Attention foodies and serious wine lovers! Asheville’s La Caterina Trattoria will offer a seven-course dinner featuring distinctive Burgundy wines selected by local importer and sommelier Steve Pignatiello. The dinner will feature six wines, including two premier crus, one of which has never been presented. The evening will commence with a toast of Joillot Cremant, to […]

Vehicle: A comfortable 12-seat van that whisks cruisers from brewery to brewery. Price: $32 per person for locals, discounts for large groups. $37 for tourists, or $70/couple. What’s Included: Three hours of tours, beer samples, souvenirs, snacks and bottled water – not to mention a designated driver! Contact: For more details, call 545-5181 or visit […]

Ellen Briggs, author of Are Your Kids Running on Empty? and Mom, I’m Hungry, What’s For Dinner?, brings her expertise in children’s nutrition to two Earth Fare locations on Friday, Aug. 4. Briggs will appear at the Westgate Earth Fare from 12 to 2 p.m., and again at Earth Fare South on Hendersonville Road from […]

Flavor: Upscale deli with modern American dining in the eveningAmbiance: Modern, comfortableService: Knowledgeable Who doesn’t love a good sandwich (besides the carbophobes, of course)? I, for one, am a sucker for a well-orchestrated one as a quick handheld lunch, but despair at the plethora of sub shops peddling generic meats and ghostly iceberg lettuce, to […]

Poppies Gourmet Farmers Market recently opened on Market Street at Straus Park in Brevard. The huge store offers a full-service meat and seafood case, a deli, prepared foods to eat on-site or carry away, a bakery, an espresso bar and a garden department. A full line of groceries is also available, as well as a […]

Recipe for success: Bethanny Peters (left) and Alex Brown of Full Sun Farm. Their fresh veggies are featured in this seasonal recipe. photos by Mackensy Lunsford On an intermittently rainy day in early July, a small team of workers from Leicester’s Full Sun Farm struggles to set up while veggie-loving shoppers swarm about the WNC […]

A new restaurant, the Whiskey Tavern, is slated to open later this month at 81 Broadway in the space formerly occupied by the Asheville Music Zone. The menu will focus on upscale tavern-type cuisine, running the gamut from fresh soups and salads to fish entrees and ribs. Ten beers will be featured on tap, half […]

Flavor: Fresh surf, with a touch of turf for the landlubbersAmbiance: “Polished casual”Service: Very good, well-trained and knowledgeable I’ve finally given in. After the umpteenth recommendation for the Bonefish Grill from reputable sources – each and every one prefaced with some variation of “I usually don’t frequent chain restaurants, but … – I decided to […]

The second annual Wings and Strings WNC Wing Cook Off will be held Friday and Saturday, July 14 and 15, at Pack Square in downtown Asheville. The party begins at 5 p.m. on Friday with live music from local and regional acts, food, and drinks including wine and — of course — beer. The event […]

Out of Africa: Oso Wallman, a devotee of Senegalese cuisine, created Asheville’s very own African food fest. photos by Jodi Ford On a typical late-Sunday afternoon in Asheville, after the brunch-munchers and Sunday drivers have retreated to the comfort of the backyard grill or the living-room sofa, downtown takes on a rather restful air as […]

The second annual Northwestern N.C. Wine Conference has been scheduled for Monday, July 17, at the Broyhill Inn and Conference Center at Appalachian State University in Boone. The event, presented by the Appalachian State Enology Group, was created to encourage growth in the state’s wine industry through a variety of business seminars and events that […]

Flavor: Mostly Japanese and ChineseAmbiance: A somewhat narrow room full of booths and Asian flairService: A bit spotty Set in a squat strip mall crouched at the edge of the steaming hot lake of asphalt that surrounds the Oteen Ingles, Asian on the Go may seem like a suspect location for a round of sushi. […]

The second annual Chocolate Festival at the Grove Arcade, held on June 3, was a delicious success. The Chocolate Fetish netted two awards at the event: Best Chocolate Offering and Best Booth Category. True Confections followed closely behind, garnering second place for Best Chocolate Offering; Mountain Brew Cafe was the third place winner in the […]

You know it, we know it: Mountain Xpress has got the flavor. Blue Ridge Flavors, to be precise. Every summer, we cook up this special, stand-alone publication to feed readers with all the latest morsels on food and fun in Western North Carolina. The latest addition has more than 50 pages of restaurant listings, indoor […]

Flavor: Upscale Southern/low country cuisineAmbiance: Historic building with funky accents, comfortable spiritService: Friendly and prompt According to the long-suffering Jacob A. Melton, who visited Hot Springs in the early 1900s, his rheumatism, though not affected by his costly arsenal of medication, was cured by soaking in and imbibing the Hot Springs mineral water. In a […]

Earth Fare is opening a new South Asheville location at 1856 Hendersonville Road. To celebrate, the store will host a benefit party for local nonprofit Quality Forward on Tuesday, June 20, from 6 to 8 p.m. Troy Degroff, the store’s director of sales and marketing, thinks that Earth Fare and Quality Forward are “perfect partners,” […]

Flavor: Home-style Southern favoritesAmbiance: Lovely historic dining room with a casual feelService: Friendly — as casual as the ambiance The roots of “the Block” – downtown Asheville’s small but vibrant center of black culture and commerce – run deep. The Block has laid witness to the ebbs and flows of the community’s pulse for more […]

How about a little java on the cheap? To celebrate its one-year anniversary, Greenberry’s Coffee & Tea Co. will offer a cup of Joe for only 25 cents this Thursday, June 8. At that rate, it’ll cost less than a dollar to get super-caffeinated. Greenberry’s is at 1550 Hendersonville Road in Asheville; call 274-5656 for […]

Local gourmet: Susi Gott Seguret, director of the Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts, on the porch of the school’s cabin classroom. Photos courtesy SSCA From its humble beginnings in 1894 as a Presbyterian mission school for rural farm boys, to its present incarnation as an independent four-year liberal-arts college, Warren Wilson College has nurtured a […]

The Junior League of Asheville is holding a fund-raiser at McCormick Field on Saturday, June 3, from 5 to 8 p.m. The event, Uncorked!, will feature boutique wines, entertainment from Led Zeppelin cover band Custard Pie, beer, food and even a raffle for a $17,000 diamond. Tickets are $25, and can be purchased online at […]