickory butter and one of her clever, beautifully plated desserts, particularly those showcasing seasonal fruit or anything that riffs on ice cream sundaes.
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Best in Wake County
- BEST NEW RESTAURANT -
PAPA SHOGUN
111 Seaboard Avenue, #118, Raleigh papashogun.com For his first solo venture, chef Tom Cuomo explores the intersection of Italian and Japanese cuisines with a menu of whimsical small plates, such as beets Siciliana with shiso salsa or yaki onigiri, fried rice patties oozing mozzarella and roasted red peppers. Fresh-pulled mozzarella with kombu garlic bread and udon vongole are excellent choices for sharing, but you’ll want to slurp every drop of the smoked tonkotsu broth in the standout carbonara ramen yourself.
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10 OTHER PLACES YOU HAVE TO GO BIDA MANDA LAOTIAN RESTAURANT AND BAR
222 South Blount Street, Raleigh bindamanda.com Siblings Vanvisa and Vansana Nolintha opened Bida Manda, one of the few Laotian restaurants in the U.S., in 2012 as an ode to their parents’ cooking. (The name derives from a Sanskrit term for “father and mother.”) Rich with Thai and Vietnamese influences, and drawing on Laos’s French colonial history, Bida Manda features standouts like the crispy pork belly soup and pho Lao.
BREWERY BHAVANA
South Blount Street, Raleigh brewerybhavana.com Right next door to Bida Manda sits the Nolinthas’ other DTR hotspot, a gorgeous flower shop/bookstore/brewery/dim sum restaurant the siblings opened with brewer Patrick Woodson in 2017 that quickly became one of the most acclaimed eateries in the Southeast. Take a tour of smaller offerings like crab rangoon, Shanghai-style mooncakes, and pork bao, or gorge on the crab-fried rice, Peking duck, or steamed whole fish. The brewery part of the name doesn’t slouch, either; try the Sprout, a dubbel with fig.
PAPA SHOGUN AND DEATH & TAXES PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER | SCOTT CRAWFORD PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA
THE CORTEZ SEAFOOD + COCKTAIL
413 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh cortezraleigh.com At this Glenwood South gem from the Jose and Sons team, you’ll find North Carolina oysters on the half-shell paired with rose mignonette, beautiful ceviche, garlicky shellon shrimp, and loads more sea-inspired fare.
Wash it down with one of the creative cocktails and soak up the tropical-inspired vibes.
DEATH & TAXES
105 West Hargett Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/death-taxes Ashley Christensen’s fine-dining restaurant focuses on technique-driven food prepared using a wood-fired oven. The Southern-leaning menu showcases roasted oysters with chili butter, field peas with embered cream, and grilled dry-aged steaks and pork chops.
THE FICTION KITCHEN
428 South Dawson Street, Raleigh thefictionkitchen.com Lots of locals grew up on meaty Southern staples before turning vegetarian later in life. For those who but can’t help miss the food of their youth, Fiction is both a blast from the past and a contemporary culinary adventure. Revisit Southern classics guilt-free with the delectable mock-chicken and waffle or the Eastern N..C.-style pulled “pork.” Or eschew faux-meats entirely and feast on pure veggie dishes with an Asian cast, including noodle bowls and curries.
GARLAND
14 West Martin Street, Raleigh garlandraleigh.com Owned and run by local musicians (including James Beard Award-nominated chef Cheetie Kumar), Garland is the best of two worlds—casual, creative vibe meets stylish fine-dining experience. The space is full of needlessly delightful touches (we love the use of pennies as bathroom-floor tile), and the same goes for the menu, which fuses
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best New Restaurant in Wake County: Brewery Bhavana. Finalists: The Cortez Seafood + Cocktail, St. Roch Fine Oysters, Pizzeria Faulisi. Indian and Asian cuisine with a twist of the American South. One standout app is the chaat ($8), with potatoes, cucumbers, jicama, tamarind-mint chutney, and more. Entrées, which hover around $20, include lamb or vegetable curries and rice bowls with pork or tofu, though we usually fill up on the sharing plates.
MANDOLIN
2519 Fairview Road, Raleigh mandolinraleigh.com Chef Sean Fowler offers a menu of approachable yet elevated Southern fare, such as fried chicken and waffles topped with bacon-mushroom foam, seasonal dishes starring produce from Fowler’s farm, or the offmenu wood-fired ribeye. Mandolin also has one of the best bar-dining deals in town: a craft beer and two plates for $15.
POOLE’S DOWNTOWN DINER
426 South McDowell Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/pooles Poole’s is the crown jewel of Ashley Christensen’s Raleigh restaurant empire—and the place often credited with jump-starting DTR’s foodie revolution. You’ll always find the locally famous macaroni au gratin on the chalkboard, but there are plenty other stepped-up takes on comfort food on the seasonally inspired menu as well, from tomato pie to butternut squash bisque with triple crème brie croissant toast.
ROYALE
200 East Martin Street, Raleigh royaleraleigh.com This French-American bistro in City Market is lauded for its renditions on classic French dishes—mussels, duck leg confit, frisée salad—but seek out chef Jeff Seizer’s genre-defining dishes such as garlic soup brûlée, the Royale burger (served with Gruyère on a locally baked English muffin), and fried brussels sprouts that would convert even the staunchest hater.
DEATH & TAXES
STANBURY
938 North Blount Street, Raleigh stanburyraleigh.com The Stanbury delivers on its promise of shareable seasonable small plates with a menu of creative dishes such as roasted marrow, crispy pig head, and fried North Carolina whole bass. The one dish you’ll want to keep to yourself is the ribeye burger, which sells out nightly.
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top-notch breads (try the Danish rugbrod), cookies, and pastries, not to mention sandwiches for lunch (get the avocado toast with candied almonds).
LOAF
111 West Parrish Street, Durham facebook.com/LoafDurham There’s no shortage of good dough in Durham, but if you’re looking for that classic French-bakery experience, go straight to Loaf. There’s little room for people in the space, which is dominated by big ovens and cornucopian racks of bread and pastry, so grab a sandwich loaf for the week and take your baguette to the pocket park around the corner.
GUGLHUPF BAKERY, CAFE & BIERGARTEN
PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
The 10 Best BAKERIES in the Triangle LOAF
ANNELORE’S GERMAN BAKERY
308 West Chatham Street, Cary anneloresbakery.com At this downtown Cary bakery-cafe, look for traditional German baked goods, including savory treats such as salt- or cheese-topped soft Bavarian pretzels, and cakes, including the signature bienenstich (or bee sting cake), layered with triple Bavarian cream and almonds caramelized with local honey. You can also find Annelore’s baked goods at the State Farmers Market.
BOULTED BREAD
614 West South Street, Raleigh boultedbread.com Boulted Bread has earned a following for its beautifully textured, flavorful loaves, all crafted from organic grains milled in-house using carefully calibrated techniques and a healthy dose of fermentation. Owners Josh Bellamy and Sam Kirkpatrick have also brought their talents to Benchwarmers Bagels, a partnership with Jubala Coffee, in the Transfer Co. Food Hall.
EAST DURHAM BAKE SHOP
406 South Driver Street, Durham eastdurhambakeshop.com Ali Rudel and Ben Filippo’s bakery might be best known for its scratch-made pies—or maybe the scones, or perhaps the croissants, 22
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or the cookies, or the morning and evening buns, or—you know what, order whatever catches your eye. It’s going to be great.
THE FRENCH CORNER BAKERY
2005 North Pointe Drive, Suite B, Durham facebook.com/frenchcornerbakery At this hidden Durham gem, French master baker Benjamin Messaoui churns out delectable pastries such as chocolate almond croissants and artisanal loaves in a cozy bakery setting. He also hosts baking classes.
LA FARM BAKERY
4248 Northwest Cary Parkway, 220 West Chatham Street, Cary lafarmbakery.com Master baker Lionel Vatinet helms this Cary institution, which has a third outpost in the West Cary Whole Foods. The baguettes are superb, as are any of the loaves baked with N.C.-milled grains, such as Abruzzi rye and Carolina Gold rice, and you can’t go wrong with any of the pastries, particularly the fan-favorite white chocolate baguette or seasonal scones.
NINTH STREET BAKERY
136 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham ninthstbakery.com It’s no longer on Ninth Street, but it is a hell of a bakery, cranking out all manner of
. 2019
2706 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, Durham, guglhupf.com Don’t worry, we can’t pronounce it either. But whether you’re visiting Guglhupf for brunch or just driving by, never miss an opportunity to pop into the bakery, which uses traditional European methods to turn basic ingredients into hearty breads. You can also order a wedding or a birthday cake, as well as all manner of desserts. (A second location, the smaller Guglhupf Bake Shop, opened in Chapel Hill in 2017.)
NIGHT KITCHEN BAKEHOUSE & CAFE
10 West Franklin Street, #140, Raleigh raleighnightkitchen.com In Raleigh’s Seaboard Station, Night Kitchen is known for its quality quick breads, pastries, and the hearty loaves it uses for the cafe’s sandwiches. Don’t miss the cardamom-coffee-cake pound cake or the salted caramel sticky buns.
YELLOW DOG BREAD
219 East Franklin Street, Raleigh facebook.com/yellowdogbread At the corner of Raleigh’s Person Street Plaza, you’ll find an impressive selection of daily baked loaves, scones, cinnamon rolls, and focaccia slices, plus seasonal pop tarts (don’t miss the Halloween-ready pumpkin varieties). Pair a pastry with a latte and grab a window table.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Bakery: Guglhupf Bakery, Cafe & Biergarten, Durham County; Guglhupf Bake Shop, Orange and Chatham Counties; La Farm Bakery, Wake County.
VIN ROUGE BISTRO 919-416-0466 2010 hillsborough rd durham nc vinrougerestaurant.com
MATEO BAR AND TAPAS 919-530-8700 109 w chapel hill st durham nc mateotapas.com
mothers & sons trattoria 919-294-8247 107 w chapel hill st durham nc mothersandsonsnc.com
lucky’s delicatessen 919-864-8841 105 w chapel hill st durham nc luckysdelinc.com
SAINT JAMES SEAFOOD RESTAURANT AND RAW BAR 984-219-7900 806 W MAIN ST DURHAM NC SAINTJAMESSEAFOOD.COM 2019
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THE 10 BEST PLACES TO GET BARBECUE IN THE TRIANGLE ALLEN & SON
5650 U.S. 15-501, Pittsboro stubbsandsonbbq.com In December 2018, the original Allen & Son, the Chapel Hill landmark, abruptly closed. But its Pittsboro cousin—independently owned and operated through a licensing agreement with the folks behind Sanford’s Stubbs & Son—lives on, serving barbecue that is in no way reimagined or fused or fancy, but rather simple and good: ’cue, fixins, sweet tea.
AVIATOR SMOKEHOUSE
525 Broad Street, Fuquay-Varina aviatorbrew.com/smokehouse What began as a passion for backyard smoking grew into a dedicated smokehouse to complement Aviator’s taproom across the street. Look for smoked pork, St. Louis-style ribs, and the popular smoked wings, which are served with sauces crafted with house beers and local ingredients. If you’ve got a thing for heat, try the MocoLoco, made with ghost chili peppers, then put out the fire with a Hogwild IPA.
BACKYARD BBQ PIT
5122 N.C. Highway 55, Durham sweetribs.com This Durham favorite traffics in slowsmoked meats of all kinds, but it’s particular24
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ly known for the pit-cooked, hickory-smoked pork shoulder. Get it on a sandwich with two classic Southern sides, such as mac ‘n’ cheese and collards or creamy potato salad and green beans. A combo like this will only set you back $3.50.
BULLOCK’S BAR-B-CUE
3330 Quebec Drive, Durham bullocks-bbq.com Rally the troops and order family-style for all-you-can-eat barbecue pork, fried chicken, and Brunswick stew, with coleslaw, string beans, and fries, at this family-owned and -operated institution that’s been serving Durham since 1952. Tommy Bullock passed away on Christmas Eve 2018, but his legacy lives on.
CLYDE COOPER’S BBQ
327 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh clydecoopersbbq.com Clyde’s ranks among the state’s oldest BBQ establishments, having sold vinegar-drenched ’cue, ribs, and fried chicken since 1938. On the side, score the locally famous Brunswick stew, as well as hush puppies, fried okra, and Cheerwine baked beans, then get a gallon of sweet tea to wash it all down.
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HOG HEAVEN BAR-B-Q
2419 Guess Road, Durham hogheavenbarbecue.com It’s easy to miss this hole-in-the-wall. Don’t. Hog Heaven serves up Eastern N.C.-style, hand-chopped ’cue, and the line forms early at lunchtime—dinner, too. Opt for the BarB-Q Plate with pulled pork, fried okra, candied yams, and hush puppies, and save room for the house-made banana pudding.
JOHNSON FAMILY BARBECUE
5021 Wake Forest Highway, Durham johnsonfamilybbq.com A small joint attached to a gas station way out east of town, Johnson makes ’cue that is blissfully smoky and fatty, fried chicken that people rave about (get there before 7:30 p.m.), and key-lime pie so good it might make you burst into tears. There’s also stellar service and Cheerwine in the cooler. Long story short: Don’t let the drive keep you away.
OLE TIME BARBECUE
6309 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh oletimebarbecue.com When you walk in, you’ll be called “hon” and feel like you stepped into a truck-stop diner untouched by the outside world since the seventies. They’ll ply you with hush puppies, and you’ll order the Hand Chopped BBQ
PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
PICNIC
Pork Plate—sides: fried okra and mac ’n’ cheese, of course—because what else would you get? You’ll drink sweet tea and a lot of it. And you’ll wonder why you don’t come here more often.
PICNIC
1647 Cole Mill Road, Durham picnicdurham.com Picnic specializes in whole-hog barbecue, cooked low and slow over wood and hand-shredded, then sauced with co-owner Wyatt Dickson’s Pig Whistle, an Eastern-meets-Western North Carolina sauce. Order it on a sandwich with a side of slaw or on a plate with two sides (go for the mac ‘n’
cheese and bacon-braised collards). Round out the experience with a signature cocktail.
THE PIT AUTHENTIC BARBECUE
328 West Davie Street, Raleigh; 321 West Geer Street, Durham thepit-raleigh.com, thepit-durham.com A few years ago, an INDY writer described The Pit as having the “unerring commercial instinct of the Cheesecake Factory and the systemized efficiency of a McDonald’s.” This is accurate—The Pit is an actual restaurant that has a valet service out front, not a shack in the middle of nowhere. But damned if it doesn’t do whole-hog barbecue right. (As that
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same writer put it, “The Pit’s ’cue is what it should be: smoky, juicy, tangy, tender without being mushy or mealy.”) And damned if The Pit doesn’t do justice to mac ’n’ cheese, too.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Barbecue: The Original Q-Shack, Durham County; Allen & Son (Chapel Hill, closed), Orange and Chatham Counties; The Pit Authentic
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The 10 Best Places to Get BREAKFAST in the Triangle BEYÚ CAFFÈ
341 West Main Street, Durham beyucaffe.com Pronounced be you, the cafe is a coffee shop inside of a bar inside of a restaurant, all wrapped up into an unequivocally cool atmosphere. Beyú’s versatility is among its superpowers: You can stop by for a quick bite, coffee, a business meeting, to tinker on your computer (free WiFi!), whatever, but the breakfast menu (served until 4:30 p.m.) is always worth a glance. At just $5.50, the Bebop Breakfast Burrito (flour tortilla, eggs, cheddar, black beans, pico) is one of the best deals in downtown Durham. 26
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BIG ED’S CITY MARKET RESTAURANT
220 Wolfe Street, Raleigh bigedscitymarket.com Big Ed’s has served legit, put-some-meaton-your-bones Southern breakfast and lunch on its red-and-white checkered plastic tablecloths since 1989. Morning highlights include salty country ham with red-eye gravy, fatback biscuits, grits, and, for the brave, scrambled eggs with rose pork brains. Don’t want to head downtown? Check out Big Ed’s North, on Falls of Neuse Road in North Raleigh.
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BULL AND BEAN CAFE
3710 Shannon Road, Durham bullandbeancafe.com An unassuming coffee shop and market in South Durham, Bull and Bean has become a breakfast go-to thanks to its massive sandwiches, loaded hashbrowns, and an array of (surprisingly delicious) health options, including acai and quinoa bowls. The coffee comes from Counter Culture, the bread comes from Guglhupf, and the lively atmosphere comes from young Hope Valley families.
PHOTO BY D.L. ANDERSON
ELMO’S DINER
5 Best Donut Shops CAROLINA GLAZED DONUTS 5400 South Miami Boulevard, Durham. WHAT TO GET: Glazed donut with custard filling, or an apple fritter DUCK DONUTS Multiple locations duckdonuts.com WHAT TO GET: Maple icing donut with chopped bacon EARLY BIRD DONUTS 2816 Erwin Road, #101, Durham WHAT TO GET: Glazed donut holes MONUTS DONUTS 1002 Ninth Street, Durham monutsdonuts.com WHAT TO GET: Apple cider cake donut RISE BISCUITS DONUTS Everywhere risebiscuitsdonuts.com WHAT TO GET: Crème brûlée donut, then a defibrillator
CARROLL’S KITCHEN
19 East Martin Street, Raleigh carrollskitchen.org Carroll’s Kitchen’s devotees love its kolaches—soft, Central European-inspired filled pastries—and grab-and-go brunch options such as mushroom toast and butternut squash-blue-cheese quiche. Even better, the restaurant is a nonprofit that provides employment for women in crisis (see page 94). Check out the second location in Morgan Street Food Hall, too.
ELMO’S DINER
776 Ninth Street, Durham; 200 North Greensboro Street, Carrboro elmosdiner.com, elmosdinercarrboro.com Elmo’s Diner is just that—a diner—and the menu is pretty much exactly what you’d expect (omelets, biscuits), though it has a few surprises, too (quiche Florentine, salmon cake and egg). Whatever you order, expect it to be good—and accompanied by a steady stream of coffee.
FOSTER’S MARKET
2694 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, Durham, fostersmarket.com On weekday mornings, Foster’s offers excellent basics, such as an herb cheddar biscuit
with eggs and cheese or house-made granola with Greek yogurt and fruit. On weekends, look for specials such as huevos rancheros, French toast, and pancakes. Peruse the small retail area up front for local jams, snacks, and other pantry staples.
HOPE VALLEY DINER
3710 Shannon Road, Durham hopevalleydiner.com Like Elmo’s, this, too, is a straightforward diner with an extensive menu that features large portions of the usual suspects. Make sure to check the chalkboard for the daily specials: The crab cake benedict is rich and filling, but the true standout is the hashbrown casserole.
RISE SOUTHERN BISCUITS & RIGHTEOUS CHICKEN
Everywhere risebiscuitsdonuts.com The recently rebranded Rise Southern Biscuits & Righteous Chicken—née Rise Biscuits Donuts—started in Durham and then spread like kudzu across the Triangle and beyond, so it’s technically a chain, but it’s our chain, and it has none of the faceless mediocrity that word usually implies. Fresh, delicious biscuits, made daily, are piled with breakfast staples like eggs and sausage and, well, fried chicken, which, we’re told, is righteous.
STATE FARMERS MARKET RESTAURANT
Burritos-Tacos-Nachos Housemade Salsa Margaritas! 711 W Rosemary St Carrboro carrburritos.com 919.933.8226
1240 Farmers Market Drive, Raleigh realbiscuits.com Don’t be deterred by the lines—the fluffy, buttery biscuits are worth the wait alone. (They’d better be, considering the restaurant’s URL.) You’ll find a lot of North Carolina products here, and you can’t beat the heaping helping of Southern hospitality.
SUNRISE BISCUIT KITCHEN
1305 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill sunrisebiscuits.com With lines of cars that stretch out the parking lot and oftentimes a half-mile down Franklin, this drive-up/walk-up joint serves hulking, flaky biscuits with a myriad of sandwich selections that can serve many purposes, from keeping the kids happy to calming a hungover stomach.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Breakfast: Elmo’s Diner, Durham County; Elmo’s Diner, Orange and Chatham Counties; Big Ed’s City Market Restaurant, Wake County.
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MINT
ACME FOOD & BEVERAGE CO.
110 East Main Street, Carrboro acmecarrboro.com The proper way to do brunch at Acme is as follows: Go around noon on Sunday (get reservations). Order a coffee and a cocktail. Order the hot chocolate donuts, one cinnamon roll, and the angel biscuits. Order the crab Florentine omelet (with grits) and French toast. Eat. Have a beer, but nothing too heavy. Go home. Sleep all afternoon.
COQUETTE
4351 The Circle at North Hills, Raleigh coquetteraleigh.com Brunch didn’t originate with the French. It’s an English portmanteau that arose in late 28
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nineteenth-century Britain, then took off in postwar America. But the French penchant for indulgence suits the meal perfectly. The quiches at Coquette are a specialty, especially the quiche Lorraine, but don’t miss hangar steak frites.
DAME’S CHICKEN AND WAFFLES
530 Foster Street, Suite 130, Durham; 823 Bass Pro Lane, Cary dameschickenwaffles.com From foodies to families to the Sunday churchgoing crowd, locals flock to Dame’s booths in search of soul food. Try the Orange Speckled Chabo, a sweet-savory riff that combines honey Dijon mustard and a buttery orange-honeycomb “shmear” atop a
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sweet potato waffle. Make a reservation to skip the inevitable line on Sunday morning.
GRUB DURHAM
1200 West Chapel Hill Street, Durham grubdurham.com Anywhere that serves breakfast until a civilized 3:00 p.m. daily is a brunch winner in our book. Plus, the roster of breakfast sandwiches (get the fried chicken on a biscuit), plates, and bowls (try the West End grit bowl) will fill you up without draining your wallet, and the bloody marys make for the ultimate hairof-the-dog remedy. In good weather, sprawl out on the upstairs patio.
PHOTO BY BOB KARP
The 10 Best Places to Get BRUNCH in the Triangle
GUGLHUPF BAKERY, CAFE & BIERGARTEN
2706 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, Durham, guglhupf.com One of the city’s low-key favorites, the German-inspired restaurant has outdoor seating that feels like a magical getaway even for a casual brunch (let alone an upscale dinner). Allow us to point you to the eggs Arnold (if you’re vegetarian) or the eggs Benedict (if you’re not). Good cocktails and beer options abound, too.
HARVEST 18
8128 Renaissance Parkway, #114, Durham 18restaurantgroup.com/harvest-18 Brunch al fresco or beside one of the large windows, soaking up the sunlight. Savory brunch dishes reign supreme here; the tastiest entrées are those that let the meats shine, such as the short rib—best enjoyed in sandwich form—or wood-fire grilled trout.
MINT
504 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill mintunc.com Served buffet-style seven days a week, brunch at this Indian restaurant includes savory dishes such as paneer, chicken saag, and chana masala, desserts such as the syrupy-sweet ras malai, a variety of fresh and pickled sauces, and plenty of naan to sop it all up. And did we mention bottomless mimosas?
MONUTS DONUTS
1002 Ninth Street, Durham monutsdonuts.com Yes, Monuts has donuts, and they’re good. But that’s not why you go, and that’s not why you battle a weekend line that stretches well out the door. (Things are much more manageable on weekdays.) You go because of the breakfast burrito, because of the Heirloom Summer (heirloom tomato, chevre, and basil pesto on a bagel), because of maple Sriracha home fries, because of the quinoa and kale grain bowl that has no business being as good as it is, because, even on a seasonally rotating menu, there will always be something that becomes your morning go-to.
WATTS GROCERY
1116 Broad Street, Durham wattsgrocery.com It’s a little weird to think that, at twelve years old, Watts is an elder statesman of the Durham culinary scene, but here we are. An upscale Southern eatery at Broad and Club, its brunch menu has lots things you’d expect—a crab cake benedict, a vegetable scramble, fried chicken—but The Hangover (French fries, gravy, cheddar cheese, roasted pepper, hot sauce, fried egg) surpasses expectations. And yes, we can attest that it is, indeed, ideal for a hangover.
TRUE FLAVORS DINER
5410 N.C. Highway 55, Suite AJ AK, Durham trueflavorsnc.com Tucked away in the Greenwood Commons Shopping Center in South Durham, it’s easy to forget that True Flavors exists, especially if you don’t live nearby. But you shouldn’t do that. This is Southern decadence in all its glory: butter and fat and cheese and meat and oh-my-god-the-biscuits. (Good news: A second location, in Durham’s TuscaloosaLakewood neighborhood, is coming soon, and may have opened by the time you read this.)
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Brunch: Guglhupf Bakery, Cafe & Biergarten, Durham County; Elmo’s Diner, Orange and Chatham Counties; Irregardless Café and Catering at the Glenwood, Wake County.
HAIR • WAXING • FACIALS 919.929.2209 3110 ENVIRON WAY CITRINESALONNC.COM
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THE 10 BEST PLACES TO GET A BURGER IN THE TRIANGLE
COOK OUT 30
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ALLEY TWENTY SIX
320 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham alleytwentysix.com Alley Twenty Six made its name on cocktails, but don’t sleep on the bar menu, especially the cult favorite Alley Burger, a chuck-brisket patty topped with bourbon bacon jam and black truffle cheddar—and, if you want, foie gras. Wash it down with The Alley Cocktail, a bourbon-based tipple laced with Luxardo maraschino liqueur that nicely cuts through the burger’s richness.
AL’S BURGER SHACK
burger (and a milkshake) in a hurry, there’s no reason to go anywhere else.
COWBAR BURGER
411 West Morgan Street, Raleigh facebook.com/cowbarraleigh Morgan Street Food Hall’s resident burger and fry joint has plenty of beef patty burgers (try the truffle burger, topped with truffle butter and shaved truffles), but Dan Yeager gives veggie burgers a cheffy touch, too. The vegan patty is made from curry-infused kidney beans and grilled zucchini.
516 West Franklin Street, 708 Market Street, Chapel Hill alsburgershack.com For years, Chapel Hill townies have argued that Al’s makes America’s best burger. Now the rest of the country is coming around. In 2018, Al’s received that designation from TripAdvisor for its Bobo Chili Cheeseburger. No matter your order, all burgers are made from scratch with local ingredients and creative topping combinations, and ring in under $9.
DAIN’S PLACE
BULL CITY BURGER AND BREWERY
MOJOE’S BURGER JOINT
107 East Parrish Street, Durham bullcityburgerandbrewery.com BCBB’s burgers are crafted with North Carolina-raised beef, and it makes almost everything in-house, from the buns to the ketchup, working with local farmers to source produce (no out-of-season tomatoes here). We’re fans of the beers, too.
754 Ninth Street, Durham facebook.com/dainsplacedurham A college dive for burger-loving craft beer enthusiasts, Dain’s is a rite of passage for Duke fans. Build your own burger or opt for owner Dain Phelan’s favorite, The Dainer: an all-Angus patty with lettuce, tomato, thousand-island dressing, bacon, sautéed onions, and cheddar cheese squished into a freshly baked bun (substitute your Miss Vickie potato chips for tots). 620 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh mojoesburgerjoint.com A staple of Raleigh’s nightlife district, Mojoes’s menu offers a plethora of burger op-
tions, but the right choice is to build your own: Pick a patty—there’s beef, of course, but also chicken, turkey, veggie, and black bean—pick your cheese, pick your toppings, pick your beer, pick your way to start (or end) the night. (It’s open until 1:00 a.m.)
ONLY BURGER
3710 Shannon Road, 359 Blackwell Street, Durham onlyburger.com Only Burger, which got its start as a food truck and now has two brick-and-mortars, offers something for every craving. Choose from turkey, veggie, or beef burgers and an extensive list of (mostly) house-made toppings. Fair warning: It will get messy.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Burger: Bull City Burger and Brewery, Durham County; Al’s Burger Shack, Orange and Chatham Counties; Chuck’s Burgers, Wake County.
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BUNS
107 North Columbia Street, Chapel Hill bunsofchapelhill.com The downside of Buns is that it’s often swamped with college students, which, if you’re not a college student, can be a bit much. The upside of Buns is literally everything else: It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s delicious, there’s a ton of options, there’s good beer, and you can get wasabi mayo for your fries.
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PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
CHUCK’S BURGERS
237 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/chucks As you’d expect from an Ashley Christensen joint, signature burgers here skew Southern and are crafted with local ingredients. Try the Dirty South, crowned with smoked pork chili and tobacco onions, or the Green Jacket, topped with poblano pimento cheese. Round out your order with fries and a coffee- or booze-spiked milkshake.
COOK OUT
Everywhere cookout.com The now-ubiquitous Cook Out got its start thirty years ago in Greensboro and spread like wildfire across North Carolina. For good reason, too: If you’re looking for a cheap
4228 Garrett Road | Durham, NC 27707 Phone: 919-489-7408 | Fax: 919-490-5909 www.healthcareequipmentinc.com 2019
Visit our website:
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ALPACA PERUVIAN CHARCOAL CHICKEN
PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
THE 10 BEST PLACES TO GET CHEAP EATS IN THE TRIANGLE
Multiple locations, alpacachicken.com Everyone swears by the Peruvian-style chicken— charcoal rotisserie, white or dark meat, a half and two sides for under ten bucks. And that’s fine. But the sides need love, too: the green beans, the fried plantains, the corn, the rice and black beans, even something as quotidian as french fries, whatever that yellow sauce is. Just mash it all together and pig out.
BANH’S CUISINE
750 Ninth Street, Durham No website, no credit card machine, no discernible staff besides the owner: Banh’s no-frills approach to Vietnamese and Chinese classics has made it one of those inconspicuous holes-in-the-wall that you’re not truly local until you’ve tried. It would actually be hard to spend more than $10 on a meal.
C&H CAFETERIA
1720 Guess Road, Durham candhcafeterias.com If you weren’t blessed with a Southern grandmother, don’t despair. Every day the staff at C&H Cafeteria in Durham cooks up a bounty of Southern classics, like the silkiest-ever country-style steak and creamed shoepeg corn, all crafted with fresh ingredients and skill. You can get shamefully full and take home a slice of pecan pie for less than $10. And somebody will call you “shug,” guaranteed. Just like Grandma.
CARRBURRITOS
711 West Rosemary Street, Carrboro carrburritos.com Carrburritos has been serving fast, cheap, delicious, and, well, let’s call them generously apportioned tacos ($6.25 for two) and burritos ($7.61 for the mejor, which will do you for the day) to undergrads since before most of today’s undergrads were a twinkle in their parents’ eyes. Order the all-flour chips.
LUNA ROTISSERIE & EMPANADAS
112 West Main Street, Durham lunarotisserie.com You could spend a bit more at Luna if you go all in on rotisserie meats, but what we love about it is that you can get a hearty meal—two empanadas and a side or vice-versa—for less than ten bucks, smack in the middle of downtown Durham.
MEDITERRANEAN DELI, BAKERY, AND CATERING
410 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill mediterraneandeli.com Bring your crew to sample the maximum amount of mezze from Med Deli’s gleaming display cases—grape leaves, hummus, tabouli—or opt for the satisfying falafel pita, where the crispy chickpea nuggets are nestled into warm pita pockets and drizzled with tahini. Since you’ll have change to spare, pick up a bag of pita to go.
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THE ROAST GRILL
7 South West Street, Raleigh roastgrill.com A DTR landmark, located four blocks from the Capitol, has served hotdogs—and only hotdogs—to politicians and downtowners since 1940. The famous house rule on ketchup (nope) stands, but the char-grilled dogs don’t need it anyway. If you want to dress up your frank, opt for the chili and mustard. A hot dog is $1.45 and a glass bottle of Coke is ninety cents.
SZECHUAN GARDEN
10285 Chapel Hill Road, #300, Morrisville szechuangardennc.com Locals flock to Szechuan Garden for the $7.50 bento box deals, but those in the know eschew the regular lunch menu for the Szechuan specialties. The tongue-tingling lamb with spicy Szechuan sauce and ma po tofu, both chock-full of Szechuan peppercorns, will have you reaching for seconds, and the dan dan noodles and cold-sliced chicken with spicy chili oil are musts. Embrace the heat.
SASSOOL
9650 Strickland Road, 411 West Morgan Street, Raleigh; 1347 Kildaire Farm Road, Cary sassool.com This family-owned restaurant serves fresh Mediterranean soul food classics on the
cheap, such as hummus (try the unorthodox jalapeño variety) and stuffed grape leaves, as well as fresh salads such as tabouli with quinoa or roasted sweet potatoes. All meals come with a basket of warm, freshly baked pita for snacking and dipping.
TOOT-N-TELL FAMILY RESTAURANT
903 West Garner Road, Garner If you grew up anywhere in the South, this epitome of “down home” will feel instantly familiar. Opened in 1946 and now a mishmash of multiple expansions and add-ons, the building isn’t much to look at, and the food won’t appear in many Instagram feeds. The simple country cooking is for eating, not photographing. Do the buffet for less than $9 and load up on collards, cabbage, pork chops, fried trout, and more.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Cheap Eats: Guasaca, Durham County; Carrburritos, Orange and Chatham Counties; Mami Nora’s, Wake County.
5 Best Places to Take the Kids (and Not Lose Your Mind) BEASLEY’S CHICKEN + HONEY 237 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/beasleys BULL CITY BURGER AND BREWERY 107 East Parrish Street, Durham bullcityburgerandbrewery.com ELMO’S DINER 776 Ninth Street, Durham; 200 North Greensboro Street, Carrboro elmosdiner.com, elmosdinercarrboro.com GONZA TACOS Y TEQUILA Multiple locations gonzatacosytequila.com MONUTS DONUTS 1002 Ninth Street, Durham monutsdonuts.com
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LUCETTEGRACE
BIG BUNDTS & MORE
721 Broad Street, Durham bigbundts.com If you can drive by this little shop without that Sir Mix-a-Lot song queuing up in your brain, then you are a better person than we are. In any event, you should know that BIG Bundts makes better bundts than the dry, boring things you’re probably used to—take the chocolate drip, which is sinfully moist and deliciously chocolatey. You will like them, and you cannot lie. 34
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BITTERSWEET
16 East Martin Street, Raleigh bittersweetraleigh.com You can sate your sweet tooth (and your booze tooth) day and night at this lovely dessert, cocktail, and coffee lounge. Grab a morning cookie and a coffee from the takeout window, or drop in for an evening dessert and a nightcap. On the sweets front, don’t miss owner Kim Hammer’s signature salty chipwich ice cream sandwich, which is rolled in bourbon caramel corn.
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CRAWFORD AND SON
618 North Person Street, Raleigh crawfordandsonrestaurant.com We’re fans of Scott Crawford’s cooking, but we’d eat here just for Krystle Swenson’s desserts. The menu changes often, but you can always count on inventive combinations, seasonal inflections, and precise technique. Recent favorites include a coconut layer cake with paw paw sherbet and an apple Danish with oat streusel and brown butter.
PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN
The 10 Best Places to Get DESSERT in the Triangle
5 Places to Dine Al Fresco MULINO ITALIAN BAR & KITCHEN 309 North Dawson Street, Raleigh mulinoraleigh.com NAMU 5420 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, Durham facebook.com/namudurham THE PATIO AT UNSCRIPTED HOTEL 202 Corcoran Street, Durham unscriptedhotels.com THE PLAYERS’ RETREAT 105 Oberlin Road, Raleigh theplayersretreat.net TAVERNA AGORA 326 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh tavernaagora.com
JACK TAR & THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER
202 Corcoran Street, Durham jacktar-durham.com Jack Tar’s menu features elevated renditions of classic American fare, including dessert. Peep the glass domes on the countertop for the cakes and pies of the day (don’t skip the ethereal French silk pie) or opt for the friedto-order crullers served with Chantilly mascarpone and jam.
LUCETTEGRACE
235 South Salisbury Street, Raleigh lucettegrace.com Daniel Benjamin’s patisserie’s sunny décor and cheery vibes match its stunning display case of whimsical confections. There’s a rainbow-hued assortment of macarons (don’t miss the salted caramel) alongside signature sweets such as the candy bar cake and salted caramel brownie, plus macaron ice cream sandwiches in the summer (in flavors such as birthday cake and chocolate chip cookie dough).
MITHAI INDIAN CAFÉ
744 East Chatham Street, Suite F, Cary mithaius.com Mithai Indian Café features scratch-made, traditional Indian sweets, all crafted without fillers and preservatives (many are vegan, too). Settle into the cafe with a cup of chai and a piece of pedha, a caramelized milk fudge, or pista burfi, a denser milk fudge made with ground pistachios. You
can also create a custom box to go, which makes a fine gift.
PICKLE JAR CAFE
480 Hillsboro Street, Pittsboro picklejarcafe.com There’s a solid menu of hearty sandwiches here, but save room for the desserts baked by Wendy Tomblin, aka The Country Bakeress. Tomblin has her own custom cakes business but whips up daily desserts for Pickle Jar, including buttermilk sweet potato cake with maple pecan glaze and a strawberry rhubarb tart. If one of her cheesecakes is on offer, grab it.
You’re a neighbor, not a number.
ROSE’S NOODLES, DUMPLINGS & SWEETS
121 North Gregson Street, Durham rosesdurham.com Co-owner and pastry chef Katie Meddis is responsible for the sweets part of the name, and she delivers with a stunning pastry case of macarons, cookies, and cakes. Run, don’t walk, for her ice cream sandwiches, in flavors such as blueberries-and-cream, Jasmine tea-and-strawberry, Meyer lemon sorbet, and caramel apple.
Shawn Cockerham
5518 NC Highway 55 Durham • (919) 316-3276 shawn@shawncockerham.com
SO•CA
2130 Clark Ave, Raleigh socaraleigh.com Pastry director Brittany Grantham oversees desserts at small-plates restaurant so•ca, but you’ll want her gorgeously plated concoctions all to yourself. To wit, metallic purple chocolates filled with elderflower and lavender white chocolate, wreathed with flower petals, or a playful riff on a choco-taco plated with toasted meringue and rum-glazed bananas. She works wonders with vegan desserts, too, as with an avocado-chocolate mousse paired with cherry sorbet.
Pam Herndon
LUTCF, CLU, ChFC 104 S Estes Dr., Ste 105 Chapel Hill • (919) 240-0155 pam@pamherndon.com
SWEET TRADITIONS
12516 Capital Boulevard, #106, Wake Forest spreadthesweetness.com Spend a few minutes scanning Yelp or another repository of internet complaining and see if you can find some rando who found a reason to dislike LeAne Boksleitner’s cupcakes. We couldn’t. And that should tell you something: Her cupcakes rule. So do her cakes, and her macarons, and her donuts, and her cinnamon rolls, and … we’ll be right back. We’ve got to drive out to Wake Forest right now for no reason in particular.
6406 McCrimmon Pkwy, Ste 200 Morrisville • (919) 462-8411 teri@terilarocca.com
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Desserts: The Parlour, Durham County; Weaver Street Market, Orange and Chatham Counties; Hayes Barton Café, Wake County.
105 W NC Highway 54, Ste 263 Durham • (919) 206-5096 leslie@mydurhaminsurance.com
Teri LaRocca
Leslie Robinson
2019
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The 10 Best Places to Get DUMPLINGS in the Triangle
BREWERY BHAVANA 36
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BREWERY BHAVANA
JUJUBE
DAVID’S NOODLE & DUMPLING BAR
KATHMANDU KITCHEN
218 South Blount Street, Raleigh brewerybhavana.com A bevy of dim sum dumplings awaits at this chic restaurant-brewery-flower-shop-bookstore amalgamation. The assortment is made fresh daily, including favorites such as crab-and-pork soup dumplings and porkand-snow-pea-tip shumai. The seafood dumplings—stuffed with lobster, crab, and scallops and served in a mushroom-and-garlic sauce—are scene-stealers.
1900 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh ddandnb.com Chef-restaurateur David Mao fulfills the restaurant’s promise with a solid lineup of noodles and dumplings. Get the best of both worlds with the Chinese greens and dumpling soup, where pork-and-shrimp wontons bob with noodles in chicken broth with sesame oil, or bring a crew to gorge on a sampler, including pan-seared pork-and-cabbage, pork-and-shrimp shumai, or edamame and mushroom dumplings, and crispy, spicy wontons with a ginger garlic sauce.
GOURMET KINGDOM
301 East Main Street, Carrboro thegourmetkingdom.com Authentic Szechuan cuisine of the highest order, Gourmet Kingdom conjures dishes of national repute—think dan dan noodles or Kung Pao lotus root—in humble environs. But the pork dumplings alone are worth the trip. You can get them steamed or fried, but the best move is to order a round of each for the table.
HONG KONG CHINESE RESTAURANT
3003 Guess Road, Durham hongkongdimsumdurham.com Dim sum is available at this Durham spot during lunch and dinner, but during weekend lunch hours, the presentation evolves into Hong Kong-style, in which servers wheel carts stacked with baskets and plates to deliver dishes to tables. Look for baskets of steamed pork shumai, fried shrimp-and-vegetable dumplings, or pork-and-bamboo-shoot dumplings. Head home happy.
PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
J. BETSKI’S
10 West Franklin Street, #120, Raleigh jbetskis.com Owner John Korzekwinski draws from his family’s German and Polish heritage and pierogi-making traditions for his menu. The pierogi, semi-circular dumplings made with a dense dough bolstered with sour cream, feature traditional fillings such as potato and cheese or sauerkraut, but you’ll also find specials, such as one filled with Carolina ’cue and sauce.
1201 Raleigh Road, Chapel Hill jujuberestaurant.com A sister to Durham’s JuJu, Jujube specializes in small plates with Asian flair, and that extends to the dumpling. Try the crispy pan-fried versions filled with combinations such as bacon and collard greens or pork and cabbage, or the veggie-friendly tofu and red pepper. Wash it down with a creative cocktail such as the yuzu-ginger spiked togarashi sour. 1275 Northwest Maynard Road, Cary kathmandukitchencary.com Kathmandu Kitchen’s Himalayan cuisine features momos—Nepalese dumplings that are similar to Japanese gyoza or Chinese wontons in flavor. The just-thin-enough noodle-dough wrappers surround vegetable- or chicken-based fillings, served either steamed with dipping sauces or jhol-style, in a chutney-based broth.
MOFU SHOPPE
321 South Blount, Raleigh mofushoppe.com Founders Sophia Woo and Sunny Lin made a name for themselves with their dumpling and pho food truck, winning season six of Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race. They used the winnings to create a brickand-mortar in downtown Raleigh. Happily, the signature pork-and-chive dumplings remain a fixture, served with a duo of dipping sauces—sweet and spicy and black-vinegar-toasted-sesame.
MR. DUMPLING
5470 Apex Peakway, Apex mrdumpling.net Don’t let the generic name fool you. This locally owned Apex joint has a dedicated dumpling-making counter where it turns out classics such as pork or chicken with Chinese cabbage. And don’t be alarmed by the colored dumpling wrappers, used to designated daily specials such as pork and leek, pork and shrimp, or lamb and carrot. Round out your order with a scallion pancake and noodles seared in chili oil.
TAIPEI 101
121 East Chatham Street, Suite A, Cary carytaipei101nc.com This downtown Cary spot specializes in Taiwanese and Szechuan cuisine, but there’s also a solid dim sum menu that includes steamed dumplings, shrimp shumai, homemade potstickers, and soup dumplings.
2019
Proudly serving organic baked goods to the Triangle since 1981 136 East Chapel Hill St. Durham, NC 27701 919.688.5606 info@ninthstbakery.com
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THE 10 BEST FOOD TRUCKS IN THE TRIANGLE
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TACOS EL NINO
BORICUA SOUL
boricuasoulnc.com The insignia on the outside of the Boricua Soul truck (or the “Soul Patrol,” as it’s known) is based on the African symbol Sankofa, which means “go back and get it.” This represents the truck’s personal approach to cooking and its ethos of drawing from the past—Southern soul with a Caribbean flair—but the motto is also a nod to Boricua Soul’s loyal fan base. Look for empanadas, pork platters, and tostones, along with veggie-friendly options.
BULKOGI
bulkogikrnbbq.com This Korean BBQ truck doesn’t skimp on portions, so bring your appetite. The BBQ base comes with several spicy and non-spicy meat options and a choose-your-own-adventure approach to the fixings, including tacos, burritos, and burrito bowls, among others. Add an egg or pan-fried kimchi to top it off, and check out the sides, including the goon mandoo.
CHEZ MOI BAKERY
iloverumcake.com When midday cravings turn from savory to sweet, the Chez Moi Bakery food truck comes to the rescue. Choose from favorites such as lemon cake, ice cream cakewiches, and cool strawberry lemon cups. The brown sugar vanilla rum cake—$4 for one generous slice, or $25 for the whole dang thing, why not?—is the star of the show.
tots, though, that make it the stuff of legend: crisp, fried in duck fat, generously infused with rosemary, then served with a special sauce, these tots have earned praise from many corners, including Southern Living.
led cabbage and carrots, a street food that originated in El Salvador. Get one with pork or choose from a handful of veggie options. You can find the truck at Cocoa Cinnamon’s Lakewood location in Durham on Tuesdays.
NAPOLI
TACOS EL NIÑO
101 Short Street, Carrboro napolicarrboro.com Here’s a food truck with a permanent address, and it’s one of Carrboro’s best. The maniacs behind Napoli managed to shove a wood-burning pizza oven into a truck. It can blaze a hand-stretched Neapolitan pie made with tomatoes and flour from Italy in two minutes flat. Fior di Latte, every damn day.
QSPRESSO
qspressocubanos.com This bright green truck offers a panoply of Cuban and Latino dishes: cochinita pibil, beef empanadas, a hearty Cubano sandwich, a rotating cast of tacos, and fried quesadillas (with homemade red salsa). A trifecta of sizzling sides rounds out the meal: yuca fries, fried sweet plantains, and tostones with garlic mojo.
SO GOOD PUPUSAS
sogoodpupusas.com As the name suggests, this truck makes pupusas, thick tortillas stuffed with meat, cheese, and beans and served with pick-
102 South Merritt Mill Road, Chapel Hill From late afternoon until last call, some of the best tacos in America can be found in a parking lot at the border of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. There, Tacos El Niño slings a variety of delicious Mexican street tacos ranging from al pastor and chorizo to barbacoa, lengue, and asada out of a big white box truck, all garnished with just cilantro, onion, and plenty of hot sauce.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best Food Truck: Chirba Chirba Dumplings. Finalists: Buoy Bowls, Pie Pushers, Frankly the Best Hot Dogs.
CHIRBA CHIRBA DUMPLINGS
chirbachirba.com The folks at Chirba Chirba have harnessed the Triangle’s appetite for dumplings to become one of the most popular food trucks (two trucks, aCtually) in the region. Track down the bright yellow truck(s) for mouthwatering dumplings, delicious spicy glass noodles, or rice bowls. New to Chirba? Go original—an order of the pork juicy buns with the Chirba Spicy sauce is one of the best bites around.
FUZZY’S EMPANADAS
PHOTO BY CAITLIN PENNA
fuzzysempanadas.com You won’t find a better empanada in the Triangle than from Fuzzy’s truck. They’re handmade from local ingredients, then fried and handed out hot, the cheese warm and gooey, the doughy casing the perfect degree of crispness. Order a side of the perfectly salted tortilla chips and salsa, and settle into wherever you’re at.
SHUCKEN SHACK 1/3 S
KOKYU BBQ
kokyubbq.com The graffiti-splashed Kokyu BBQ truck, which sells a variety of multi-cuisine offerings, including banh bi sandwiches, pork gyoza, and chilled ramen bowls, is a familiar sight around Durham. It’s the crisp tater 2019
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BEASLEY’S CHICKEN + HONEY
BEASLEY’S CHICKEN + HONEY
237 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/beasleys
At the casual-cool Beasley’s, chef Ashley Christensen serves up expertly fried chicken in all of the ways—on a biscuit, atop waffles, nestled in a bun, or as a quarter bird. If you like it spicy, don’t miss the Carolina Reaper hot chicken sandwich, which gets its creeping heat from the namesake peppers. Be prepared to wait in line during weekend brunch, or arrive early to ensure first dibs on brunch-only menu items such as hot chicken eggs Benedict or a fried-chicken-and-egg biscuit sandwich. 40
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THE CHICKEN HUT
3019 Fayetteville Street, Durham chickenhutnc.weebly.com This Durham institution has been serving piping-hot, fried-to-order chicken since the 1960s. Whether you prefer dark or white meat (or a combo), it’s guaranteed to strike the right balance between crunchy skin and juicy meat. Round out your order with mac ‘n’ cheese and collards.
DEELUXE CHICKEN
1116 Broad Street, Durham deeluxechicken.com Durham chef-restaurateur Scott Howell’s latest venture, DeeLuxe Chicken, is a fast-casual joint that’s already earned a reputation
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for its golden-crisp chicken and creative sides like the Velveeta mac ‘n’ cheese. Hit up the sauce bar to customize your bird’s dipping options, which include the Alabama white sauce or a kicky Peruvian green sauce.
DRIFTWOOD SOUTHERN KITCHEN
8460 Honeycutt Road, #112, Raleigh driftwoodraleigh.com This cozy spot in Lafayette Village has multiple charms, but one of its charmingest is the honey fried chicken: a generous portion of expertly fried chicken with a dollop of drizzled honey, adding the perfect touch of sweetness. A hefty side of mashed potatoes completes the meal.
PHOTO BY BOB KARP
The 10 Best Places to Get FRIED CHICKEN in the Triangle
5 Favorite Farmers Markets CARRBORO FARMERS MARKET 301 West Main Street, Carrboro carrborofarmersmarket.com Open Saturdays year-round, Wednesdays seasonally DURHAM FARMERS MARKET 501 Foster Street, Durham durhamfarmersmarket.com Open Saturdays year-round, Wednesdays seasonally DURHAM ROOTS FARMERS MARKET Brightleaf Square, 905 West Main Street, Durham durhamrootsfarmersmarket. wordpress.com Open Saturdays
food work well across the board, but we’re especially partial to the fried chicken. You can always get the Nashville-inspired hot chicken, paired with house-made Hawaiian rolls and bread and butter pickles, but don’t miss the Sunday supper special, where craggy pieces of fried chicken are served with family-style Southern sides and optional glasses of modestly priced bubbles.
JOYCE & FAMILY RESTAURANT
129 North Main Street, Fuquay-Varina facebook.com/joyceandfamily When you sidle up to the cafeteria-style ordering line, you’ll be presented with a bevy of down-home Southern options, including baked chicken, smothered pork chops, ribs, and all the fixins. But don’t miss matriarch Joyce Sutton’s—aka Miss Joyce—fried chicken. It’s everything you want in a golden bird: crisp, hot, and juicy, served with a side of Southern hospitality.
M KOKKO
311 Holland Street, Suite B, Durham facebook.com/MkokkoDurham M Kokko—chef Michael Lee’s second “M” restaurant, following M Sushi—only has a handful of items on the menu. He does them all well, but Korean fried chicken remains
the core of this concept. Locally sourced birds are air-dried to ensure maximum skin crispiness, then fried and rested before being sluiced with a spicy soy-garlic glaze. The space is small (it shares a kitchen with M Sushi), so opt for an early lunch to beat the rush.
MECCA RESTAURANT
13 East Martin Street, Raleigh mecca-restaurant.com A meat-and-three that’s been around since the thirties, Mecca lays claim to downtown Raleigh’s oldest restaurant. Its fried chicken has remained a menu mainstay and is almost as iconic as the restaurant itself. Though the Dombalis family recently sold Mecca to restaurateur Greg Hatem, the fried chicken recipe and old-school vibes remain the same. Snag a red vinyl stool at the bar and order the fried chicken special, served with rice and gravy, two sides (get the collards and black-eyed peas), and sweet tea.
SOO CAFE
2815 Brentwood Road, Raleigh The Korean fried chicken here is tender, crispy, and coated with rich, flavorful sauce. Bring friends for dinner and split a few plates of chicken so you can sample all of the sauces. If you only get one, opt for the Soga sauce, which packs a sweet, garlicky punch.
SOUTH DURHAM FARMERS MARKET 5410 N.C. Highway 55, Durham southdurhamfarmersmarket.org Open Saturdays year-round STATE FARMERS MARKET 1201 Agriculture Street, Raleigh statefarmersmarket.org Open daily at 5:00 a.m.
GEER STREET GARDEN
644 Foster Street, Durham geerstgarden.com Whoever said you don’t win friends with salad hasn’t been to this converted Fletcher’s Gulf Station. Get the fried chicken and arugula salad, a tender chicken breast deep fried to crunchy perfection and served warm over a mountain of arugula with a hard-boiled egg, parmesan, and ranch dressing. Best friends forever!
JACK TAR & THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER
202 Corcoran Street, Durham jacktar-durham.com Jack Tar’s elevated takes on classic comfort 2019
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THE 10 BEST PLACES FOR
ICE CREAM
(AND OTHER FROZEN TREATS) IN THE TRIANGLE
PALETERIA LA MONARCA MICHOACANA 42
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ANDIA’S HOMEMADE ICE CREAM
10120 Green Level Church Road, #208, Cary, andisicecream.com Andia Xouris’s award-winning scoops include classics such as vanilla and double dark chocolate, but don’t miss unique flavors such as rose pistachio and baklava. There are also lovely sorbets (try the lemon basil) and vegan ice cream, too, including mint chip. Order a flight of mini scoops if you can’t make up your mind.
FRESH. LOCAL ICE CREAM
6033 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh; 138 East Chatham Street, Cary freshlocalicecream.com This Raleigh-based shop (which also has a truck and, soon, an Apex location) is revered for its fresh-churned ice cream crafted with local dairy. Favorites include Carolina Crunch, in which salted caramel scoops are strewn with Heath and Butterfinger pieces, and seasonal flavors such as blueberry and peach.
GOODBERRY’S FROZEN CUSTARD
Everywhere goodberrys.com This Raleigh-based chainlet is beloved for its creamy, all-natural frozen custard, made fresh every hour from the original 1988 recipe. Chocolate, vanilla, and sugar-free vanilla are available daily, along with a rotating flavor of the day, but you can create your own concoction with a Carolina Concrete.
LOCOPOPS
2618 Hillsborough Road, Durham ilovelocopops.com Locopops is beloved for its paletas—Mexican-inspired popsicles that come in creamy and fruity flavors alike. Flavors change seasonally, but look for standbys like Mexican chocolate and lemon curd. Though the paletas are distributed throughout the Triangle, Locopops’ brick-and-mortar location is the perfect bookend to a sunny day.
PALETERIA LA MONARCA MICHOACANA
PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
3901 Capital Blvd, #115, Raleigh This unpretentious paleta shop sells fresh, affordable ice cream and popsicles that are packed with flavor—and sometimes actual fruit. Try the strawberries and cream, guava, pistachio, or, if you’re looking for a little kick, mango with chile.
THE PARLOUR
117 Market Street, Durham theparlour.co Stop into The Parlour for supremely craveable scoops (or to-go pints) like the always popular salted caramel or seasonal favorites such as Vietnamese iced coffee and
blackberry peach. Vegans swear by the vegan chocolate, too.
TREAT
305 South Blount Street, Raleigh treatraleigh.com Hit up Treat after a trip to City Market or the Marbles Kids Museum and try the Devil’s Delight, a chocolate base folded with Kit Kat, Twix, and chocolate chips, or opt for seasonal flavors such as blueberries and cream.
TRADITIONAL GAMING HALL and
NEIGHBORHOOD FAVORITE Since the 1950s
TWO ROOSTERS
10 REGULATION-SIZE TABLES SHUFFLEBOARD & DARTS
7713 Lead Mine Road, #49, 217 East Franklin Street, Raleigh tworoosters.com We love the creative flavors here, particularly “the regulars,” such as blackberry hibiscus bourbon coffee, made with Slingshot Coffee’s cold brew and Mystic bourbon. Rotating monthly flavors, called “the guests,” center on a theme or flavor, such as bakeries or cake. (The East Franklin location, in Person Street Plaza, has been closed for renovations but should reopen in spring 2019.)
OVER 100 TYPES of BEER
TO CHOOSE FROM, COVERING EVERY RANGE OF STYLE
VIDA DULCE
836 East Chatham Street, #104, Cary facebook.com/vidadulcenc At this Mexican-style ice cream shop, you’ll find more than sixty flavors (try the pine nut or strawberry butter) and as many paletas, which come in fruit-forward flavors such as coconut and whimsical creations such as Oreo or fruity pebbles. Also worth a try: the churro split, starring three scoops nestled between two fresh, crispy churros and finished with a flurry of toppings.
1108 Broad St. • Durham • (919) 286-2359
YOGURT PUMP
106 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill yogurtpump.com YoPo has been serving sweet treats since 1982. Eight rotating flavors can be mixed, matched, swirled, and topped with anything from fresh fruit to crushed Oreos. Choose from such flavors as like sea salt caramel, brownie batter, or birthday cake, tart flavors such as raspberry, or fruit sorbets.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best Frozen Treats: The Parlour. Finalists: Locopops, Fresh. Local Ice Cream, Treat Ice Cream & Coffee.
2019
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10 BEST PLACES FOR LATE-NIGHT EATS IN THE TRIANGLE
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Late-Night Meal: Cosmic Cantina, Durham County; Time-Out, Orange and Chatham Counties; The Players’ Retreat, Wake County. 44
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WHISKEY KITCHEN
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BENNY CAPITALE’S
121 Fayetteville Street, # 110, Raleigh; 122 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill bennysva.com Benny’s oversize pizza by the slice is a lifesaver after a night out, with an ideal cheeseto-sauce ratio and ample crust to soak up the booze. You can’t go wrong with classics like cheese, pepperoni, or Italian sausage, but look for seasonal special slices, too. Even better? Slices are only around five bucks each. Open until 3:00 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
BULL MCCABES
427 West Main Street, Durham bullmccabesirishpub.com A popular downtown hang with plenty of Guinness on tap and a large yard to sprawl out in, Bull McCabes’s late-night menu offers a handful of bar-food favorites, including loaded tater tots, wings, and fish and chips, as well as brussels sprouts, until 2:00 a.m.
at Northside District, a lively and diverse menu of late-night bites awaits, from a lovely plantains-rice-and-beans plate to beef sliders seared with the Wu Tang Clan logo. Open nightly until 2:00 a.m.
PARTS & LABOR
723 Rigsbee Avenue, Durham motorcomusic.com/eats You’ll stumble right into this place, with its copious patio seating and warehouse-like interior, when you leave a show at Motorco. It’s the perfect next stop to keep drinking, but hold it down with some falafel or samosas, sliders or poutine.
TIME-OUT
201 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill timeout247.com Open, well, always, Time-Out is your last stop before home after the bars kick you out: fried chicken, burgers, breakfast, etc.
WHISKEY KITCHEN
201 West Martin Street, Raleigh whiskey.kitchen As its name suggests, Whiskey Kitchen has loads of brown liquor, which keeps pouring until 2:00 a.m. It also has a gourmet latenight menu that runs until closing, featuring entrées like lamb burger, muffuletta sandwich, and vegetable chili.
THE CARDINAL
713 North West Street, Raleigh facebook.com/TheCardinalBar Simplicity is the style: beer-braised hot dogs and beers to wash them down. The outdoor deck has one of the best hidden views of the Raleigh skyline, and it’s open until two every morning.
COSMIC CANTINA
1920 Perry Street, Durham Cosmic Cantina has a rep for being ideal drunk fare, but in our estimation, the steak nachos work pretty well sober. Of course, they work pretty well inebriated, too. Cosmic is open until 4:00 a.m. every night.
GO DURHAM 1/2 V
COUNTING HOUSE
111 North Corcoran Street Durham countinghousenc.com For a classier late-night bite, a dish of olives or even the fancy grilled cheese with fries at 21c Museum Hotel’s bar is hard to beat. It’s fun to check out the art exhibits at night, too, as if you’ve broken into a museum. It’s open until 1:00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN
THE FEDERAL
914 West Main Street, Durham thefederal.net The Fed’s nachos are the stuff of local legend, and like the mountainous servings of garlicky fries, they’re better for ending a night than beginning one. The Fed always has a quality selection of beers on tap and good cocktails just a quick request away, if you’re in the mood to keep going, too. Open until 2:00 a.m. every night.
NORTHSIDE DISTRICT
403 West Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill thenorthsidedistrict.com Seeing a noise-music show at Nightlight can really work up an appetite. Next door
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The 10 Best Places to Get NOODLES in the Triangle
PHO 9N9
2945 South Miami Boulevard, #102, Durham Pho is the signature dish, and it’s everything it should be. Generous bowls of rich, delicate beef broth and noodles are served with heaping plates of bean sprouts and basil. Drop in for lunch and get the pho tái, which comes with paper-thin slices of rare steak.
PHO FAR EAST
4011 Capital Boulevard, Raleigh This popular Raleigh spot is a particular favorite among chefs. The pared-down digs belie the bowls of rich, flavorful broth that await. If you need a side dish, go for the crispy spring rolls.
PHO VIETNAM
1284 Buck Jones Road, Raleigh phovietnamone.com You’ll find a reliable roster of Vietnamese snacks, but the specialty is pho, specifically pho bo, or beef noodle soup. Have your bowl topped with round steak, brisket, meatballs, or tendon.
RASA MALAYSIA
PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
410 Market Street, Chapel Hill rasamalaysiach.com Malaysian- and Singaporean-style cuisine is the focus at this Market Street spot. Skip the designated noodle section and instead pick one of the noodle dishes listed under “Kampung Favorites,” such as the mee goring— fried egg noodles with shrimp and chicken or veggies—or penang char kway teow, in which wide rice noodles mingle with fishcakes and bean sprouts in kechap manis, an Indonesian sweet soy sauce.
ROSE’S NOODLES, DUMPLINGS & SWEETS
THE BROTH
DASHI
BUA THAI
LIME AND BASIL
411 West Morgan Street, Raleigh morganfoodhall.com/vendors/the-broth Slurping is encouraged at The Broth, which dishes up bowls of soft egg noodles swimming in heady broths—spicy chicken kimchi, milky pork tonkatsu, or chicken—and garnished with the usual suspects, such as pork belly or a soft egg. 5850 Fayetteville Road, #101, Durham buathaidurham.com You can get a solid plate of pad thai or pad see ew, those ubiquitous stir-fried rice noodle dishes, but you’ll also find Thai-based noodle soups, such as guay tew neua, a rice noodle soup with well-done steak, braised brisket, and meatballs, or guay tew ped, rice noodles in duck broth with duck breast and leg.
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415 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham dashiramen.com Dashi, the name of the Japanese mother broth, is a good indication that the bowls of broth-based ramen at this downtown Durham go-to will be deeply flavored. Try the creamy porky tonkotsu, soy-based shoyu, funky-spicy kimchi, punchy miso, or shio. 200 West Franklin Street, #130, Chapel Hill limeandbasil.com This intimate Chapel Hill eatery serves some of the best bowls of steamy pho in the Triangle, but don’t miss the house specialty, a seafood-and-pork-based broth with either egg or rice noodles, topped with a protein-packed lineup that includes shrimp, scallops, pork, and chicken.
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ROSE’S NOODLES, DUMPLINGS & SWEETS
121 North Gregson Street, Durham rosesdurham.com The noodles at Rose’s fall into two main categories: ramen and belt noodles. The ramen stars springy noodles in a long-simmered pork broth that’s finished with garlic-infused lard, allowing the sauce to better cling to the noodles. Belt noodles, so named for their wide, flat shape, are pleasantly chewy and paired with combinations such as monkfish with fermented tomato broth or mutton with cumin-chili oil.
TONBO RAMEN
211 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh tonboramen.com Whether you opt for tonkotsu, shio, shoyu, or miso broth, you can count on an ample portion of chewy noodles and curated toppings. But if your bowl doesn’t come with the homemade dumplings or you’d rather have a poached egg than a soft-boiled one, upgrade accordingly from the add-on part of the menu. Round out your order with pork belly buns.
PHOTO BY JUSTIN COOK
The 10 Best Places to Get PASTA in the Triangle
THE BOOT
GOCCIOLINA
3314 Guess Road, Durham gocciolina.com The Goach (everyone else calls it that, too, right?) is one of our favorite Durham restaurants for reasons far beyond pasta, but the pasta is no slouch. We love the care and precision exerted on its modest portions, which make a satisfying entrée but leave plenty of room for exciting small plates. The little ramekin of gnocchi is just perfect.
MOTHERS & SONS TRATTORIA
107 West Chapel Hill Street, Durham mothersandsonsnc.com Durham restaurant overlord Matt Kelly and chef Josh “Skinny” DeCarolis’s pasta palace is stylish and modern but warmed by traditional touches, with menus in Italian and vintage Campari prints on the walls. On the plates is handmade pasta—a rarity in these parts—fashioned into a variety of noodles and doused with squid ink or cherry tomato sauce. Call it the fussier, fancier Gocciolina.
VIC’S ITALIAN RESTAURANT
331 Blake Street, Raleigh vicsitalianrestaurant.com Vic’s has been serving old-world Italian cuisine since 1998. The classic trattoria vibes make for a cozy atmosphere in which to enjoy traditional pasta dishes such as the fettuccine del re, where each ribbon of fettuccine is coated in an alfredo sauce with an ideal creaminess (not too thick, not too thin).
PULCINELLA’S
4711 Hope Valley Road, #1E, Durham pulcinellasitalianrestaurant.com Red sauce runs through the veins of Pulcinella owner Salvatore “Rino” Fevola, who roams the floor at his unfussy southern Italian strip mall gem. Go ahead and ruin your appetite on the bread, which comes with tomato-infused olive oil for dipping, but don’t miss the simple perfection of the penne marinara.
CUCCIOLO OSTERIA
601 West Main Street, Suite C, Durham cucciolodurham.com A new kid on Durham’s restaurant block, Cucciolo has a small, simple menu centered on quality ingredients. The linguine alla vongole, with middle-neck clams and cherry tomatoes, and the truffle tajarin, with black truffles and truffle paste, showcase Cucciolo’s noodle dishes at their finest.
MULINO ITALIAN KITCHEN & BAR
309 North Dawson Street, Raleigh mulinoraleigh.com You can’t go wrong with any of the expertly executed takes on classic Italian pasta dishes, but don’t miss the comforting slab of lasagna, made with ground beef and pork and both tomato and bechamel sauces. Snag a table in the gorgeous courtyard for carbs with a view.
IL PALIO
1505 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill ilpalio.com Located in the boutique Siena Hotel, Il Palio delivers luxe takes on pasta befitting its
2019
posh environs. Look for stepped-up classics such as burrata-stuffed ravioli with lobster and sage butter sauce or tagliatelle with black truffle pesto. The flour-averse can also sub in gluten-free pasta for any of the dishes.
THE BOOT
2501 University Drive, Durham thebootdurham.com Try not to fill up on the sourdough focaccia and olive oil so you can save room for several of chef Rob Kinneen’s crowd-pleasing pastas, such as orchiette with local sausage or linguine with N.C. shrimp. Other solid renditions of classics include spaghetti and meatballs and lasagna.
JIMMY V’S OSTERIA & BAR
420 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh jimmyvsraleigh.com The focus is on wood-fired, Italian-inspired fare such as pizzas, grilled chicken, and fish, but the spaghetti-and-meatballs is a delicious mouthful; a tangle of noodles comes with two six-ounce meatballs topped with marinara and shaved parmesan and a side of garlic toast.
CAFFE LUNA
136 East Hargett Street, Raleigh caffeluna.com This Moore Square gem serves up Tuscan-accented Italian fare in a light and airy space. Try the penne cappesante, in which scallops are paired with spinach sautéed in olive oil, or fantasia di mare, with fresh black taglierini featuring grouper and diced shrimp.
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THE 10 BEST PLACES TO GET PIZZA IN THE TRIANGLE
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Pizza: Pizzeria Toro, Durham County; Pizzeria Mercato, Orange and Chatham Counties; Lilly’s Pizza, Wake County. 48
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FRANK’S PIZZA & ITALIAN RESTAURANT
2030 New Bern Avenue, Raleigh frankspizzainraleigh.com Ask Raleigh old-timers—meaning, people who lived there before it became a foodie hub—what their pizza joint is, and more often than not, you’ll hear Frank’s. It’s nothing fancy; in fact, it’s the opposite of that. It’s cheap and in an eighties-era strip mall out east of town. The beer is the kind you get in a pitcher and drink quickly enough that it’s too cold to taste going down. But the thin-crust, New York-style pies, made with homemade dough, have made Frank’s a Southeast Raleigh fave for more than three decades.
HUTCHINS GARAGE
402 West Geer Street, Durham A new kid in town, having opened in 2018, Hutchins doesn’t offer a big list of specialty pies to choose from. There are usually six on the menu, a mixture of meat and vegetarian options (you can build your own, too). But what Hutchins does, it does well. And what it does really well is the Grandma’s Pizza, a rectangular pie with a thicker crust that’s sliced into squares. Get toppings if you want, but you don’t need them.
ITALIAN PIZZERIA III
508 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill italianpizzeria3.com There are a few Italian Pizzerias in the western Triangle, but IP3 is probably the bestknown—and the most renowned. For almost forty years, its fresh-dough Neapolitan- and Sicilian-style pies have been a townie favorite, always a perfect balance of cheese to sauce and as authentically Italian as you get in central North Carolina.
OAKWOOD PIZZA BOX
610 North Person Street, Raleigh oakwoodpizzabox.com From the black-and-white interior to the menu, Oakwood Pizza Box projects a minimalist aesthetic. But its simplicity lets the pies shine. Pick your base: “Cheese,” with tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil; or “white,” with mozzarella, ricotta, garlic, and basil. Then add toppings, just like that. Nothing posh, just good rounds (though you can also get a square).
PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
PIE PUSHERS
117 West Main Street, Suite A, Durham piepushers.com One of Durham’s favorite food trucks is now firmly ensconced in a second-floor brick-and-mortar downtown, specializing in a Southern twist on New York-style pizza, with specialty slices dressed in potatoes and kale, brussels sprouts and cauliflower. (There’s, like, pepperoni and stuff, too.) Fast, fresh, and affordable, Pie Push-
ers also slings slices late-night through its street-level window by essential music venue The Pinhook.
PIZZERIA MERCATO
408 West Weaver Street, Carrboro pizzeriamercatonc.com Perfectly charred Neapolitan-style pies pulled from a brick-lined oven. Ingredients fresh from the farmers market across the street. Chef Gabe Barker’s famous attention to detail. There’s a reason that, soon after Mercato opened in 2016, Bon Appétit declared it one of three best new pizza joints in the country. Nothing’s changed since.
PIZZERIA TORO
105 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham pizzeriatoro.com Toro’s thin, crisp wood-fired pies and creative topping combinations make it a topnotch pizza destination. Try a classic Margherita topped with buffalo mozzarella or a white pie with oyster mushrooms and a soft egg, and don’t forget to drizzle the house chili oil on top.
PIZZERIA FAULISI
215 East Chatham Street, Cary pizzeriafaulisi.com This cozy eatery is anchored by a wood-burning oven where you can see the pizza makers pulling out the bubbly, charred discs. From the roster of signature pies, standouts include the Red, White & Blue, topped with sour cherries and blue cheese, and the Salumi, with hot soppressata and mozzarella. Drop in on Tuesdays, when all specialty pies are $10.
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FRANK’S PIZZA & ITALIAN RESTAURANT
804 West Peace Street, Raleigh • 834-7070
Experience the authentic taste of Japan
TREFORNI NEAPOLITAN PIZZA
125 West N.C. Highway 54, Durham treforni.com Treforni chef and co-owner Dave Diggins learned the art of pie-making from Roberto Caporuscio, who learned it at the oldest pizzeria in Naples, the almost 120-year-old Pizzeria Starita. Diggins is a devotee of the Neapolitan style—he sources his ingredients from Italy, doesn’t overload his pies with toppings, and bakes them in ninety seconds or less in three 900-degree ovens.
TROPHY BREWING & PIZZA
827 West Morgan Street, Raleigh trophybrewing.com Trophy—the beer and the local business—has long since outgrown its original, now-way-too-small pizza spot on West Morgan. But if you’re lucky (or patient) enough to snag a table, split a Daredevil Pizza—ghost pepper salami, Sriracha, and jalapeños—and wash it down with a Trophy Wife IPA.
2019
Featuring rolling sushi bar as well as sashimi, made-to-order nigiri and abundant specialty rolls 105 N. Columbia St. Chapel Hill, NC 27514 919-968-4747 KuramaSushiNoodle.com
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PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
THE 10 BEST PLACES TO GET A SANDWICH IN THE TRIANGLE
LUCKY’S DELI
EASTCUT SANDWICH BAR
3211 Old Chapel Hill Road, Durham eastcutsandwich.com East Coast-inspired sandwiches dominate the menu at this self-styled sandwich utopia: chicken parm, cheese-fry steak hero, an Italian cold cuts sub with prosciutto cotto, hot capicola, salami, and hand-pulled mozzarella. There are decent options for vegetarians, too, such as the beets and goat cheese sammy and the house veggie burger, stacked with vegan black bean-lentil patties. Pair your choice with a side of sweet potato tots and a craft beer, then snag a seat on the outdoor patio.
KOKYU NA’MEAN
4823 Meadow Drive, Durham kokyubbq.com/nmean Tucked inside a strip mall off Highway 55, this sandwich shop feels like a best-kept secret between friends. Whether or not you’re a “sandwich person,” you’ll find something to love in the house specialty sandwiches, especially the Pyongyang Hot Chicken. Soft, airy bread surrounds crispy Korean fried chicken, crunchy pickled radish, and spicy jalapeños, creamy gochujang mayo, and saucy ssamjang.
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KING’S SANDWICH SHOP
701 Foster Street Durham kingssandwichshop.com Since 1942, King’s has served burgers, hot dogs, fries, and other lunchtime goodness near Durham Central Park. The sandwich menu has standbys like the BLT and hot grilled cheese, but also the Cackalacky King, a beer-soaked brat topped with pulled pork, coleslaw, hot sauce, and BBQ sauce, all piled onto a bun. Good luck staying awake through that afternoon conference call.
LUCKY’S DELI
105 West Chapel Hill Street, Durham luckysdelinc.com All your up-North deli staples can be found here, but the sandwiches are a cut above. We love the garbanzo with cucumber and tomato wheels on a toasty eight-inch hoagie roll, and the eggplant parm could feed a notso-small army.
MERRITT’S GRILL
1009 South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill merritsstoreandgrill.com You can order any of the delicious sandwiches and leave satisfied, but why would you, when there’s really only one reason to go to Merritt’s? Three reasons, actually: Bacon. Lettuce. Tomato. The Merritt’s BLT is the stuff of legend. Order it like a townie, on sourdough, with mayo, salt, and pepper.
. 2019
5 Best Places to Take Mom and Dad (on Their Dime) ANGUS BARN 9401 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh angusbarn.com THE DURHAM 315 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham thedurham.com ELAINE’S ON FRANKLIN 454 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill elanesonfranklin.com FEARRINGTON HOUSE RESTAURANT 2000 Fearrington Village Center, 200 Market Street, Pittsboro fearrington.com/house-menu STANBURY 938 North Blount Street, Raleigh stanburyraleigh.com
PUBLIX
Multiple locations publix.com We planned this magazine with a no-national-chains rule, and for the most part, we stuck to it. This is the exception. Throughout the Southeast, where the Publix Supermarkets chain is spreading its tentacles, the Pub Sub has gained a sort of infamy; it will in the Triangle, too, as Publix fans out from (where else?) Cary. The subs are made with freshbaked bread, fresh veggies, excellent meats and cheeses (Boar’s Head, if you want), and they’re always cheap, filling, and scrumptious. You can fight it all you want, but you’ll end up loving them, too.
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RUE CLER
401 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham ruecler-durham.com Pull up a seat at the bar at this Parisian-leaning bistro and pair a bowl of the soup du jour with one of the crepes or sandwiches—say a croque madame, a grilled ham and cheese topped with bechamel and a sunny-side egg, or the merguez frites, with spicy lamb sausage and fries piled onto a baguette slicked with harissa aioli.
Now MORE service to MORE places in Raleigh
PARKER & OTIS
112 South Duke Street, Durham parkerandotis.com Lots of folks stop by P&O for a quick breakfast nibble or a cup of coffee, or even to browse the books and gifts and impulse buys on offer. But come lunchtime, there’s also a bounty of delicious sandwiches on the menu—shrimp with Havarti and bacon on sourdough, tomato and fresh mozzarella on focaccia, a salami and white cheddar panini, and so on.
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A PLACE AT THE TABLE
300 West Hargett Street, Raleigh tableraleigh.org From the roster of scratch-made breakfast and lunch options, sandwiches rule, especially the triple-decker turkey-bacon-avocado club. At breakfast, you’ll find open-faced sandwiches, including avocado toast, and some excellent Southern biscuit breakfast sandwiches. Even better? Meals and donations at this pay-what-you-can cafe help feed the less fortunate.
raleighnc.gov/goroundraleigh
TOAST PANINOTECA
345 West Main Street, Durham toast-fivepoints.com Downtown Durham’s favorite paninoteca seals cured meats and cheeses in perfectly grilled bread, a rustic Italian style with a modern Durham flavor. Try the soppressata with fontina, arugula, and mustard, or the Tuscan kale with pickled peppers.
@goraleighnc
goraleigh.org 2019
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The 10 Best Places for SEAFOOD and SUSHI in the Triangle
SAINT JAMES SEAFOOD 52
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18 SEABOARD
18 Seaboard Ave #100, Raleigh 18restaurantgroup.com/18-seaboard Chef-owner Jason Smith’s penchant for local, sustainable sourcing is evident across the upscale Southern menu, particularly when it comes to seafood. You’ll find N.C. oysters, Pamlico Sound shrimp, and Carolina Classics catfish.
AKAI HANA JAPANESE RESTAURANT
206 West Main Street, Carrboro akaihana.com For sushi in Carrboro, proceed directly to Akai Hana, a welcoming, communal room where bright, fresh nigiri, sashimi, and rolls are longtime local fixtures. Not to worry, there’s plenty of udon and tempura for the sushi-squeamish. Dare you try the sushi burrito?
CITY MARKET SUSHI
315 Blake Street, Raleigh citymarketsushi.net When it comes to fresh, creative roll combinations, City Market Sushi is tops. Look for specialty rolls such as the Spicy Tuna Dynamite, with crab inside and baked spicy tuna outside, or the Hamachi Volcano, with crab, seared yellowtail, and eel sauce. For the best variety at lunch, opt for the “go” lunch box with multiple pieces of sashimi, nigiri, a tuna roll, and a seaweed-and-squid salad.
POSTAL FISH CO.
75 West Salisbury Street, Pittsboro postalfishcompany.com With its location in a former Pittsboro post office and fish-centric menu, it’s easy to see where Postal Fish Co. gets its name. Look to the “Hand Selected from the Docks” part of the menu to see what chefs James Clark and Bill Hartley have picked out that day—things like local monkfish and amberjack. Carolina peel-and-eat shrimp, raw oysters, and small plates such as steamed clams and fish cakes complete the seafood lineup.
SAINT JAMES SEAFOOD
806 West Main Street, Durham saintjamesseafood.com Saint James’s main draw is a raw bar with all manner of oysters, from fat and briny to mild and sweet. But if you want to go all in, there are towers overflowing with lobster and crab and beautifully plated seafood entrées bringing out the best in lobster, swordfish, and whatever else swims to shore.
SALTBOX SEAFOOD JOINT
608 North Mangum Street, 2637 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, Durham, saltboxseafoodjoint.com Whether you stop by the original shack on Mangum Street or the roomier location on 15501, you’re guaranteed the freshest regional seafood around. You’ll find familiar species
such as fried shrimp and flounder, but chef Ricky Moore is an evangelist for whole-pan fish like croaker. And while we’re at it, allow us to proselytize the virtues of Moore’s drool-worthy hush honeys.
ST. ROCH FINE OYSTERS + BAR
223 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh strochraleigh.com Chef Sunny Gerhart’s DTR eatery puts the spotlight on oysters, raw, roasted, and fried, but you’ll also find N.C. clams, a catch of the day, peel-and-eat shrimp, and crawfish—a nod to his New Orleans roots.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best Seafood Restaurant: Saltbox Seafood Joint. Best Sushi: M Sushi, Durham County; Akai Hana Japanese Restaurant, Orange and Chatham Counties; Waraji Japanese Restaurant, Wake County.
THE CORTEZ SEAFOOD + COCKTAIL
413 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh cortezraleigh.com The Cortez lives up to its billing with a menu of raw N.C. oysters on the half-shell, super-fresh ceviches punched up with citrus and spice, and plenty of plates starring N.C.-caught fish, including seared big-eye tuna, grilled swordfish, and whole red snapper. Don’t miss the gambas al ajillo, shell-on shrimp sauteed in a garlicky lemon-butter sauce.
J&J FISH AND CHICKEN
PHOTO BY LAUREN ALLEN
1403 South Miami Boulevard, Durham J&J serves perfectly cooked seafood with a vast array of sides, including fried okra and collards, along with a rainbow-like assortment of cakes. The popcorn shrimp is way more shrimp than breading, and the flounder is always fresh and cooked just right— crispy on the outside, moist and flaky on the inside. Confronted by the tempting menu and colossal portions, you’ll order way too much. That’s OK—everybody does.
M SUSHI
311 Holland Street, Durham msushidurham.com To put it simply, M Sushi is the best sushi spot in Durham, bar none. Here, the fish is fresh, the rolls are artfully prepared, and the nigiri is to die for. What else do you want? 2019
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THE 10 BEST PLACES TO GET SMALL PLATES AND TAPAS IN THE TRIANGLE
MATEO BAR DE TAPAS 54
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BODEGA TAPAS, WINE & RUM
110 South White Street, Wake Forest bodegawakeforest.com We don’t get to Wake Forest very often. (Unless you live there, you don’t either, don’t lie.) But this recently opened—in February 2019—spot in the town’s historic district might get us there more frequently. There are nearly forty wines by the glass, a killer rum list (and an inventive collection of rum cocktails) and a slew of delicious tapas: Parisienne gnocchi, warm goat cheese dip with oyster mushrooms, cider-braised pork belly, scallop ceviche, and more.
BU•KU
1228 Heritage Links Drive, Wake Forest bukuwakeforest.com OK, so maybe there are two reasons to go to Wake Forest: In 2018, bu•ku closed its downtown Raleigh location, and its planned Cary location (2800 Renaissance Park Place) hasn’t opened just yet—it’s planned for spring 2019—so for bu•ku aficionados, Wake Forest it is. Crab-stuffed avocados, lobster chowder, twice-fried cauliflower, Chinese steamed pork buns, and other creative dishes hold down the tapas menu.
COPA
107 West Main Street, Durham copadurham.com A small-plates restaurant rooted in farmto-table concepts and focused on nineteenth-century Cuban recipes, COPA serves standards like arroz con pollo and a spin on ropa vieja, but also almejas con salsa marinera (Southern clams in a rich sauce) and chuletas a lo Guajiro (locally raised pork chops with onions and parsley).
HUMMINGBIRD
JUJU DURHAM
737 Ninth Street, #210, Durham jujudurham.com Yes, Juju has a full menu of entrées, and we’re sure they’re great. But we’ve never made it past the Asian tapas—mushroom-and-cabbage dumplings, crab and shrimp cake, crispy brussels sprouts, chickpea chaat.
LUCHA TIGRE
746 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Chapel Hill, luchatigre.com At Lucha Tigre, the Asian-Latin fusion concept works even when it doesn’t seem like it should. The tapas menu features gems like tiger shrimp ceviche, empanadas with red curry chicken, and chicken tostadas with crispy wontons.
MATEO BAR DE TAPAS
109 West Chapel Hill Street, Durham mateotapas.com Mateo’s menu has an enormous selection of inventive Spanish-style tapas—everything from chicken liver pate to cold crispy pork skin, blood sausage spring rolls to bone marrow and smoked oxtail marmalade, shrimp and pork meatballs to the locally famous patatas bravas. Its ever-changing blackboard has even more options, some that thread the needle between “small plates” and “entrées” but leave you just full enough. If you ever see the sweet potato dish on there, go for it.
ORO RESTAURANT & LOUNGE
to the Chilean seabass and seared scallops, plow through the seared duck breast, Korean barbecue chicken, and caramelized pork belly, and, if there’s still room, get a crème brûlée or a warm chocolate molten cake with peanut butter cup gelato.
SO•CA
2130 Clark Avenue, Raleigh socaraleigh.com A Latin sister to bu•ku, so•ca features small plates like Salvadoran yuca frita, empanadas with black beans and North Carolina charred corn, and Guatemalan shrimp ceviche.
TABERNA TAPAS
325 West Main Street, Durham tabernatapas.com Spanish tapas and signature paellas make Taberna more than the other Mateo (it’s a few doors down). There’s charcuterie, bacon-wrapped dates, spicy lamb sausage, octopus, and more, served in portions perfect for sampling far and wide.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best Tapas in the Triangle: Mateo Bar de Tapas. Finalists: Humble Pie, Stanbury, Taberna Tapas.
18 East Martin Street, Raleigh ororaleigh.com Oro’s menu is made for sharing, and dishes are brought to the table throughout the meal. Start with the truffle mac ’n’ cheese, wokfried brussels sprouts, and grilled sweet potato with brown butter, make your way
PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
1053 East Whitaker Mill Road, #111, Raleigh hummingbirdraleigh.com Skip the bigs and stick to the smalls at Coleen Sparks’s New Orleans-inspired restaurant
and cocktail bar: charbroiled oysters, gumbo, smoked deviled eggs, frog legs, and other kinds of Big Easy goodness.
2019
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NANASTEAK 56
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THE 10 BEST PLACES TO GET STEAK IN THE TRIANGLE . 2019
ANGUS BARN
9401 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh angusbarn.com Since Angus Barn opened in 1960, it’s been the steakhouse in Raleigh, serving nearly twenty thousand steaks every month. Don’t miss the fourteen-ounce ribeye, executive chef (and Iron Chef America winner) Walter Royal’s favorite.
BIN 54
1201 Raleigh Road, Suite M, Chapel Hill bin54chapelhill.com Locals come to this steakhouse and tavern for a classic steakhouse experience. Start with the shrimp cocktail and wedge salad, then pick a classic cut—a dry-aged New York strip or bone-in ribeye, or splurge on the porterhouse for two—paired with sides such as creamed spinach casserole and duck-fat roasted potatoes. Wash it down with a Vesper martini (of James Bond fame).
DEATH & TAXES
105 West Hargett Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/death-taxes Everything at Ashley Christensen’s fine-dining restaurant gets the wood-fire treatment, which lends itself particularly well to the heritage New York strip steak paired with bone marrow butter or the dry-aged Bear Creek Farms steak with chimichurri. Double down with an order of the tartare, served with grilled ciabatta.
cut Heritage Aberdeen Black Angus grassfed beef steak that’s grilled over a wood fire until it develops a gorgeous crust, locking in a juicy interior imbued with a kiss of smoke. They range from twenty-eight to fifty ounces, so plan accordingly.
METRO 8 STEAKHOUSE
746 Ninth Street, Durham metro8steakhouse.com Sometimes overlooked in Durham’s foodie explosion, this Ninth Street stalwart is known for its polished service minus the pretension. The classics are all here, but any menu item that nods to chef-owner Francisco Pirillo’s Argentinean heritage is a sure bet. Order the generously portioned churrasco steak with chimichurri, and don’t miss the chocolate soufflé for dessert.
NANASTEAK
345 Blackwell Street, Durham nanasteak.com Next door to DPAC, NanaSteak has quickly become a Durham destination. All the usuals are here—slow-roasted prime rib, New York strips, and filets—but seek out the Wagyu flank steak, a leaner cut that still boasts plenty of rich marbling.
SECOND EMPIRE RESTAURANT AND TAVERN
330 Hillsborough Street second-empire.com Second Empire is known for its fine-dining fare, beautiful setting, and polished service (and prices to match). Seek out the grilled Black Angus filet, paired with Southern accents like country-style collards, fennel rutabaga slaw, and hominy ragout.
VINNIE’S
7440 Six Forks Road, Raleigh vinniessteakhouse.com Angus cuts such as prime New York strips and dry-aged ribeyes anchor the menu, but don’t miss the rarely seen bone-in filet mignon. Daily specials round out the menu, including N.C.-caught seafood, farmers market vegetables, and seasonal desserts.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Steak: NanaSteak, Durham County; Bin 54, Orange and Chatham Counties; Angus Barn, Wake County.
THE DURHAM
315 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham thedurham.com Though the menu changes seasonally, you can always count on the dry-aged steak. The grass-fed, bone-in ribeye is aged for a hundred days, grilled until smoky and charred, then sliced and served on a board with roasted mustard marrow bone and beef fat french fries.
JIMMY V’S STEAK HOUSE & TAVERN
PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
107 Edinburgh South, #131, Cary jimmyvssteakhouse.com This steakhouse, named for the late, beloved N.C. State basketball coach, has old-school charm and friendly service to match. You’ll find all the cuts here, but The Cowboy—a bone-in ribeye, rare, of course—is essential if you’ve got the appetite. From the allimportant sides menu, don’t miss the signature cottage fries or the bacon-roasted brussels sprouts.
MANDOLIN
2519 Fairview Road, Raleigh mandolinraleigh.com Mandolin tends to fly under the radar, but those in the know flock here for chef Sean Fowler’s elevated takes on Southern classics, and those really in the know ask for the off-menu bone-in ribeye. It features a hand2019
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T H E 10 BEST PLACES TO GE T TACO S I N THE TRIANGLE
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CANTINA 18
CANTINA 18
433 Daniels Street, Raleigh; 3305 Village Market Place, Morrisville 18restaurantgroup.com/cantina-18raleigh; 18restaurantgroup.com/ cantina-18-morrisville Chef Jason Smith mingles Southern sensibilities with Southwestern cuisine, and, as with his other restaurants, North Carolina ingredients and flair take center stage with tacos filled with blackened catfish or BBQ duck confit. There are excellent vegetarian options, too, such as crispy buffalo cauliflower.
102 South Merritt Mill Road, Chapel Hill With tacos that rival the best Austin or Los Angeles has to offer, Tacos El Niño is a white box truck that sits in a dusty parking lot at the end of West Franklin. The steak tacos— chunks of marinated meat mingling with chopped white onions and fresh cilantro— are simple, cheap, and require no superfluous seasoning.
TAQUERIA EL TORO
106 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh centroraleigh.com There’s a lot to love on Angela Salamanca’s Mexican menu. We especially dig the spicy pescado tacos, which, with battered, fried catch of the day topped with spicy cilantro mayo and pico de gallo, have been known to comfort even the most homesick California transplants.
3601 Junction Boulevard, Raleigh taqueriaeltororaleigh.com In a strip mall next to a Mexican grocery store, Taqueria El Toro features a dizzying menu of tacos. Seek out favorites such as al pastor (marinated pork), lengua (braised beef tongue), or hongos (mushrooms). Dress up your tacos at the salsa bar, where you’ll find the spicy roja and traditional toppings such as fresh lime, chopped cilantro, and diced onions. It also opens at 8:00 a.m. Tacos for every meal!
EL RESTAURANTE IXTAPA
TAQUERIA LA VAQUITA
CENTRO
162 Exchange Park Lane, Hillsborough ixtapa.homestead.com/homepage.html This family-run establishment throws a wrench in today’s omnipresent “fast casual” vibe with handmade tortillas and a focus on scratch-made. The fish tacos have been known to slay Tex-Mex and So-Cal cravings, with crispy white fish, crunchy purple cabbage, and corn slaw. While waiting on entrées to arrive, munch on freshly fried tortilla chips and guacamole and sip coconut water from a straw placed inside a freshly cut coconut.
GONZA TACOS Y TEQUILA
Multiple locations gonzatacosytequila.com Gonza’s menu focuses on modern Mexican dishes and tasty tacos. Try the chicken tinga, shrimp, or chili-braised short rib, then wash ’em down with a round of margaritas.
LA SUPERIOR CARNICERIA
3325 North Roxboro Street, Durham La Superior is foremost a grocery store, but its taqueria makes some of the best and most authentic tacos in Durham, if not the entire state. With corn tortillas made fresh in-house, the tacos are just a buck-fifty each for options like chorizo, tinga, and carnitas. For two bucks, you can get a braised lamb taco.
SUPER TAQUERIA PHOTO BY D.L. ANDERSON
TACOS EL NIÑO
2842 North Roxboro Street, Durham In a bright yellow building just down Roxboro from La Superior sits Super Taqueria, a taco joint that is no less authentic or delicious and also offers a salsa bar for you to experiment with (and burn your tongue on). There are lots of meat options, but vegetarians should opt for the bean burrito.
2700 Chapel Hill Road, Durham lavaquitadurham.com You’ll locate this casual taqueria by the cow that stands atop its roof. You’ll keep coming back for the cheap, authentic, delicious al pastor tacos.
TONALI
3642 Shannon Road Durham, Durham tonalirestaurant.com Former Four Square sous chef Andre Macias is making some of the tastiest tacos in Durham out by the post office on Shannon Road. Tonali’s affordable cuisine is more Mesoamerican than strictly Mexican, given its Mayan and Aztec influences. We’re hooked on the flounder tacos with tangy Mexican slaw, sweet mango salpicon, and earthy chipotle aioli.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Pick, Best Taqueria in the Triangle: Taqueria La Vaquita. Finalists: Nanataco (now Nuvotaco), Gringo A Go Go, Taqueria El Toro.
Breakfast All Day! 324 W. Rosemary Street 2019
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The 10 Best Places to Get VEGETARIAN and VEGAN Food in the Triangle
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THE FICTION KITCHEN
428 South Dawson Street, Raleigh thefictionkitchen.com Central North Carolina, of course, is a place that treats barbecue like religion, so when we say that chef Caroline Morrison’s soybased imitation of Eastern N.C.-style pulled pork is as good or better as the best ’cue around, that’s about the highest (and most dangerously heretical?) compliment we could pay. If you’re not in the mood for fake pork, there’s plenty of other vegetarian entrées to enjoy—from “chicken” and waffle to sashimi tofu—rotating based on what ingredients are seasonally available.
GOORSHA
910 West Main Street, Durham goorshadurham.com You know you’ve found the right place when the menu has a vegan section that is given the same emphasis as beef and chicken. That’s Goorsha, a family-run modern Ethiopian restaurant offering richly colored combinations of split pea, collard greens, cabbage, lentils, and much more to sop up with spongy injera.
HAPPY & HALE
Multiple locations happyandhale.com The emphasis here is on fuel to power your day, and there are lots of vegetarian choices—from smoothies to quinoa and acai bowls, falafel to avocado toast—all served in a lively, lunchtime-grab-and-gofriendly atmosphere.
there’s plenty of actual meat for your, ahem, less morally evolved pals, in addition to soy chicken wings and Nashville hot tofu.
SAGE VEGETARIAN CAFE
1129 Weaver Dairy Road X, Chapel Hill sagevegetariancafe.com This charming cafe in a Chapel Hill strip mall features Persian-influenced salads, soups, and hot-pressed sandwiches and wraps for a lighter bite. Heartier entrées for lunch and dinner include vegetable kababs, Caribbean black beans, and an “eggplant paradise.”
THE SPOTTED DOG RESTAURANT AND BAR
111 East Main Street, Carrboro thespotteddogrestaurant.com Having cravings for Southern comforts like red beans and rice and barbecue? For spicy flautas? A classic burger? Spotted Dog has veggie and vegan renditions to satisfy. Try the vegan Carolina crab cakes, made with a splash of bourbon and served on a bun with remoulade and vegetables.
VEGAN COMMUNITY KITCHEN
803 East Williams Street, Apex vegancommunitykitchen.com This Apex gem features Turkish and Mediterranean vegan food cooked in a 100 per-
cent vegan kitchen. Try the baked seitan doner kebab atop sliced pita bread with tomato and yogurt sauces, any of the vibrant salads, and a trio of colorful hummus.
VEGAN FLAVA CAFE
306 West Franklin Street, Suite G, Chapel Hill, veganflavacafe.com The husband-wife team behind Vegan Flava Cafe craft much of their vegan soul food from raw or living ingredients. Be sure to seek out the barbecue jackfruit, collard wraps, and Too Tasty Tacos, made from a mix of raw walnuts and nutritional yeast.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best VeganFriendly Restaurant: Luna Rotisserie and Empanadas, Durham County; Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe, Orange and Chatham Counties; The Fiction Kitchen, Wake County.
LIVING KITCHEN
555 Fayetteville Street, #10, Raleigh livingkitchen.com Fully organic and always plant-based, Living Kitchen serves things like acai bowls and Quinoa Porridge (quinoa, coconut milk, coconut meat, cardamom, cinnamon, Brazil nuts, berry compote) for breakfast, and a BBQ oyster mushroom sandwich and broccoli mushroom pizza (with cashew ricotta cheese) for lunch and dinner. There’s also a full array of cold-pressed juices.
PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
RALEIGH RAW
7 West Hargett Street, Raleigh raleighraw.com Raleigh Raw began as a raw juice company, and that’s probably its biggest claim to fame. But its cafe has a plethora of healthy options, too, most of which are suited to vegans. There are smoothies (with coconut “mylk”), oatmeal, poke bowls (of the fish and non-fish varieties), and soups, all of it the kinds of stuff your doctor wants you to eat more of.
THE REMEDY DINER
927 West Morgan Street, Raleigh theremedydiner.com If you’re looking for veg-friendly food with a little less fuss than Fiction, Remedy Diner is your prescription. And unlike Fiction, here
GRIDDLED
2637 Durham Chapel Hill Blvd 608 N. Mangum St. • Durham saltboxseafoodjoint.com
Be healthy • Be strong
H CATFIS
FLOUNDER
FILLET
ROLLS SEARED SCA LLOPS
AKAI HANAA
Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar 206 W. Main St., Carrboro • 919-942-6848 909 A Arendell St., Morehead City • 252-222-3272 www.akaihana.com 2019
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M KOKKO
10 BEST PLACES TO GET WINGS IN THE TRIANGLE HEAVENLY BUFFALOES
1807 West Markham Avenue, Durham; 407 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill heavenlybuffaloes.com Heavenly Buffaloes bills itself as “the wing joint you’ve been looking for,” and delivers with a menu of wings—boneless, bone-in, or vegan (which have earned a cult following of their own)—that you can order dry (with 62
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rubs) or wet (choose from more than a dozen sauces, including vegan buffalo). Order a bunch of blue cheese and a (massive) side of the waffle fries to complete your meal.
IT’S A SOUTHERN THING
605 West Main Street, Durham itsasouthernthingdurham.com As the name suggests, It’s a Southern Thing
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embraces all things South. Among them: smoked wings, drizzled with Eastern N.C.style vinegar sauce.
M KOKKO
311 Holland Street, Suite B, Durham M Kokko, chef Mike Lee’s second Durham restaurant, is adjacent to his first (M Sushi) and around the corner from his third (M Tem-
pura). It specializes in Korean fried chicken, and both the spicy-sweet wings and the soy garlic wings quickly became the talk of the town after it opened in 2016. If anything, M Kokko is a victim of its own success—with just twenty seats, it’s too small to accommodate all the people who want to eat there.
stand up to the misperception that this bar food is mere throwaway meat. The stickysweet Thai chili wings are so crispy they cut through the perpetually lively conversation at this favorite townie haunt.
MASON JAR TAVERN
4600 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, #26, Durham, zwelis.com As the name suggests, piri piri chicken dominates the menu—piri piri refers to the namesake pepper and marinade—and the wings are an excellent way to sample the peppery flavors and fire-kissed skin. Vegetarians can get a taste of the signature peppery sauce with the piri piri tofu.
114 Grand Hill Place, Holly Springs themasonjartavern.com The Mason Jar is a Holly Springs favorite, not least because of its consistently good comfort food fare. But its wings—available in boneless or traditional, with sweet heat dry rub, buffalo, house BBQ, or honey BBQ— seem tailor-made to be washed down with some of Mason Jar Brewing’s craft suds.
ZWELI’S PIRI PIRI KITCHEN
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Wings: Heavenly Buffaloes, Durham County; The Wooden Nickel Pub, Orange and Chatham Counties; Lynwood Grill, Wake County.
MATTIE B’S PUBLIC HOUSE
1125 West N.C. Highway 54 Durham mattiebs.com There are plenty of choices when it comes to the comfort-food-heavy menu at Mattie B’s, including a stellar lineup of wings. You can get the normal sauces—medium, hot, BBQ, etc.—but don’t miss the guava cayenne, with its sweet-spicy kicker.
NORTHSIDE DISTRICT
403 West Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill, thenorthsidedistrict.com Sure, chicken wings are ubiquitous bar food, but the Scorpion wings at Northside accomplish a rare feat by delivering quality meat and actually bringing the heat. The sticky sauce complements the crackly skin while delivering an immediate burn that intensifies with every bite, begging to be paired with a crisp lager.
THE PROVINCIAL
119 North Salem Street, Apex theprovincialapex.com The can’t-miss order at this buzzy-yet-cozy eatery in downtown Apex is the Chinesefive-spice chicken wings. They come with a ginger-soy dipping sauce, but honestly, the piping-hot wings are so flavorful—with a supremely crispy coating and the irresistible savory smack of cinnamon, cloves, fennel, and star anise, coupled with a lip-tingling sensation from the Szechuan peppercorns— that you won’t need it.
SAMMY’S TAP & GRILL
PHOTO BY BOB KARP
2235 Avent Ferry Road, Raleigh sammystapgrill.com Order like a pro and get your wings extra crispy, then choose from scratch-made sauces. Your best bet: the Sammy sauce, bolstered with fresh habaneros.
THE WOODEN NICKEL PUB
113 North Churton Street, Hillsborough thewnp.com The wings here have skin thick enough to 2019
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THE BEST IN LOCAL DRINK
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THE BEST Bars in Durham............................................................. 66 Bars in Orange/Chatham.............................................. 70 Bars in Wake.................................................................. 72 Bottle Shops................................................................... 74 Breweries/Cideries ...................................................... .76 Cocktail Bars.................................................................. 78 Coffee Shops.................................................................. 80 Distilleries...................................................................... 82 Dive Bars......................................................................... 84 Bar Snacks...................................................................... 86
Sports Bars.................................................................... 87 Wine Bars....................................................................... 88
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Best in Durham County
Best Bar, Orange and Chatham Counties The Crunkleton 320 West Franklin Street thecrunkleton.com Walking into The Crunkleton feels a little like walking into a well-appointed hunting cabin. It’s dark and filled with food and there are taxidermied animal heads on the wall and there’s a bartender in a bowtie. There’s what looks like an endless array of liquor bottles behind the bar, whiskeys that stretch on and on—rye, bourbon, single-malt, blended. The cocktails are sophisticated and spirit-forward, mashing together liquors like mezcal and scotch with pineapple and chile and somehow making it all work. (That one’s called the High Plains Drifter, by the way.) The bar is on Franklin, but the drinks are too pricey for (most of) the undergrads, so you’ll usually find a mix of postgrads, professors, and townies in conversation, and maybe it’s about last night’s UNC game, but you imagine it’s about Nietzsche or Bukowski or Proust because that seems more fitting. If only you were allowed to smoke a pipe.
ALLEY TWENTY SIX 320 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham alleytwentysix.com When Shannon Healy opened Alley Twenty Six in 2012, the local craft cocktail scene had yet to take off. Not only did Alley’s bartenders make inspired versions of classics like old-fashioneds and Sazeracs, but there was also an always-inventive menu of house specialties and a huge collection of high-quality liquors, aperitifs, bitters, and cordials. It immediately became a go-to for a pre-dinner drink or nightcap. Five years later, Healy expanded, adding a full-service kitchen that focuses mostly on meticulously crafted small plates (and one rather large burger). The year after that, Alley leaned into the tiki trend, punching up all manner of rum-flavored concoctions. Both restaurant and bar get busy, even though there are several craft-cocktail competitors within a few blocks. That’s because its commitment to quality continues to shine in every drink its bartenders pour.
10 OTHER PLACES YOU HAVE TO GO 316 West Geer Street, Durham facebook.com/accordionclubdurham Accordion Club is a friendly, comfortable neighborhood bar with a solid draft list and a good assortment of bottles and cans—some of the $2 Milwaukee variety—and a large patio out back for sunny spring afternoons. You’re better off ordering a whiskey-rocks than a hifalutin cocktail. The prices are reasonable, and the pours are stiff.
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ARCANA
331 West Main Street, Durham arcanadurham.com Given its cool, scruffy basement-bar atmosphere, you wouldn’t suspect that this tarot-themed watering hole has some of the best bartenders in town, whether they’re mixing their shrubby house cocktails or classics like Sazeracs. Whatever your drink—and whether the bar is hosting a Super Secret Dance Party or a weird ambient instrumentalist or nothing at all—Arcana is always a cool spot to kill a couple of hours.
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ATOMIC FERN
108 East Parrish Street, Durham atomicfern.com The Fern mixes smart, quality cocktails and has a good selection of craft beers, but the atmosphere sets it apart. In this small, industrial-chic space, you’ll find a small bar, good music (playing at a reasonable volume), lots of pleasant conversation, and board games and comic books aplenty. Pop in with a couple of friends for a drink, a game, and a laugh.
PHOTO BY ALEX BORNER
ACCORDION CLUB
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BAR BRUNELLO
117 East Main Street, Durham barbrunello.com Esteban Brunello knows his way around a grape. It’s not just orange wines—the unusual variety he offers by the flight, complete with an explanation of their history and flavor profile, which has become Bar Brunello’s unique lure. It’s everything he has behind the bar: reds, whites, rosés, oranges, Spanish, French, Italian, Slovenian, Argentinean, whatever. Bar Brunello is a small space with excellent ambiance; grab a seat at the bar and let Estaban take your taste buds on a global adventure.
BAR VIRGILE
105 South Mangum Street, Durham barvirgile.com Nestled in a dark, cozy space within eyeshot of DPAC, Bar Virgile makes some of the finest cocktails around. Its take on a Boulevardier—like a Negroni, but with whiskey instead of gin—ranks among the best we’ve ever had. If you can beat the post-work rush, grab a seat at the bar and ask the bartender to surprise you.
KOTUKU SURF CLUB
703 Rigsbee Avenue, Durham For the uninitiated, no one ever calls this
place “Kotuku.” It’s just Surf Club. And at Surf Club, you’re bound to run into someone you know. That’s just how the place is: friendly and unfussy. A neighborhood bar where everyone is your neighbor. There’s plenty of outdoor space for brisk autumn evenings and good cocktails to warm you up.
PARTS & LABOR
723 Rigsbee Avenue, Durham motorcomusic.com/eats Adjacent and attacked to Motorco’s music venue, P&L has a big patio that, on clear nights, is full of couples and families and dogs and awkward dates, spread across large communal picnic tables. Inside are a few more tables and some seats at the bar, but unless the weather’s bad, there’s no reason to stay indoors. There’s good food—the hipster poutine is a favorite—a wide selection of beers, and well-made drinks, but the atmosphere sets P&L apart.
THE PINHOOK
117 West Main Street, Durham thepinhook.com This landmark Durham bar and music venue does more than host shows by local and touring bands of all stripes; it’s also home to open mics, open jams, drag shows, politi-
cal letter-writing nights, and trivia. A punky, inclusive, activist spirit keeps it simple and affordable. You’ll chase a shot with a tallboy and only be out a few bucks.
PONYSAURUS BREWING
219 Hood Street, Durham ponysaurusbrewing.com Like other Durham breweries, Ponysaurus’s taproom showcases its beers (get the Scottish ale) as well as a few guest taps. But the selling point here is the gorgeous outdoor space, with picnic tables and grills and a rotating food truck and sometimes kids running around and usually a few pups to love on.
THE ROOF @ THE DURHAM HOTEL
315 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham thedurham.com/roof The cocktails are excellent, though pricey. The crowd is lively, though sometimes overwhelming. The bartenders—well, they do their best to keep up with it all. But views of downtown Durham, especially on a crisp, clear evening with a drink in your hand and a special someone by your side, are spectacular.
HI-WIRE BREWING
PHOTO BY ALEX BORNER
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THE CRUNKLETON 20 West Franklin Street thecrunkleton.com Walking into The Crunkleton feels a little like walking into a well-appointed hunting cabin. It’s dark and filled with wood and there are taxidermied animal heads on the wall and there’s a bartender in a bowtie. There’s what looks like an endless array of bottles behind the bar, whiskeys that stretch on for days—ryes, bourbons, single-malts, blends. The cocktails are sophisticated and spirit-forward, mashing together liquors like mezcal and scotch with pineapple and ancho chili and coffee and somehow making it work. (That one’s called the High Plains Drifter.) You’ll usually find a mix of postgrads, professors, and townies in conversation, and maybe it’s about last night’s UNC game, but you imagine it’s about Nietzsche or Bukowski because that seems more fitting. If only you were allowed to smoke a pipe.
Best in ORANGE & CHATHAM COUNTIES 10 OTHER PLACES YOU HAVE TO GO THE BAXTER BAR & ARCADE
108 North Graham Street, Chapel Hill baxterarcade.com The Baxter is the kind of place you dreamed when you were a kid. Classic arcade games— Donkey Kong, Galaga, etc.—line the walls, and the bar top is decoupaged with comic-book panels. Under-twenty-ones are allowed on weekends from noon to five. But while you don’t need to drink to have fun at The Baxter, The Baxter is still very much a bar. There’s an 70
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excellent craft beer selection, decent wines, and well-made mixed drinks, all at cool prices in an atmosphere that exudes fun.
But it upgrades era-appropriate fare to modern craft-cocktail standards. Yes, there will be egg whites and activated charcoal.
BELLTREE
BOWBARR
100 Brewer Lane, Carrboro facebook.com/belltreespeakeasy Though it’s pretty new, Belltree wants you to feel like you’re somewhere old. It’s styled as a Prohibition-era speakeasy, with period décor and a stealthy location behind a carwash.
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705 West Rosemary Street, Carrboro facebook.com/bowbarr Bowbarr is your classic townie indie-rocker bar—a dim yet colorful, grungy but comfy barroom full of trucker caps and tattoo sleeves; a wee courtyard where smokers
make their last stand; strong, affordable, no-nonsense cocktails; and PBR cans supporting a pyramid of choicer beers. A pre- or post-Cat’s-Cradle-show must, it’s also home to a vintage photo booth.
THE EDDY RESTAURANT & PUB
1715 Saxapahaw-Bethlehem Church Road, Saxapahaw, theeddypub.com The Eddy’s tagline is “Seriously Local Food,” and that local ethos is pervasive in everything it does. The pub aims to do for Saxapahaw—which, we should note, is in Alamance County, not Orange or Chatham, but is being lumped in here because, one, it’s we like it, and two, we have nowhere else to put it— what pubs in England do for their villages: be a gathering space where everyone is welcome. The loud, low-slung, communal space is a great place to meet folks over local beers. Or go outside on the patio and watch the sun set over the Haw River.
an eternal townie watering hole can. It succors a mix of ancient fixtures and new-blood college students, with friendly bartenders shouting over Archers of Loaf on the jukebox, a pool table, a smoky back patio, and decades of local-music-scene sweat grimed into its creases.
THE WOODEN NICKEL PUB
113 North Churton Street, Hillsborough thewnp.com Put simply, The Nickel is Hillsborough’s neighborhood bar. Excellent bar food, cheap (and surprisingly good) drinks, decent beer,
chill vibe, great people—there’s a reason it’s always bursting at the seams.
STEEL STRING BREWERY
106 South Greensboro Street, Carrboro steelstringbrewery.com Steel String leans into Carrboro’s eccentricities when crafting its funky, unexpected takes on sours and IPAs. Its spacious, industrial-chic taproom is a great place to relax with friends and make your way through everything on the draft list (then take a few bottles home for good measure).
GLASSHALFULL
106 South Greensboro Street, Carrboro glasshalfullcarrboro.com Part wine shop, part wine bar, Glasshalfull maintains a twenty-five-bottle list drawn heavily from France, Italy, and the U.S.— malbecs to chardonnays to pinot noirs and more—and has some three hundred in the shop. (On Mondays, bottles are half-price.) If wine isn’t your thing, order a craft beer or cocktail while you grab dinner.
LANTERN
PHOTO BY BOB KARP
423 West Franklin Street lanternrestaurant.com Lantern is known foremost as a restaurant— according to this magazine, the best restaurant in this part of the Triangle, in fact— but you shouldn’t overlook its outstanding bar program. Head down the alley to the Lantern Garden and order a cocktail, perhaps the Walk Right In, a concoction of bourbon, muddled blueberries, and lemon.
NORTHSIDE DISTRICT
403 West Rosemary Street, Chapel-Hill thenorthsidedistrict.com This Chapel Hill spot, right on the edge of Carrboro, has existed under a score of different names for a good two decades, and, with minor modifications, it’s always the same: a cozy interior with a barroom, dining room, and comfy parlor, and a patio that serves as one of the smoker’s last redoubts. The straightforward cocktails are dependably good and occasionally inspired, the craft beer is smartly selected, and the food menu is great for warming up or coming down from a night out on the music scene.
ORANGE COUNTY SOCIAL CLUB
108 East Main Street, Carrboro facebook.com/ocsc.carrboro The OCSC inspires a kind of devotion only 2019
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Best in WAKE COUNTY
THE GREEN LIGHT 108 East Hargett Street, Raleigh architectbar.com/the-green-light The idea of a regular bar having a speakeasy that’s supposed to be a secret even though everyone knows about it is admittedly ostentatious. But we’ll give The Green Light a pass for that. We’ll give it a pass, too, for making you go through the silly ritual of walking up the long flight of stairs into The Architect Bar, turning to the right, and then entering behind a bookcase. We gladly endure all of this because, once you’re actually inside the small, dark lounge, there’s really no bar in Raleigh like The Green Light. The pre-Prohibition cocktails are otherworldly good, the throwback vibe is chill and charming, and the bartenders have forgotten more about the devil’s water than the rest of us will ever know. Get a reservation if you can.
10 PLACES YOU HAVE TO GO 10 OTHER BLIND BARBOUR
3055 Medlin Drive, Raleigh blindbarbour.com Blind Barbour manages to be both a comfortable neighborhood hang and a craft cocktail destination. The talented bartenders are the key. They ask questions, listen, and create drinks you like. While you’re there, ask about the weekly “break-even bottle” (a good way to sample fine booze on the cheapish), 72
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the special cabinet of antique liquors, and the Prohibition-inspired story behind the bar’s name.
C. GRACE COCKTAIL BAR
407 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh cgracebar.com A burlesque-inspired basement speakeasy that is both on but seems far removed from Glenwood’s bustling entertainment district,
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C. Grace serves sophisticated cocktails that elevate classics into something new. Order a Negroni, sink into a plush couch, and let the always-excellent jazz musicians on stage transport you to a more elegant era.
FOUNDATION
213 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh foundationnc.com With good vibes and great cocktails, this Fay-
etteville Street basement bar gets packed on weekend nights. Foundation focuses on inventive drinks made with seasonal ingredients and regional and American spirits— you’ll find no Campari behind the bar. You might, however, find the occasional Pappy Van Winkle among its excellent collection of bourbons. To avoid the crowds, hit up Foundation after work or, better yet, on Sunday.
FOX LIQUOR BAR
237 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/fox Because Ashley Christensen can do no wrong, her foray into bars is as well-conceived and executed as any of her restaurants. Space abounds, and there’s a giant book full of creative cocktails to choose from. When you’ve made your selection, mosey over to a nearby couch to relax and chat with friends.
GALLO PELÓN MEZCALERIA
106 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh gallopelon.com No need to ask, Gallo Pelón is the first to tell you: You won’t find a single worm in any of the more than fifty artisanal mezcals behind the bar. What you will find here is an intimate, upscale spot that pays homage to the oft-misunderstood, underappreciated Mexican liquor commonly referred to as “tequila’s smoky cousin.” Sit down for a pour by the glass or flight, or pick from a list of several mezcal cocktails at North Carolina’s first mezcaleria.
THE PLAYERS’ RETREAT
105 Oberlin Road, Raleigh playersretreat.net The PR has been a Raleigh institution since 1951. There’s good food, a pool table, a bar that spans the length of the building, an outdoor patio, a ridiculously large single-malt scotch selection, and unexpectedly good wine offerings, too. (You wouldn’t think it to look at the place, but the PR regularly gets Wine Spectator’s award of excellence.) But really, you go here because it’s the PR, because it’s where you go to watch N.C. State games or to see an old friend or to have a meeting over a drink or just to hang out among friendly faces.
RUBY DELUXE
414 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh rubydeluxeraleigh.com In 2015, Tim Lemuel set out to create a fun, lively, queer-friendly space in downtown Raleigh. What he created was Ruby Deluxe, which is all of those things and more. It hosts goth nights and drag shows, but also video game nights and open mics and retro techno nights and K-pop dance parties and everything in between. Not quite a dive, the bar is simple and unpretentious: there’s a good beer selection, but no fancy cocktail list—just whatever you want to drink, mixed by great bartenders.
RALEIGH BEER GARDEN
614 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh theraleighbeergarden.com With a quite-literally exhausting beer menu—more than 350 beers on tap—RBG holds the Guinness world record for the largest selection of draft beers available in a restaurant. If you want it, it’s here, or at least something like it. Want an IPA? They’ve got about three dozen, most from North Carolina—everything from dark IPAs to sessions, rye IPA to head-slamming triples. Oh, you’re in the mood for a sour or a gose, perhaps? You’ll have to make do with a meager selection of, uh, fifteen. And so on. You’ll never run out of new things to try.
PHOTO BY BOB KARP
THE HAYMAKER
555 Fayetteville Street, #115, Raleigh thehaymakerraleigh.com The quirky-yet-polished design—think mismatched leather armchairs, velvet couches, a dramatic floral mural, and oneoff chandeliers—are a tip-off to the eclectic drinks you’ll discover. Split a punch bowl with friends and you’ll be handed sets of teacups and saucers to drink out of, or craft an original cocktail from ingredients such as kiwi shrub, passion fruit jasmine-infused vodka, or mango chili puree.
PERSON STREET BAR
805 North Person Street, Raleigh person-street.com Person Street Bar is a beautifully uncomplicated thing. It’s a neighborhood bar, directly between Oakwood and Mordecai. There’s a good beer selection. There are friendly bartenders who make outstanding cocktails, including a rotating menu of specialty cocktails. There’s also a very cool, if small, outdoor space, which you can retreat to if (and when) things get loud.
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THE 10 BEST BOTTLE SHOPS IN THE TRIANGLE
PELAGIC BEER & WINE 74
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BEER STUDY
2501 University Drive, #4, Durham; 106 North Graham Street, Chapel Hill beerstudy.com The original Beer Study, in Chapel Hill, has a wall stacked with craft beer, a well-chosen assortment of local and craft brews on tap, and a dozen or so crowlers you can grab to go. The second location, a collaboration with Starpoint Brewery in Durham, takes this beer-cathedral motif to another level: more taps, more beer, more space, games, events, tap takeovers, you name it.
BOTTLE REV
Multiple locations bottlerev.com The erstwhile Bottle Revolution has five Triangle locations, some owned by founder Ted Gross, others licensed under operating agreements. But the idea is the same: great beer, drawing largely from North Carolina and the region, and a shop staffed by suds enthusiasts who will help you find whatever you’re looking for.
CARRBORO BEVERAGE COMPANY
102 East Main Street, Suite A, Carrboro facebook.com/carrborobevco Though humble in footprint, this crumbly brick building houses a towering array of beers, with a knowledgeable, friendly staff drawing numberless North Carolina brews, exotic imports, and interesting specialties. Taste from the taps and then grab a bottle to go.
THE GLASS JUG BEER LAB
5410 N.C. Highway 55, Suite V, Durham glass-jug.com The Glass Jug is part bottle shop, part beer garden, and part microbrewery, making experimental suds befitting the Beer Lab name. There are events almost every night, from live music, beer-release parties, and food trucks to a running club and disc golf putting league.
PADDY O’BEERS
SAM’S BOTTLE SHOP
1112 N.C. Highway 54, Durham samsbottleshop.com At the end of 2018, John Boy surrendered to the inevitable and sold Sam’s Quik Stop, the Erwin Street landmark that has since been razed and will soon turn into apartments for Duke students. Sigh. But his other bottle shop remains. And though it doesn’t have a half-century of history under its belt, Sam’s website boasts that it has the largest beer selection in North Carolina, and, well, we have no reason to doubt it. There’s also good beer on draft and a nice upstairs patio on which to enjoy it.
STATE OF BEER
401 Hillsborough Street, Suite A, Raleigh stateof.beer A bottle shop and sandwich spot from the guys behind Trophy Brewing, State of Beer has about a dozen beers on tap—a few offerings from Trophy, but also interesting brews from the likes of Florida’s Cigar City and San Diego’s Mikkeller. On shelves and in coolers, you’ll find loads of other smartly curated beers from North Carolina and beyond. Grab and beer and a sandwich and sprawl out on the street-side patio or take home a crowler of your fave.
TASTY BEVERAGE CO.
327 West Davie Street, Raleigh tastybeverageco.com Located in an old train station, Raleigh’s first bottle shop set the standard, and it still has one of the city’s largest selections of craft beers in bottles, cans, buckets, and crowlers, including lots of rare gems you’ll be hardpressed to find anywhere else. The nine taps run the gamut from California barley wines to Charlotte dark ales to Brooklyn sours, and change up all the time.
DRINK DRANK DRUNK
905 West Morgan Street, Raleigh drinkdrankdrunk.rocks Small, friendly, lots of regulars—there’s good beer in the cooler, on the handful of taps, and on the shelves, with a few seats inside and more on the patio out back. Also: nice name.
2018 Readers’ Picks, Best Retail Beer Selection: Sam’s Quik Shop (closed), Durham County; Beer Study, Orange and Chatham Counties; Pelagic Beer & Wine, Wake County.
GOOD IS GOOD, Y’ALL!
IP3 PLACE TO BE
516 W. Franklin St. / Chapel Hill 919.904.7659 708 Market St. / Southern Village 919.914.6694
508 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC 27516
121 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh paddyobeers.com Paddy O’Beers is as much a DTR neighborhood hangout as anything else. The small shop is packed with six-packs from floor to ceiling. It also offers a handful of beers on tap and a sunny outdoor patio on which to enjoy, ahem, patio beers.
PHOTO BY BEN MCKEOWN
PELAGIC BEER & WINE
300 Pace Street, Raleigh pelagicbeerandwine.com Families and dogs are welcome at this smallish, friendly, low-key Oakwood spot. Pelagic dedicates its nine taps to the best of N.C. brews and ciders—Burial, Fonta Flora, Bhavana, Ancillary* Fermentation, etc.— and sells only craft bottles only from independently owned breweries.
Extensive Wine List | Creative Cocktails | Small Plates Event Space | Weekly Live Music West End Wine Bar of Chapel Hill 450 West Franklin 919.967.7599
West End Billiards of Durham 601 West Main Street 919.717.3915
2019
West End Wine Bar of Durham 601 West Main Street 919.381.4228
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ANCILLARY* FERMENTATION
ancillaryfermentation.com This isn’t actually a brewery—at least, not one with a permanent address. Instead, it’s a side project from the minds behind Bond Brothers (see below) and Fortnight Brewing that debuted in October 2018—a themed, once-a-month popup that benefits a nonprofit. In March, for example, they released two canned American IPAs, Yard Work and Yard Games, at Anisette Sweet Shop in Raleigh, with some of the proceeds benefitting the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants. Despite the low profile, the beer is getting national buzz. Must try: Whatever they offer
THE 10 BEST BREWERIES (AND CIDERIES) IN THE TRIANGLE
BOND BROTHERS BEER COMPANY
202 East Cedar Street, Cary bondbrothersbeer.com Among the most acclaimed breweries around, Bond Brothers excels at a wide variety of styles, from IPAs and sours to saisons and brown ales. You won’t find a bad beer on tap. Must try: Obfuscate (American IPA)
BOTANIST & BARREL
105 Persimmon Hill Lane, Cedar Grove botanistandbarrel.com You probably haven’t tasted a cider like Botanist & Barrel’s before. Blurring the lines between cider, sours, and wine, B&B leans on whole-fruit fermentation, eschewing additives or forced carbonation. The adjuncts it does use—for instance, aging in tequila or port barrels—add to the flavor profile rather than overwhelming it. Must try: Sour Blueberry Cider
BREWERY BHAVANA
218 South Blount Street, Raleigh brewerybhavana.com This brewery—also a dim sum restaurant, bookstore, and flower shop—is sometimes overshadowed by its sister elements, but it shouldn’t be. The beers, from the basic session IPA to the mango peppercorn saison, live up to the exceedingly high standards set by Bhavana’s muchheralded food. Must try: Wilt (Cherrywood-smoked quad)
BULL CITY CIDERWORKS
PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
305 South Roxboro Street, Durham bullcityciderworks.com It didn’t take long after Bull City Ciderworks opened in 2013 for it to become a Durham favorite. The Off Main, its signature cider, is a mainstay on taps all over the city, but Bull City is big on seasonal offerings and experiments, too. Must try: Smooth Hoperator (dry-hopped cider)
BOND BROTHERS BEER COMPANY
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CRANK ARM BREWING
319 West Davie Street, Raleigh crankarmbrewing.com A bicycling-culture-focused brewery in the Warehouse District, Crank Arm makes high-quality, always-unfiltered beers that are painstakingly produced and never disappointing. Must try: BMX Barleywine (American barley wine)
DURTY BULL BREWING COMPANY
206 Broad Street, #104, Durham durtybull.com IPAs put asses in the seats, but Durty Bull is really focused on sours and barrel-aged ales produced with old-world techniques. That’s a mixed blessing, as Durty Bull makes some mighty fine IPAs that aren’t always in production. Must try: Bourbon Barrel-Aged Baltic Porter
LYNNWOOD BREWING CONCERN
1053 East Whitaker Mill Road, Raleigh lynnwoodbrewing.com In 2017, Lynnwood was ranked the third best brewery in the country (and the best in North Carolina) in the U.S. Open Beer Championship, and was awarded a gold medal for its Hop on Top IPA, Hop Sauce West Coast IPA, and Once You Go Black IPA. Not too shabby. Must try: Hop on Top (American IPA)
STEEL STRING BREWERY
106 Greensboro Street, Carrboro steelstringbrewery.com Like its hometown, Steel String loves to get weird, using local and sometimes foraged ingredients to produce taste-bud-poppers like the Obvious Child, a sour, mixed-culture saison made from local malts and midsummer herbs including honeysuckle and ginger. Must try: Poor Laurie (barrel-aged Britt Saison)
THE OUTPOSTS Editor’s note: These two aren’t natives—both originated and brew in Asheville but have set up taprooms in the Triangle—so they didn’t make the list. But they make excellent brews, so we wanted to shout them out anyway.
BURIAL BEER COMPANY
500 East Davie Street, #170, Raleigh burialbeer.com In January 2019, Burial opened a small beer cafe and art exhibit space attached to Transfer Co. Food Hall. Two months later, it announced an expansion—which should tell you something. Must try: Concepts of Dismemberment (Imperial/Double IPA)
HI-WIRE BREWING AT GOLDEN BELT
800 Taylor Street, Durham hiwirebrewing.com Hi-Wire’s Durham taproom clocks in at nearly nine thousand square feet, not including the outdoor covered patio and beer garden. (It also evicts children by 8:00 p.m.) The brewery made a name for itself with the HiWire Lager, Bed of Nails Brown, and Hi-Pitch Mosaic IPA, but if those don’t tickle your fancy, there are plenty more options. Must try: Hazy & Juicy & Hoppy & Fresh (hazy IPA)
5 Best-Kept Secrets BANH’S CUISINE 750 Ninth Street, Durham EL CHAPIN 4600 Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard, #38, Durham el-chapin.com FRANK’S PIZZA & ITALIAN RESTAURANT 2030 New Bern Avenue, Raleigh frankspizzainraleigh.com FIESTA GRILL 3307 N.C. Highway 54 West, Chapel Hill fiestagrill.us TONALI RESTAURANT 3642 Shannon Road, Durham facebook.com/TonaliRestaurant
TROPHY BREWING
656 Maywood Avenue, Raleigh trophybrewing.com Trophy ranks among the most prolific IPA makers around, and might make the cleanest, tastiest session IPA—Trophy Wife—in the state, as well as stouts and pilsners galore. And that’s just the beginning of Trophy’s myriad concoctions. Must try: Lombardi (Belgian quad aged in apple brandy barrels)
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Brewery: Ponysaurus Brewing Company, Durham County; Mystery Brewing Company (closed), Orange and Chatham Counties; Trophy Brewing, Wake County.
FIRST EVER
CAN RELEASE
TWO FOOD TRUCKS | TWO BANDS
May 18
12-9pm
5410 HWY 55, DURHAM GLASS-JUG.COM
2019
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The 10 Best COCKTAIL BARS in the Triangle
THE OAK, KITCHEN & BOURBON BAR 78
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ALLEY TWENTY SIX
320 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham alleytwentysix.com The O.G. of downtown Durham’s craft cocktail scene, Alley Twenty Six has an ace whiskey selection and serves up refined, sharp takes on traditional cocktails. Venture down its ever-changing drinks menu, however, and you’ll find all sorts of unusual pairings and innovations: a version of a frozen hurricane with passionfruit; a Hot Ca’Toddy, with chai-infused tequila; a Jay May, with Wild Turkey, apple brandy, and sweet potato, etc.
BAR VIRGILE
105 South Mangum Street, Durham barvirgile.com Bar Virgile does the classics admirably—a nice old-fashioned, a mighty fine boulevardier—alongside a coterie of inventive cocktails that change with the seasons, made by friendly bartenders who go out of their way to make sure you get the drink you want.
BELLTREE
100 Brewer Lane, Carrboro facebook.com/belltreespeakeasy A couple of tables, a lounger sofa, some bar seats, intimate lighting, an entrance that is actually difficult to find—Belltree’s take on the speakeasy is rich in ambiance, but its true genius lies in the meticulously crafted drinks, widely considered the best in Carrboro, from the usual suspects to the house specials.
THE OAK PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER. COUNTNG HOUSE PHOTO BY JUSTIN COOK.
THE CRUNKLETON
spot for an after-work drink. Focusing on local and American spirits (nothing comes from outside the U.S.), Foundation crafts creative, sometimes surprising cocktails using only top-quality ingredients.
5 Best Places to Pop the Question
FOX LIQUOR BAR
237 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh ac-restaurants.com/fox This is an Ashley Christensen joint, so you should expect nothing less than the best. There’s a book full of craft cocktails to choose from, and they’re all crafted to perfection.
HUMMINGBIRD 1053 East Whitaker Mill Road, #111, Raleigh hummingbirdraleigh.com LITTLER 100 East Parrish Street, Durham littlerdurham.com
THE GREEN LIGHT
108 East Hargett Street, Raleigh, architectbar.com/the-green-light A tiny speakeasy hidden behind a bookcase inside The Architect Bar, The Green Light— from Hargett Street, look up to spot a green light, which tells you it’s open—has a throwback vibe and outstanding drinks.
RUE CLER 401 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham reucler-durham.com SAINT JAMES SEAFOOD (GO UPSTAIRS) 806 West Main Street, Durham saintjamesseafood.com
THE OAK, KITCHEN & BOURBON BAR
TALULLA’S (GET THE RAISED TABLE) 456 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill tallulas.com
320 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill thecrunkleton.com The Crunkleton’s dark, wood-rich ambiance seems designed to spark an instinctual craving for brown liquor. There’s something like five hundred bottles of booze behind the bar, including one of the finest collections of bourbon anywhere in the Triangle, which allows for a smart, extensive drink menu.
wide variety of libations (and snazzy snacks), but we’re there for the house cocktails. We were heartbroken when the Uptown Girl, a Manhattan-like concoction with house-made plum syrup, went out of season, but with the addition of the Shapeshifter, which mixes rye and bourbon with cider, brown sugar, ginger, and clove, all is forgiven.
COUNTING HOUSE
213 Fayetteville Street, Raleigh foundationnc.com Small and dimly lit, this underground spot gets crowded on weekends but is the perfect
111 Corcoran Street, Durham countinghousenc.com Our favorite art hotel’s vibey bar offers a
FOUNDATION
4035 Lake Boone Trail, Raleigh jmrkitchens.com/oak The Oak, near the North Carolina Museum of Art, is one of those places you wouldn’t stumble upon unless you were looking for it. But once you’re there, it’s a whiskey lover’s dream, with more than sixty styles of bourbon (including a house variety) and a deepcut cocktail menu that pairs well with its excellent entrées.
WATTS & WARD
200 South Blount Street, Raleigh wattsandward.com This swanky underground bar has a vintage library vibe straight out of a Sherlock Holmes novel. Enjoy live jazz and craft cocktails in one of the multiple rooms outfitted with wooden furniture and leather couches, or under the stars in the large outdoor space full of picnic tables.
For Vegans, Vegetarians, and Omnivores Alike Since 1975
Live Music Every Evening, Tues – Sun | More on Saturday Café: 919-833-8898 / irregardless.com • Catering: 919-610-0872 / irregardlesscatering.com 2019
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The 10 Best 10 Best Places to Get COFFEE Dessert in the Triangle SHOPS in the Triangle
OPEN EYE CAFE
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42 & LAWRENCE
134 East Martin Street, Raleigh 42lawrence.com Stop by this downtown Raleigh spot for lattes and nitro cold brew on draft—for the best of both worlds, opt for the Black & Tan. You can also snag pastries from Boulted Bread or lucettegrace and purchase bags of beans of the small-batch “experimental” coffees (locally roasted at Larry’s Coffee).
BEYÙ CAFFÈ
341 West Main Street, Durham beyucaffe.com When you want to sip and settle in with a book or focus on that overdue project, this downtown Durham cafe is your jam. For an espresso beverage that drinks like dessert, opt for the Runaway Latte, laced with praline syrup, cayenne pepper, and a dusting of cinnamon. (You can also get a cuppa and East Durham Bake Shop pastries at Beyù Blue on Duke’s West Campus.)
COCOA CINNAMON
Multiple locations cocoacinnamon.com Lots of Durham residents will swear that Cocoa Cinnamon makes the best coffee drinks in town. (The Al Mohka? Heck, yeah.) There are three locations serving up pourovers, lattes, and specialty coffees, but the Lakewood outpost, on Chapel Hill Road, has something the others don’t: churros. That one’s our favorite.
rep as one of the best coffee roasters in the state. It now has five cafes in the Triangle— and two more in the Triad—where you can put that coffee to work in delicious lattes, cortados, cappuccinos, and brews.
LOOKING GLASS CAFE
601 West Main Street, Durham lookingglasscafe.us Looking Glass started as the place you’d go to if Open Eye (see below) was too crowded. As that became more often the case, Looking Glass built its own dedicated first-choice base on the strength of its service and its more spacious outdoor seating.
JUBALA COFFEE
8450 Honeycutt Road, 2100 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh jubalacoffee.com Come for the Counter Culture espresso drinks (try the vanilla latte), stay for the waffles, which boast a crisp-caramelized exterior and soft-bordering-on-doughy-interior.
THE MORNING TIMES
10 East Hargett Street, Raleigh morningtimes-raleigh.com You order downstairs. You collect your beverage. You try not to spill it on yourself as you navigate the stairs up to the second floor, where tables await and the room buzzes: businesspeople meeting, keyboards
clacking, students reading, couples laughing, friends eating. The coffee drinks are well-crafted (with Counter Culture beans) in all the usual ways, but it’s the atmosphere that’s made The Morning Times DTR’s go-to coffee shop for more than a decade.
OPEN EYE CAFE
101 South Greensboro Street, Carrboro openeyecafe.com Open Eye is a lodestar of local cafe culture, for both its longevity and for its seriousness about coffee, with owners who judge barista competitions and fly around the world to meet suppliers. The staff is drilled in arcane espresso arts; whatever you order, you’ll get a fine traditional cup. The space is huge but often packed. It’s a great place to meet and mingle—except at peak laptop hours, when it can look like a weirdly homey coding boot camp.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Coffee Shop: Cocoa Cinnamon, Durham County; Caffe Driade, Orange and Chatham Counties; Cup a Joe (Hillsborough), Wake County.
GRAY SQUIRREL COFFEE COMPANY
360 East Main Street, #100, Durham graysquirrelcoffee.com This artisan coffee roaster and espresso bar has a clean, modernist vibe. Focusing on precision and service more than volume, Gray Squirrel roasts small batches and serves a narrow menu. Take home a half-pound of beans or let expert baristas bring out the best in them for you.
PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
HEIRLOOM BREWSHOP
219 South West Street, Raleigh heirloombrewshop.com Between the one-of-a-kind coffee, tea, and sake drink menu, eye-catching ceiling, and artfully placed pink accents throughout the room, Heirloom is simply bewitching. Inspired by its founders’ Laotian and Taiwanese heritage, the brewshop—which opened on the bottom floor of The Dillon in the Warehouse District in 2018—is relaxed and sophisticated, serving inspired concoctions like the five-spice brown sugar latte.
JOE VAN GOGH COFFEE ROASTERS
Multiple locations joevangogh.com Since 1991, Joe Van Gogh has been expertly roasting beans sourced from high-quality suppliers all over the world, earning its 2019
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YOUR GUIDE TO THE TRIANGLE’S DISTILLERIES
PERSON COUNTY
DURHAM COUNTY DUKE ST.
In 2010, there were just seven distilleries in North Carolina. Today, there are more than eighty—and that number keeps rising. Five years ago, there were maybe a half-dozen active spirits makers in the Triangle; now there are eleven, and at least two more distilleries are in the works. With a little luck, and some help from the General Assembly, the state’s liquor industry could take off the way craft beer did a decade ago.
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1. TOPO ORGANIC SPIRITS 505 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill topodistillery.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Vodka, gin, whiskey, moonshine, spiced rum WHAT TO GET: TOPO Organic Straight Wheat Whiskey, $49.95/0.75 L
15
6 I-40
SOUTHPOINT
I-85
70
CHAPEL HILL ST.
CHAPEL HILL
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501
64
441
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501
LEE COUNTY
82
WAKE COUNTY
CHATHAM COUNTY
BEAR CREEK
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PITTSBORO
4. THE BROTHERS VILGALYS SPIRITS COMPANY 803 Ramseur Street, Suite D, Durham brothersvilgalys.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Krupnikas (Lithuanian-style spiced honey liqueur) and other liqueurs WHAT TO GET: Krupnikas, $31.95/0.750 L
BIA
CARRBORO
T. NS
CO
54
1
DURHAM COUNTY
LUM
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WAKE COUNTY
1212 North Mineral Springs Road, Durham whatismystic.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Bourbon, bourbon-honey liqueur, gin WHAT TO GET: Heart of Mystic (cask-strength bourbon), $29.95/0.375 L
I-40
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3. MYSTIC FARM & DISTILLERY
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ORANGE COUNTY
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OAK GROVE 70
193 Lorax Lane, Pittsboro fairgamebeverage.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Rum, apple brandy, vodka WHAT TO GET: Apple Brandy, $29.95/0.75 L
FR
DURHAM
501
2. FAIR GAME BEVERAGE COMPANY WINE AND SPIRITS
GREENSBORO ST.
3
ORANGE COUNTY
711 Washington Street, Durham durhamdistillery.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Gin, vodka, liqueurs WHAT TO GET: Conniption Navy-Strength Gin, $39.95/0.75 L
6. GRAYBEARD DISTILLERY
. 2019
4625 Industry Lane, Durham bedlamvodka.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Vodka WHAT TO GET: Bedlam Vodka, $19.95/0.75 L
GRANVILLE COUNTY
WAKE FOREST
98
FRANKLIN COUNTY
1
I-540
DURHAM COUNTY 70
8
401
11 I-40 I-440
I-87
9
KNIGHTDALE
7
RALEIGH
CARY 64
CHATHAM COUNTY
APEX 70
JOHNSTON COUNTY
1
I-40 55 401
NORTH HILLS
HOLLY SPRINGS
401
I-440 1
FUQUAY-VARINA HARNETT COUNTY
10 N.C. STATE
WA K E 7. LASSITER DISTILLING COMPANY
319 North First Avenue, Knightdale lassiterdistilling.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Rum WHAT TO GET: Lassiter’s Rum Au Café, $25.95/0.75 L
1
WESTERN BLV D.
DOWNTOWN RALEIGH 401
64
I-87
BLVD. ER KING JR. MARTIN LUTH
I-40
8. LONERIDER SPIRITS
8816 Gulf Court, #100, Raleigh loneriderspirits.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Bourbon WHAT TO GET: Lonerider Bourbon Whiskey Sherry Cask Finish, $39.95/0.75 L
9. PINETOP DISTILLERY
1053 East Whitaker Mill Road, Raleigh pinetopdistillery.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Gin, moonshine WHAT TO GET: Carolina Moonshine, $26.95/0.75 L
10. RALEIGH RUM COMPANY
1100 Corporation Parkway, #132, Raleigh raleighrumcompany.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Rum WHAT TO GET: Sweet Dark Rum, $24.95/0.75 L
11. SEVENTY-EIGHT° C SPIRITS
2660 Discovery Drive, #136, Raleigh 78cspirits.com WHAT THEY MAKE: Citrus liqueurs WHAT TO GET: Blood Orangecello, $29.95/0.75 L 2019
Note: Prices based on the ABC Commission’s quarterly price list, February 2019.
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THE 10 BEST DIVE BARS IN THE TRIANGLE
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SLIM'S
THE ACCORDION CLUB
where everyone feels at home, and that’s why it’s a Durham favorite. There’s a rotating list of top-notch crafts on the blackboard, pretty good cocktails, a full menu (go with a group, split the nachos), and the possibility, if not the likelihood, that you’ll bump into an acquaintance.
BEER WINE CIDER
THE GREEN ROOM
1108 Broad Street, Durham facebook.com/ TheGreenRoomDurham Were it not for the excellent selection of craft bottles behind the bar and the lack of cigarette smoke, entering this un-gussiedup pool hall would be like taking a time portal three decades into the past. (They shot a key Bull Durham scene there, and the place hasn’t changed much since.) There’s beer, there’s pool, there’s rock music, there’s usually a so-bad-it’s-good horror movie on the small TV; you play, you drink, you talk, you watch, you laugh.
106 MAIN
106 East Main Street, Durham, 106main.com It’s dark, it’s rarely crowded, the drinks are stiff and cheap, the bartenders are friendly, and it’s right in the heart of downtown Durham. What the hell else do you want?
THE ACCORDION CLUB
SLIM’S PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE. THE ACCORDION CLUB PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER.
316 Geer Street, Durham instagram.com/accordionclub It’s too clean to be a proper dive, but The Accordion Club is also the kind of place where you’re better off ordering a shot and a beer than a cocktail. The beer selection runs the gamut from quality N.C. craft to canned Milwaukee crap, and the whiskey goes from decent to drink-it-fast.
BOWBARR
705 West Rosemary Street, Carrboro There are stools at the bar. There’s a long leather couch. There’s a TV and VCR player that both date to the eighties. There’s a good beer selection. There are good drinks at good prices. There are cymbals on the wall. There’s a working photo booth. It’s a good place.
DAIN’S PLACE
754 Ninth Street Street, Durham facebook.com/dainsplacedurham There’s usually not much in the way of cell service at Dain’s, which makes trivia night all the more honest. There is, however, good beer at better prices, good-enough mixed drinks, and the best bar food on Ninth Street. It’s also one of the better places to catch whatever game’s on.
THE FEDERAL
914 West Main Street, Durham thefederal.net The Fed is one of those unpretentious places
HAVANA DELUXE
437 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh havanadeluxe.com Walking down the stairs is like discovering your Uncle Walter’s man cave. It’s a bit dark. There are overstuffed sofas and chairs to sink into. A small TV is tuned to an NHL contest. The distinctive aroma of cigar smoke permeates. Havana Deluxe has the comfort and feel of a beloved dive while offering top-flight bourbons, scotches, ryes, and, yes, cigars. Its unassuming, old-school vibe is best experienced on a midweek night.
THE KRAKEN
2823 N.C. Highway 54 West, Chapel Hill facebook.com/KrakenBarChapelHill One part roadside dive, one part local hang, one part rock ’n’ roll clubhouse, The Kraken’s rough-and-tumble exterior belies a sweet and welcoming bar staff ready to offer up their corner of the Triangle to you for a suds-soaked, rock-filled evening.
120 E CHATHAM ST. Pharmacy Bottle + Beverage is your local destination for great beer, wine, and good times. 16 taps on rotation, wines, and a selection of cans and bottles, come see what the buzz is all about.
neighborhood restaurant + bar
160 E CEDAR ST. - R E S E R VATI O N S 919-378-9493 -
Postmaster restaurant focuses on seasonal southern fare in a modern neighborhood setting.
Downtown Cary
Quickly Tea House
Durham’s Original Boba Tea Shop
ORANGE COUNTY SOCIAL CLUB
108 East Main Street, Carrboro facebook.com/ocsc.carrboro There’s a Yelp review for OCSC that pretty well sums it up: “OCSC may be a frequent hangout for the tragically hip crowd and the indie scene, but even a local yokel like myself can feel right at home.”
SLIM’S
227 South Wilmington Street, Raleigh slimsraleigh.com At twenty years old, Slim’s is DTR’s oldest music venue—and intimate, too, at a hundred people max. But even when no one’s playing—bands usually start around nine—there are cheap drinks and a well-stocked bar.
2019
quicklydurham.com | 984.888.0137 2604 A Hillsborough Rd. | Durham, NC 27705
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NORTHSIDE DISTRICT
10 Best Places for BAR SNACKS in the Triangle
403 West Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill thenorthsidedistrict.com Get: Wu Tang slider Northside’s bar food marries low and highbrow, barroom and gourmet. And there’s no better example of that than the Wu Tang slider—seared pork belly that sticks out from a small bun (branded with the Wu Tang Clan’s logo, because why not?), with sesame slaw, pickles, scallions, and chili oil piled on top, forming some kind of delectable juice. They’re only four bucks apiece.
THE OAK, KITCHEN & BOURBON BAR
ACCORDION CLUB
316 West Geer Street, Durham facebook.com/accordionclubdurham Get: Frito pie Ever since Accordion opened in 2017, one of the low-key Geer Street spot’s hallmarks— and one of the bar’s handful of food offerings—has been the Frito pie, a Southwestern import that is not a pie but rather a Fritos bag (yes, the corn chips) cut down the side and loaded with pork chili (made with Hatch peppers), cheese sauce, onions, and sour cream. Can you think of a better late-night match for a shot of whiskey and a beer? (Not recommended for first dates.)
THE CARDINAL BAR
713 North West Street, Raleigh facebook.com/TheCardinalBar Get: Hot dogs The Cardinal Bar is not a restaurant. It’s a bar. (You have to have a membership to get in.) But it does have a very specific food menu: hot dogs. “It’s like Office Tavern and The Roast Grill on steroids,” an owner told The News & Observer when it opened in 2016, referring to the since-shuttered Glenwood South dive and the hot-dog institution. The Cardinal steams the dogs in beer and serves them in a bun brushed with mayo. Unlike The Roast Grill, ketchup is allowed.
COUNTING HOUSE
111 North Corcoran Street, Durham countinghousenc.com Get: Grilled cheese When you’ve got time to kill—whether on an overcast afternoon or a toward the end of a Friday night (food is served until 1:00 a.m.)—wander by the 21c Museum Hotel’s ground-floor restaurant and order a house cocktail and the grilled cheese sandwich. It’s not as ordinary as it seems, loaded with Grafton cheddar and tomato chutney. If nature calls, the transparent bathroom stalls are upstairs. Please lock the door. 86
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DASHI
415 East Chapel Hill Street, Durham dashiramen.com Get: Edamame Dashi is known for ramen, but there’s more to it than that. You can also head upstairs to the izakaya, sample sake or Japanese whisky, and order small plates—fried tempura, for example, or comfort food like lamb buns. But you shouldn’t miss the edamame, with sea salt and togarashi, well-spiced, hot off the grill, and perfect for munching.
THE FEDERAL
914 West Main Street, Durham thefederal.net Get: Nachos The best thing about The Fed is its simplicity. It’s easy, inexpensive, and consistently good. The cocktails do the trick, the beer selection is terrific, but the nachos—this insane portion of tortilla chips stacked with loads of sour cream and pico de gallo and melted cheese, which is actually half the size it used to be but could still feed an army of drunk undergrads—are a necessity.
LOCAL 22 KITCHEN AND BAR
2200 West Main Street, Durham local22durham.com Get: Hush puppies Local 22 sometimes gets overlooked amid the crush of Durham’s restaurant scene, but there are plenty of tasty hangover helpers on the brunch menu, and the cast-iron pimento cheese is a damn marvel (though it will put you in a food coma). Whenever you’re there, check the chalkboard for the cast-iron hush puppies of the day, which could be something like jalapeño pepper, or red pepper, broccolini, and parmesan, or something else entirely, but will always be delicious.
. 2019
PONYSAURUS BREWING
219 Hood Street, Durham ponysaurusbrewing.com Get: Snack Attack The Snack Attack isn’t a food, but a menu—a range of bar snacks found inside Ponysaurus’s East Durham taproom, ranging from sweet to salty, all for just $1 per plentiful scoop, the perfect accompaniment to a Saturday afternoon spent lounging in the sun and sipping on a Rye Pale Ale. You’ve got options: Capital Crunch, which mixes salty peanuts, honey roasted peanuts, cheese crackers, pretzels, and Cajun hot corn sticks; The Big Cheese, with nacho peanuts, cheese crackers, cheese wicks, and so on; crispy fried okra; wasabi-covered peanuts; and, if you (or your kids) have a sweet tooth, Swedish fish or malted milk balls.
THE VICEROY
331 West Main Street, Durham viceroydurham.com Get: Bhaji with chaat Viceroy has some British fare, but it leans heavily on its Indian roots, having been born from an Indian food truck. For a quick snack—either as an appetizer or while you’re sipping a Mumbai Mule at the bar—order the bhaji (mixed-vegetable fritters, a popular snack served in several variations on different parts of the subcontinent) and add chaat (a chickpea masala with tomato, onion, yogurt, and chutney).
PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
LOCAL 22 KITCHEN AND BAR
4035 Lake Boone Trail, Raleigh jmrkitchens.com/oak Get: The tots The Oak has a ton of bourbons, including somewhat obscure varieties, so for the brown-liquor connoisseur, it’s worth the trip even if you don’t plan on eating an entire meal. (There’s perfectly good bar seating.) Regardless, do yourself a favor and get the tots. Yes, tater tots are quintessential bar food. But The Oak’s tots are different: They’re bigger—so big, you’ll at first wonder if they screwed up your order—and stuffed with roasted bell and jalapeño peppers, then served with a peppercorn dipping sauce and an option for cheese and/or bacon.
THE 10 BEST SPORTS BARS IN THE TRIANGLE
THE LONDON BRIDGE PUB
BRALIE’S SPORTS BAR
1725 Carpenter Fletcher Road, 4707 Hillsborough Road, Durham braliesbar.com The original Bralie’s, a hole-in-the-wall at the southern tip of Durham, is small, cheap, and uncomplicated. There usually a game on the TV, sometimes live music, beer aplenty, pool, darts, and cornhole to keep you occupied, shot specials (and a Jager tap) to get you lit, and burgers to sop up the alcohol. Bralie’s 2 is pretty much the same idea.
THE BRICKHOUSE SPORTS BAR & GRILLE
3801 Hillsborough Street, #135, Raleigh brickhouse-nc.com The Brickhouse, between N.C. State and 440, has ten 120-inch projection-screen televisions and sound boxes that let you listen to whatever game you want. There’s also food and alcohol—including a surprisingly good selection of North Carolina spirits.
PHOTO BY JEREMY M. LANGE
BULL MCCABE’S IRISH PUB
427 West Main Street, Durham bullmccabesirishpub.com If there’s a game on—baseball, football, tennis, golf, rugby, soccer, anything ACC, whatever—it’ll probably be on one of Bull McCabe’s TVs, and you can watch it while sipping a Guinness and gnawing on a Pub Burger. If your crew wants to watch one of those European footie matches that starts when the rest of us haven’t gotten out of bed on Saturday morning, let them know. If there are enough of you, they’ll open early.
DEVINE’S RESTAURANT & SPORTS BAR
904 West Main Street, Durham devinesdurham.com Durham has changed a lot since Devine’s opened in 1978. Devine’s, not so much.
There’s food (burgers, wings, etc.), alcohol (booze, beer, wine), and every TV sports package known to humanity, as well as a cool outdoor patio and live entertainment.
THE LONDON BRIDGE PUB
110 East Hargett Street, Raleigh thelondonbridgepub.com London Bridge is only a sports bar if your sport is soccer, in which case it is the sports bar in downtown Raleigh. It’s also a good place to grab a pint, hang out on the back patio with friends (and dogs), and hit the dance floor when the weekend DJs are doing their thing. But if you enjoy the Beautiful Game, then on Saturday mornings, and whenever the European Premier League is playing—or anytime there’s soccer on the telly—this is where you want to be.
PANTANA BOB’S
305 West Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill facebook.com/PantanaBobsCH The beer—more PBR than IPA—is always cold, the wings are always great, and there’s no better place in town to catch up with friends and watch a game than the spacious back patio.
THE PLAYERS’ RETREAT
105 Oberlin Road, Raleigh playersretreat.net The PR has been a Raleigh institution for more than a half-century, in no small part because it’s simply where you go to watch N.C. State games. (They’ll play other games on the fifty-inch plasma TVs, too.)
THE TAVERN FOOD & SPIRITS
1900 West Markham Avenue, Durham thetaverndurham.com A decade ago, the Tavern moved from South Durham into its current six-thousand2019
square-foot digs on Markham, in the heart of Duke country. With pool, trivia, karaoke, darts, live music—not to mention bar food, beer, and booze—there’s plenty to keep the regulars coming back. There are also lots of TVs on which to watch Duke basketball.
URBAN AXES DURHAM
619 Foster Street, Durham urbanaxes.com/durham Urban Axes isn’t really a sports bar, but it is a sort of a bar (beer and wine, BYO food), and ax-throwing is kind of a sport, right? So close enough. This weird drink-and-throwsharp-objects trend made its way to Durham in 2018, and as best we can tell, no one’s gotten mangled yet. It’s also a lot of fun. Get a group, make reservations in advance (don’t try to do a walk-in), and hurl some axes. Life is short.
WEST END BILLIARDS & BOCCE
601 West Main Street, Durham westendwinebar.com Sharing an address with the West End Wine Bar, the billiards portion of this enterprise has six pool tables, bocce and shuffleboard, a regulation-size basketball hoop, and an upscale sports-bar vibe.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks, Best Sports Bar: Tobacco Road Sports Café, Durham County; The Wooden Nickel Pub, Orange and Chatham Counties; The Players’ Retreat, Wake County.
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PHOTO BY ALEX BOERNER
The 10 Best WINE BARS in the Triangle
GLASSHALFULL
ANGUS BARN
9401 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh angusbarn.com As renowned as Angus Barn’s steaks are, its Wine Cellar—two ridiculously opulent dining rooms with a private staff and kitchen surrounded by one of the best wine collections in the country—might be the pinnacle of fine dining in the Triangle. If you’d rather dial back the extravagance and remain in Angus 88
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Barn’s main dining room, however, you’ll still have access to the full wine bottle list—an eighty-nine-page document. (There’s a separate by-the-glass menu, a comparatively slim six pages.) There’s a reason Angus Barn has won the ultra-prestigious Grand Award from Wine Spectator, an honor only bestowed on ninety-one restaurants in the world, thirty years in a row.
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BAR BRUNELLO
117 East Main Street, Durham barbrunello.com Esteban Brunello’s sliver of a bar is about 180 degrees from Angus Barn—it’s not a full-service restaurant, dinner won’t cost a month’s rent, and the bottle list isn’t an encyclopedia. Rather, the encyclopedia is Esteban, who knows his wines and curates what he carries as well as anyone. Don’t take that
to mean you won’t have options. From sparkling wines to rosés, reds to the coveted oranges, you can drink your way from Slovenia to France, Italy to Portugal.
BIN 54 STEAK & CELLAR
1201 Raleigh Road, Suite M, Chapel Hill bin54chapelhill.com Another high-end steakhouse with an extraordinary wine list, Bin 54 pulls in bottles of all styles from all over the globe. And when we finally hit the lottery and/or print journalism makes us rich—both of which have roughly the same chance of happening—you better believe we’ll be shelling out for the Château Lafite-Rothchild ’10, a French Bordeaux that will only set us back $3,995.
THE FEARRINGTON HOUSE RESTAURANT
2000 Fearrington Village Center, Pittsboro fearrington.com A fine-dining spot in a former farm homestead, Fearrington House features a limited, three- and four-course menu that rotates as the seasons change. And as the menu changes, the sommeliers work with the chefs to pair wines that will create a transcendent dining experience. There’s a lot to choose from—Fearrington’s wine list has more than fifteen hundred selections from all over the world, and it’s been awarded Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence for the last fifteen years. (That’s one notch below Angus Barn’s Gold Award, but nothing to sneeze at.)
GLASSHALFULL
106 South Greensboro Street, Carrboro glasshalfullcarrboro.com A wine-centric restaurant, Glasshalfull has an ever-rotating list of twenty-five bottles on its menu—Old and New World sauvignon blancs, Argentinean malbecs, Italian chiantis, and so on. Go on Mondays, when all of those bottles are half off.
PIEDMONT RESTAURANT
401 Foster Street, Durham piedmontrestaurant.com The food and craft-cocktail programs at Piedmont—both retooled in early 2018 to make them more accessible to Durham’s growing millennial cohort—are laser-focused on all things local. Out of necessity, however, its award-winning wine program takes a more expansive view. There are more wines by the glass now than there were a few years ago, and they’re generally less expensive and more eclectic selections, too. You’ll find a couple of Tar Heel wines on the menu, alongside French malbecs and Portuguese coreto tintos and Italian dry proseccos.
SAINT JACQUES FRENCH CUISINE
6112 Falls of Neuse Road, Raleigh saintjacquesfrenchcuisine.com Way out in the North Raleigh ’burbs, Saint Jacques can go overlooked in local foodie
circles. But over the last fifteen years, this fine-dining restaurant has earned rave reviews for its indulgent interpretations of French classics—and no French menu is complete without a stellar wine list. There are a few quick nods to North Carolina here, but after that, it’s all France, from storied Bordeaux to independent wineries, from Burgundy to the Rhone Valley to Beaujolais.
VIN ROUGE
2010 Hillsborough Road, Durham vinrougerestaurant.com A Durham landmark that aims to recreate the feel of a southern French bistro, Vin Rouge has long been one of the Triangle’s most acclaimed restaurants (the INDY’s readers named it Best French Restaurant in the Triangle in 2018). Seeing as the name translates to “red wine,” you’d expect the wine lists to be equally noteworthy, and you’d be correct.
VINOS FINOS Y PICADAS TAPAS AND WINE BAR
8450 Honeycutt Road, #110, Raleigh vinosfinosypicadas.com On its website, Vinos Finos proclaims itself the “Best Wine Bar in Raleigh,” which is quite the boast, considering that Vita Vite (see below) has racked up quite a few honors in recent years. But Vinos Finos, in North Raleigh’s Lafayette Village, is a cool little tapas and wine spot. With both food and drink, the focus here is South American, the wine list drawing heavily on Chile and Argentina.
VITA VITE
313 West Hargett Street, 200 Park Street at North Hills, #130, Raleigh vitaviteraleigh.com Lindsay Rice, a photographer, wine lover, and art enthusiast, opened the first Vita Vite in 2015. (The second, in North Hills, came a couple of years later.) Reflective of Rice’s passions, Vita Vite—the Italian words for “life” and “vine”—is part art gallery, part wine bar, and part cozy space to hang out and have a conversation. The wine list is manageable and smartly curated, with strong selections, especially reds, from France, Argentina, Italy, and the Pacific Northwest.
2018 Best of the Triangle Readers’ Picks: Bar Brunello, Durham County; Glasshalfull, Orange and Chatham Counties; Angus Barn, Wake County.
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ow in their fourth year, the INDY’s Food Triangles honor leaders in our food and beverage industries who are making our region a more inclusive, sustainable, and thoughtful place to not only eat and drink but also to live. This year’s three winners challenge us to reconsider the way we approach food and be more mindful about who is making, growing, or serving it to us, and how those decisions affect the larger community. The recipients—a venerated chef, an entrepreneurial duo, and a nonprofit restaurant—embody that ethos by giving a voice to those with whom they work and serve. BILL SMITH
Though Bill Smith, the venerable chef at Chapel Hill institution Crook’s Corner, recently retired, his legacy will endure for generations. Sure, his dishes—the legendary shrimp ’n’ grits and honeysuckle sorbet—have a reputation of their own. But Smith will also be remembered for his character: the loyalty he engendered among his staff, the way he cared for his employees, and for his role as an outspoken voice on immigration issues.
TINA PREVATTE LEVY AND JENNIFER CURTIS
The INDY’s 2019 Food Triangles This year’s winners challenge us to reconsider the way we approach food PHOTOS BY ALEX BOERNER 90
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Before Tina Prevatte Levy and Jennifer Curtis co-founded Firsthand Foods, chefs, institutions, and consumers didn’t have a consistently reliable source for local, pasture-raised meats from small farms, and small farmers didn’t have the marketing savvy or distribution methods to reach new markets. Since its founding in 2010, Firsthand Foods has not only bridged that gap and changed the way that meat is raised, distributed, and consumed locally, but it’s also had a multiplier effect on our local food economy and our collective well-being.
CARROLL’S KITCHEN
Carroll’s Kitchen, a nonprofit Raleigh cafe with locations downtown and in the Morgan Street Food Hall, is unique in that it employs and trains women in crisis, giving them not only a safe, supportive place to work, but also a support network to help them rebuild their lives and flourish. The organization’s staff, as well as the women it employs, are a shining example of the power of positive change that happens when a community has its residents’ backs.
Un Excelente Amigo
Venerated Crook’s Corner chef Bill Smith’s legacy will endure long after his retirement BY VICTORIA BOULOUBASIS
I
f you swung open the screen door to Crook’s Corner kitchen during Bill Smith’s nearly three-decade-long tenure, you were likely to find him smirking at one of the cooks in the middle of some Spanglish inside joke. Familiar sounds would reverberate through the space like an avant-garde jazz orchestra: cumbia crackling through a small plastic radio speaker; the clank and then sizzle of a basket of chicken dunked into hot oil; a resounding “eyyyyy!” when a woman walks in, and Smith’s subsequent chuckle, followed by “be nice!” This February, however, a month after he stepped down as chef, I met Smith at the bar on a Friday night. He was wearing a blazer, not his usual, almost iconic baseball cap and well-worn band T-shirt (he donated most of them to UNC Libraries). What hadn’t changed was his signature drink order. He was already one can of PBR ahead of me. Susie Williamson, longtime Crook’s front-ofhouse staff and now general manager, brought Smith his next beer, just as bartender Mark Hullopeter walked over with another open can, this one a gift from a customer. With two open PBR cans sweating on that famous black-andwhite tiled bar top, I was reminded of a conversation just days earlier with Crook’s outgoing general manager, Kyle Yamakawa.
“I think Bill is made up of about twenty percent collards, forty percent pork, and forty percent PBR,” he said. Smith is known for many things beyond an affinity for union-made beer. As a foremost expert on Southern food, his recipes—some featured in his 2005 cookbook Seasoned in the South: Recipes From Crook’s Corner and From Home—are nationally recognized: Atlantic Beach Pie, both Red Hot and honeysuckle sorbets, soft-shell crabs (which he posts on social media every time a fresh new bucket comes in), corned ham, among many more. His varied life experiences range from a highly lauded tabletop dance performance in an off-Broadway show to being arrested during North Carolina’s Moral Monday protests. And he is arguably our state’s most beloved chef. Smith’s last day as head chef at Crook’s Corner was Monday, January 7. “In a restaurant, you don’t usually last until age seventy,” says Betsey Elliot, Smith’s longtime friend and a Crook’s server for almost thirty years. “I’m very proud of him.” Smith marked the occasion with a much-needed respite to Mexico. That Wednesday, he flew to Mexico City. By Friday, he stood atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, celebrating his seventieth birthday. 2019
But Smith wasn’t merely another gringo tourist in Mexico. He’s Chule, as the Crook’s cooks christened him decades ago. It’s short for chuleta, or pork chop. Years ago, Smith told me, pointing to his belly, that he thought he’d earned the nickname because of his slightly “porky” persona. But one of his Mexican friends in the kitchen told him it more accurately depicted his pink face, the same color as raw pork. Smith blushed before letting out an appreciative chuckle. “Mean, but it’s true.” Smith is an avid traveler, from the Southern circuit of food festivals and benefit dinners to globetrotting. But he often finds himself back in Mexico, very deliberately. He ends up in Celaya, Guanajuato, specifically, which is not a tourist destination by a long shot. But it’s where his friend and former Crook’s Corner cook Luis “Rambo” Ortega is from. Ortega returned to Mexico after deciding he couldn’t continue living in the U.S. without the documents he needed to live without fear of deportation. Smith hopped in the car with him on the thirty-six-hour drive back. Naturally, Smith carries hilarious stories from that cross-border journey, which he’s writing about in his next book. I met Ortega in Celaya in 2014 and 2015, thanks to Smith. Ortega’s mother, Conchita, kept a copy of Seasoned in the South displayed
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in her dining room armoire. Smith delivered it to her one of his many visits back to Celaya, hand-writing a dedication on the title page for her. At her kitchen table, Ortega grabbed the book and skimmed quickly through the pages to a recipe for blueberry soup. “Read this,” he said, pointing to Smith’s introduction, which read: “‘I have tasted your blueberry soup. It is terrible.’ So pronounced one of my cooks, Luis Ortega, when I put this soup on the menu.” Ortega couldn’t stop laughing. “Have you had it? It sucks,” he said, drawing out the uhhh like a Southern teenager. Ortega’s limited English bore a slight Eastern North Carolina twang. And Smith’s broken Spanish sang through Mexican vocabulary. The two friends are mirrors reflecting the natural metamorphosis that happens after decades of working in a Southern restaurant kitchen. In Seasoned in the South, Smith writes: “Southern cooking, like the South, has evolved. Traditions persist, but new ingredients and techniques have fueled change.” The same can be said for the South’s people. The book’s recipes reflect Crook’s menu under Smith’s direction. Each dish is a playful nod to a personal experience: early culinary trips to New York, his great-grandmother Inez’s big weekday lunches, strolls through a maze of global street food carts. Take the mango salad specked with cayenne and dressed in lime juice, a tribute to a whole peeled mango on a stick found in Mexico. “It’s straight from his friends in the kitchen, that direct influence on his Southern cuisine,” Williamson says. “It’s not decidedly Southern. But putting it on the menu at Crook’s made it Southern. It’s not just his family’s recipes. They’re on the same menu side by side.” In describing the stories behind his food (and, really, anything), the chef is as eloquent as he is succinct, with an often clipped delivery that gets straight to the point. His writing mirrors his conversational style. Here’s how he introduces the tomato tart, for example: “This recipe, like so many others, was born of the constant torment provided by being forced to come up with vegetarian main courses on an otherwise sensible menu.” It’s Elliott’s favorite entrée. She’s worked as a server at Crook’s for thirty years but also sells vegetables to the kitchen. “Tomatoes are what I’m known for,” she says. Smith “occasionally lets me know what I’m missing.” She and Smith met in the late seventies; he was working his first kitchen job at Carolina
Coffee Shop beginning in 1968, where he baked bread and waited tables. “He’s one of the most admirable people, certainly in my world,” she says. “I think most people would say that.” You’re not going to get Smith to brag about anything—he’s too humble for that. He helped start the Cat’s Cradle music venue but rarely mentions it. He’s been nominated twice for a James Beard Award for Best Chef Southeast and has been honored at dozens of events throughout the country, dinners at which he’ll often bring his sisters and a couple of cooks. Apart from writing, much of his retirement is already being spent sorting through “his papers”—recipe notes and travel journals, mementos from a life hard-earned and wellfed. He laughs about it: “UNC wants my papers for some reason.” At La Residence, the French-inspired restaurant run by the late chef Bill Neal and his then-wife Moreton Neal, Smith cut his teeth as a cook under Neal’s tutelage. In 1982, he followed Neal to Crook’s along with owner Gene Hamer, and took over the kitchen after Neal’s death in 1991. Late last year, Hamer announced that he was selling Crook’s to a group that includes Gary Crunkleton of The Crunkleton in Chapel Hill and Shannon Healy of Alley Twenty Six in Durham. Smith will still be a consultant and cook for special events. Justin Burdett, formerly a chef of the now-closed Local Provisions in Asheville, has taken over the kitchen. Like Elliott, most of the Crook’s crew are “lifers,” even after Smith and Hamer have left. It speaks to the culture they’ve cultivated. “It’s the sense that you can be who you are in a place, it continues, it is what it is,” says Williamson. “It becomes more of an identity, a place where you feel locked in and able to be you. You’re making a living. It’s not just a job, it’s a place where you can just be.” It also speaks to the relationships Smith has developed with his employees, many of whom are Mexican. Smith walks the walk: He’s been outspoken about his views on immigration and sponsored three immigrant families from Mexico (when it was legally possible to do so). He’s also godfather to many of his Mexican staffers’ children, and Seasoned in the South’s dedication is a bilingual tribute to his chosen family in the “land of blood, meat, and fire.” Many of his cooks have known him half their lives. One recently described Smith as a “great human being.” But above all, the cook continued, Smith is “un excelente amigo.” n
“This recipe was
born of the constant torment provided by being forced
to come up with vegetarian main courses on
an otherwise
sensible menu.”
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High on the Hog
Tina Prevatte Levy and Jennifer Curtis are disrupting the way meat is raised and eaten in the Triangle B Y L AY L A K H O U R Y- H A N O L D
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rom the ingredients splayed on the wooden board, I nestle rosy slices of meat inside a lettuce leaf and dip it in a chili-garlic sauce. The flavor is so rich, so flavorful, that I forget I’m eating grilled pork collar, not ribeye. This is the finale from The Durham’s pork-centric winter luau menu, which also includes “spam” musubi, pressed pork shoulder atop a square of sticky rice; crispy yet pleasingly chewy pig ears dusted in Chinese five spice; and an unctuous stew bobbing with melting cubes of pork belly and juicy-crisp pig tail. Each course (except dessert) features pork from four different North Carolina farms, all sourced through Firsthand Foods, a Durham-based company that supplies local restaurants, institutions, and consumers with pasture-raised meat from small, local farms. “The important thing about local meat production is you can raise the most beautiful animals in the world and do it super consciously and humanely, but if you don’t have appropriate processing and distribution, that kind of goes out the window,” says Andrea Reusing, chef-owner of Lantern in Chapel Hill and the executive chef of The Durham. “Fifteen years ago, you couldn’t call someone and get pork, and now I can, and now many chefs in North Carolina can, and many institutions can as well. That is largely because of Jennifer and Tina.” She’s referring to Tina Prevatte Levy and Jennifer Curtis, who co-founded Firsthand Foods in 2010. Since then, they’ve changed the way that meat is raised and consumed in the Triangle by helping farmers find new markets for local beef and pork and providing valuable feedback on improving farming methods, ultimately creating a more sustainable and delicious product. No matter its sustainability, however, meat can be a polarizing topic. While the locavore food movement has prompted consumers to pay more attention to where their food is coming from, it’s a lot easier to imagine a carrot being plucked from the soil than it is to picture the slaughtering and processing of a pig. But at a time when meat production is under increased scrutiny, it’s more important than ever to know where your meat comes from. And even if you’re a vegan, there’s no denying the positive impact that food hubs like Firsthand
Firsthand Foods sales manager Allyn Bryson, center, and operations manager Danielle Mercer, right, with co-founder Jennifer Curtis
Foods have on the local food economy and our collective well-being. In 2008, while pursuing an MBA in city and regional planning at UNC-Chapel Hill, Prevatte Levy met Curtis, then the project director of N.C. Choices, an extension of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. There, Curtis was tasked with building a network for pasture-based livestock producers and driving economic development for smaller producers. Curtis discovered that there was a disconnect in the local food chain: Farmers and processors weren’t talking to one another, so there wasn’t much of a market. Yet there were lots of producers who wanted to be part of the local marketplace but lacked the time and expertise to market and distribute their meat. With Prevatte Levy’s business savvy and Curtis’s relationships with farmers, as well as the backing of N.C. Choices, the pair began exploring what a business model would look like for a company that acted as a go-between for farmers and chefs. At the end of 2010, Firsthand Foods was in its nascent stages when Prevatte Levy and Curtis met Seth Gross, who was preparing to open Bull City Burger and Brewery in Durham. Initially, the pair thought they’d focus on pork, but they switched gears when they saw that Gross was committed to using locally raised beef. To source the quantity of beef he needed, Gross would’ve had to work with up to twenty differ-
ent farmers and multiple processors, deal with variable prices, and endure a logistical nightmare to coordinate trucking and delivery. “It was a relief for Bull City Burger and Brewery for Firsthand to step in and consolidate that step in the process,” Prevatte Levy says. “So that all he has to do is work with one person and place one order and know he’s going to get a fresh, quality product and get it consistently and reliably.”
“Diners really understand the community it takes to sell this product, that it takes buyin from all these restaurants.”
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This also gave North Carolina farmers a reason to keep their cattle and raise the beef at home, instead of shipping it out of state, thus keeping more money in the local economy. Firsthand Foods continued to grow its wholesale business as a rising tide of independently owned Durham restaurants emerged, many of them willing to pay a premium for local, pasture-raised meat. And because Firsthand works with processors, rather than cutting meat inhouse, it can be a custom shop to provide whatever cuts chefs need. Even if a restaurant doesn’t explicitly list Firsthand on its menu, you needn’t look further than Firsthand’s Tour de Pork contest to realize its reach. Last summer, diners who ordered pork-centric dishes at twenty participating Durham restaurants could get their “passpork” stamped to earn points to cash in for prizes. (The grand prize was two tickets to The Durham’s nose-to-tail winter luau feast.) “Diners really understand the community it takes to sell this product, that it takes buy-in from all these local restaurants that are committed to sourcing local, pasture-raised meats from small, local farms,” Prevatte Levy says. “It’s a cool way for diners to visualize it and experience it. And it helps diners discover new restaurants too.” Last year, Firsthand hired sales manager Allyn Bryson, whose job involves the weekly task of “meat math,” working with chefs to find a home for every cut, including tongues, jowls,
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and hearts. Bryson then sends cut sheets to processors, oversees distribution to restaurants, and provides processors’ feedback to farmers. Closing the feedback loop has been key to Firsthand’s success. Farmers receive a detailed evaluation with a photo and scores for criteria such as marbling, color, carcass weight, and loin eye size. Farmers use that data to adjust things such as breed stock, pasture rotation, and feed. “I think the feedback they get on their carcass is as important as the money we pay them,” Curtis says. By assigning values to these criteria, Firsthand has also developed an internal model to evaluate performance and show farmers how different factors play out among chefs. This, in turn, affects farmers’ decision-making and profitability by, for example, helping them figure out the sweet spot where most of the hog’s weight is concentrated in the most expensive cuts. The model also rewards quality over quantity—hog farmers can see how they rank among their peers, and most years, top scorers receive an annual premium. Beef producers whose beef ranks mid-choice or higher receive a quarterly premium. With the restaurant sector of its business well-established, Firsthand started making inroads with local institutions. When a customer such as UNC-Chapel Hill, who became Firsthand’s first university client in 2012, buys a couple of hundred pounds of sausage a month, it’s a boon to fulfilling Firsthand’s whole-animal mission. Currently, Firsthand supplies beef and pork to Duke University and SAS, which has a mandate to source 20 percent of its food locally. It’s easier to get buy-in with an institutional mandate, but Firsthand has made strides into public schools through initiatives such as Durham Bowls, which pairs local chefs with child nutrition directors to develop recipes featuring local, sustainable products that meet the federally mandated per-meal budget. (Prevatte Levy serves on Durham Bowls’ board.) Teams recently competed in a cook-off in which students voted on their favorites, and the winning dishes are now being served once a month in all forty-seven Durham public schools, including a Cuban pork and rice dish developed by chef Roberto Copa Matos from COPA and food service manager Gwendolyn Coley from George Watts Elementary School. To serve all forty-seven schools this one dish, Firsthand sold nearly one thousand pounds of pork shoulder. Though Firsthand was founded as a wholesale business, it hopes to focus more on retail next. Besides expanding its retail reach beyond its twenty specialty accounts, Firsthand puts a premium on consumer education. “When we started, we were really adamant— and still are—about transparency. Like really, how does it work? And where is it coming from?” Curtis says. “Conventional animal production and slaughter has just gotten so huge. It’s just a few companies, they own everything, and they’re at a scale that’s hard to imagine. Four hundred hogs a minute slaughtered in one facility. That is not comfortable for us. We’d rather feel like it’s being done at a regional, local scale that we can imagine, and that it feels right.” n 94
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Cassie Harris, center, prepares salads for lunch at Carroll’s Kitchen.
breaking the cycle
Carroll’s Kitchen doesn’t just want to feed Raleigh. It wants to change lives. B Y K AT I E J A N E F E R N E L I U S
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n a bustling Friday morning in downtown Raleigh, an employee at Carroll’s Kitchen hurries to unload the tray of kolaches in her arms into the display case. The lunch rush will start soon, and the kolaches, a signature dish, are popular. The Czech pastry rolls, made of sweet yeast dough, are dressed with a variety of creamy, gooey, and savory fillings—bacon and herbed cream cheese, coconut cream and coconut flakes, ground sausage with jalapeños. To passersby, this Martin Street spot might seem like a typical cafe, a place to grab avocado toast for brunch or a tuna melt for lunch. But something different is happening here, something hinted at in the cafe’s tagline: “More than just a meal.” Opened in 2016, the nonprofit Carroll’s Kitchen—named for a family who started a soup kitchen during the Spanish influenza outbreak—doesn’t just serve food. It also employs women recovering from crisis. Some
. 2019
were recently incarcerated; others are coming out of abusive relationships. The goal is to not only give them the job they need to get back on their feet but also to provide a support network that will allow them to grow and thrive through life-skills training and housing that “empowers women … to live like all things are possible,” according to the mission statement the organization provides on tax documents. Now in its third year, Carroll’s Kitchen has hit its stride. It’s expanded to two locations: the original Martin Street cafe and a stall at the Morgan Street Food Hall. It also caters for company and community events. There are now ten women in the program, of varying ages, ethnicities, and circumstances. All are referred to Carroll’s Kitchen through partner organizations, and most are in subsidized housing. They start at $9 an hour and receive help applying for college and jobs after they leave the program, which involves regular check-ins with program director Sara Acosta and executive director Lindsey Blankenhorn to talk about steps they are taking toward their goals. Some women have been in the program for over a year, while others have just finished their trial period. Most important, they have a safe, supportive place to go every day. Jim Freeze and Vicky Ismail started the cafe after meeting at Vintage Church in 2016. They found a common purpose in social enterprise, the idea that people can be helped in sustainable and sustaining ways. Freeze was a former military platoon leader who believed in the empowerment of work. Ismail was a career restaurateur who had operated several restaurants in the Triangle, including The Cary Cafe. Both volunteered at the Rescue Mission and saw that a lot of women were in need of employment.
The concept was simple: give a woman in crisis a job, change her life. The reality was much more complicated. “Staffing and management was challenging,” says Blankenhorn. “When we first started, there were lots and lots of people who needed jobs and stability. We were finding that folks needed the jobs but were not stable otherwise when they got here. So we started thinking about what would create stability for our employees.” At first, they worried about women dropping out of the program. Women in crisis face hurdles others don’t: They might lack secure housing or access to reliable transportation, or have regular court dates or visitations with children that require time away from work. They might also struggle with health issues exacerbated by a lack of affordable health care. Carroll’s Kitchen quickly discovered that these women didn’t just need work; they needed a network. The nonprofit changed its approach, developing relationships with other organizations in the area that support women in crisis, including Step Up Ministries, Raleigh Rescue Mission, and Grace Home. It decided to work with women who were already affiliated with one of these programs so that the women would already come with some support. “Normal for our girls might be living with ten other people in a house or not being able to drive because of excessive fines,” Blankenhorn says. “Our goal is to give them a new normal that can include independent housing, or having a driver’s license, or going to school.” In other words, the nonprofit wants to break entrenched cycles of poverty and abuse. Another part of that new normal is showing them what a supportive community feels like. There’s a friendly camaraderie in the kitchen between chef Ryan Piper, the women, and the social services staffers who regularly hang around the cafe. Piper came from the fine dining world where kitchens are known for strict hierarchies. But he wanted this environment to be the complete opposite—to be educational and helpful. “In this kitchen, we try to create a culture that’s positive, that’s trusting, that’s uplifting,” Piper says. “Because the girls have already been
Carroll’s Kitchen employee Faith Rodman, left, jokes with customer Yanneth Castellanos.
through enough. It’s important that they feel safe here.” He developed a menu accessible to someone new to food service, featuring sandwiches, soups, salads, quiches, and baked goods. The foods might be basic, but they’re delicious. This is important, because Carroll’s Kitchen wants to succeed as a cafe, too. And in the bustle of downtown, it has to stand out against its nearby competitors, including Sosta Cafe and The Morning Times. The more successful the cafe is, the more women it can employ. A woman named Decola, who lives in a transitional home and recently joined the program, used to work in fast food and banquets but is new to cooking the meals herself. When she heard about an opportunity at Carroll’s Kitchen through Grace Home, she jumped at the chance. “Learning about recipes and learning how to
cook is the best part, because I’m not the best cook,” she says. “The first thing I learned was how to wrap, because I never really made burritos. Then I learned how to make kolaches—first, how to fill them, then how to make the dough.” Decola wants to study to become a health inspector. She’s been looking at programs at N.C. State. The program at Carroll’s Kitchen, she says, has helped her start to visualize those goals. “When you try to go out in the world after recovering from crisis, people don’t necessarily want you as part of your world,” says Marie, another woman in the program who asked to be identified by a pseudonym. “When I joined Carroll’s Kitchen, I found a hardworking, dedicated group of down-to-earth, non-judgmental people. There’s such a team atmosphere here. Here they value you for where you are now, not where you came from.” n
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