Leading the kitchen is Chris Coleman, former executive chef at Stoke and recent Chopped winner. Each meal starts with complimentary pull-apart sour cream and onion brioche with honey butter, which might last five minutes at a table of four. (You can order another for $4.) The dinner menu has a “Bites” section with shareable snacks like marinated East Coast shrimp ($9), served with mignonette butter on a saltine cracker. In the “Smalls” section, plates include smoked cashew mac and cheese ($8), a dish you’d never guess is vegan, and pork schnitzel ($16) with apple mustard, apples, arugula, and cheddar. The “Biggies” section has grilled mountain trout ($28 for half fish, $50 for a whole) and a prime rib dinner ($32 for 8 oz., $64 for 16 oz., and $90 for 24 oz.). The menu demonstrates Coleman’s talent for taking simple, straightforward ingredients and creating complex yet familiar flavors. His lemon chess pie ($5), a combination of eggs, butter, sugar, and lemon juice, does exactly that. And if you were a fan of his legendary one-pound doughnut at Stoke, the apple fritter doughnut ($5) drizzled with sour cream glaze is another culinary triumph. You won’t need eight friends to help you with this dessert, but if you can’t finish it in one sitting, take the rest home and eat it for breakfast. Don’t leave without trying: BBQ pork skins ($5) on the bar snacks menu. Each bite-sized skin is filled with a dollop of French onion dip.
T H E STO RY B E H I N D. . .
Dressler’s Cheesecake JON DRESSLER opened his first restaurant in Birkdale Village in Huntersville in September 2003. His mom, Joan, offered to make her cheesecake for a weekend feature. She used her grandmother’s recipe, which she’d perfected in the Bronx in the early 1900s. Joan made eight cheesecakes that sold out in two nights, and Jon made it a regular menu item after he fielded requests from nearly 200 customers to make more. In those days, Joan would make eight to 10 cakes, one at a time, every week. But each time Jon added a new restaurant to his Rare Roots Hospitality Group portfolio, the cheesecake anchored the dessert menu. Now Joan has a bakery team that makes 50 original cheesecakes each week, plus 30 of the week’s special. Depending on the season, customers can order the famous Dressler cheesecake in Oreo, chocolate, peanut butter chocolate chip, and pumpkin. —T.B.
TAYLOR BOWLER is lifestyle editor of this magazine. APRIL 2020 // CHARLOTTE
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