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The Alley burger.
Photo by Juli Leonard
320 E. CHAPEL HILL ST., DURHAM Rating: ♦♦♦♦ Prices: Entrees $17-$25 Cuisine: Contemporary American Atmosphere: Casually elegant Recommended: Foie gras mousseline,
jar of pickles, duck and waffle, pan-seared black bass, burger Noise level: Moderate Service: Well-trained
Greg Cox for TriangleToday
S
hannon Healy, the longtime head bartender at Crook’s Corner before he opened Alley Twenty Six in 2012, was way ahead of the modern craft cocktail curve. And you might say Healy’s decision to expand Alley Twenty Six into the neighboring space and add a restaurant to his bar called for the most complex and delicately balanced recipe he’s ever attempted. The presentation and garnish, so to speak, were a given. Because the dining room and kitchen are located in the new space, Healy was able to
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leave the casually elegant bar undisturbed, from its burnished wood bar and rich brown leather-upholstered stools to its cozy sofa grouping in the front window. The decor of the dining room with its open kitchen (and a second, smaller bar) is a harmonious blend of oval mirrors on French rose walls, hardwood floors stained the color of Amaretto, a sparkling glass display case of liquor bottles and a garnish of mint green dining chairs.
The tricky part of the recipe was incorporating a food menu that would measure up to the liquid offering at one of the area’s premier bars without upstaging it. Healy found the key ingredient for meeting that challenge in the form of chef Carrie Schleiffer, who most recently dazzled with her food-and-beverage balancing act at Bar Virgile, and before that at the gastropub G2B. Read more at triangletoday.com
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