Where do chef's eat in Chapel Hill, NC?
Where do real foodies, chef's, kitchen gurus, etc. like to eat in Chapel Hill, NC?
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10 Comments:
This is a great question. I would say off the cuff they go to the Weathervane at A Southern Season because it is always consistantly good.
I had heard Magnolia Grill was good but have not been there myself.
Since this will soon be my new frontier chime in folks.
JerzeeTomato at 10:52AM on 09/26/07
theres a great vietnamese restaurant called Lime & Basil on franklin street (unc). another decent asian restaurant is Pao Lim in durham, not too far.
i really havent found enough good restaurants around here so id like to see the responses too.
stumbler02 at 11:04AM on 09/26/07
all the cooks I know never eat at Weathervane and have also never been to Magnolia Grill because it is really expensive.
people like me and my coworkers are poor not to mention that most of my coworker cooks are Latino with families and very little disposable income and there aren't many places serving food after 11 PM.
I think we mostly eat at home, and cold leftovers from whatever we could bring home from work. I go to the farmer's market every week and have a CSA. My former chef lived in Chatham Co. so she ate at home all the time or at the school she cooked at sometimes. If not too tired, a couple friends and I drink beer and go at the taco truck at Fitch lumber. During the day tienda Don Jose maybe, if we can get to Durham, Super Taqueria and Taqueria Lopez, We like Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen, Allen and Son's, and The Barbecue Joint (the owner/chef there Damon is a great cook), and Carrburritos. Viet Goal Tofu Restaurant off 55 in RTP is great, Xiloa in Durham, Cook Out for a Cook Out tray, I eat the salad bar at Whole Foods more often than I want to admit. Fiesta Grill is a real treat but kind of heavy before an afternoon and night on a line. Gugelhupf bakery is also an amazing treat if I'm in Durham on a morning not at my other job and avoiding responsibility. I have a special place for Udipi Cafe (south Indian food) in Cary.
For rare special occasions, Piedmont in Durham makes great food, their own charcuterie and the like. Jujube on 54 is excellent and the chef there often posts on Chowhound about taco trucks. Of course the Lantern, but I have eaten there a few times over the years (always enjoyed it greatly) and when my girlfriend was going to take me for my last birthday the specials and seasonal menu were exactly the same they had been the year before on my birthday so we went to Jujube instead an had a wonderful meal.
I got a very generous gift certificate to Bon Soiree in Chapel Hill and I have been using it as motivation to finish my thesis, walking by regularly to look at the menu and imagine what I can have when I finally get my act together. Keep meaning to get to J. Betskis for some of the brats and perogis but it never happens.
this is just me but I am an off and on line cook, not a chef.
intheyearofthepig at 11:05AM on 09/26/07
Sorry to write so dang much... but the question is a bit confusing to me and as I reread it I realized I am not sure if you mean chefs, food people, home cooks or what? All those groups may enjoy and appreciate many of the same foods and institutions but generally patronize very different sorts of restaurants,
Also...
I forgot Crook's Corner, Bill Smith is an amazing chef, and while there are some things on the menu I personally find very questionable (# 1 being their barbecue which I am pretty certain comes from the very questionable and generally bad Bullocks in Durham), but mostly the food is great, especially the specials, haute Southern/low-country. Plus you can see him almost every day riding his bike to work or walking through the farmer's market purchasing for the restaurant. Four Square in Durham also turns out some very very fine fancy food.
Oh and Med Deli on Franklin St. satisfies me if I order the right salads, Dalat in Raleigh makes the best Vietnamese in the Triangle, not as good as Greensboro or D.C. or southern California or many other cities, but Dalat and 9N9 (in RTP) are way beyond Lime and Basil. Also in Raleigh has the great Neomonde Deli for some Lebanese.
Good chefs are at their restaurants all the freaking time, literally all the time, and rarely get to eat out at other places and when they do, often want simple food (and lots of times cold food, Keith Allen at Allen and Son's told me once his favorite foods are cold spaghetti and a salad with iceberg lettuce), full-time line cooks are the same way generally. I only get to eat at all these other places because I am a charlatan and only a part-timer and get to go eat food at the more expensive and often wonderful restaurants, where chefs are working all the time, when my girlfriend's parents are in town and when I am on a search committee that gets to take a candidate out to eat.
if you have a car, try some of these places in Durham or RTP and one of the million ethnic restaurants in Cary. I think they are wonderful.
intheyearofthepig at 11:31AM on 09/26/07
Mm I second Neomonde...I also recommend the pastries at Gourmandise s (french bakery in raleigh)
stumbler02 at 12:05PM on 09/26/07
Crook's Corner is handsdown my favorite in Chapel Hill... their shrimp and grits are amazing.
Alm25 at 1:48PM on 09/26/07
The Southern Foodways Alliance just hosted Camp Butterbean in Chapel Hill. Check out their website at www.southernfoodways.com to see where they went!
sawyerriley at 2:30PM on 10/05/07
i really like the spotted dog in carrboro. lots of fun, good food, and reasonably priced.
altosaxchica at 4:20PM on 10/05/07
Choose carefully at Crook's Corner. I hear that the Southern recipes are very successful. However, I ordered a steak and it was very stringy and tough. Others from Chapel Hill have verified my experience.
Viaggiatrice at 8:48PM on 11/26/07
Allen & Sons is awesome...I had a bad date with a Dook guy one night at Spotted Dog, so can't remember what the food was like. I used to like to get a vegetable plate at Mama Dip's. I think a lot of the Franklin Street places have changed hands since I was in school there.
bylime at 9:33PM on 11/26/07