Melinda Vetro's unlikely lucky number is 13. On Friday, Aug. 13, 2010, she reopened Old Europe at 13 Broadway St., restoring the original concept of the business she first opened with now-ex-husband Zoltan Vetro. Founded in 1994 in the Flat Iron Building, the humble cafe quickly became a popular local haunt. In 2007, Old Europe […]
There's a specific color of rose for anything that a lover might want to convey. Red roses, of course, represent love. Yellow roses are given to signify friendship. Black roses often represent an infatuation with Glenn Danzig and cheesy horror flicks. And just like roses, restaurants and bars convey a message. If you bring an […]
a href=”“Just when you think this town couldn’t possibly get any cooler, another dog-friendly brewery opens its doors just a step away from one of your favorite migratory food trucks. As much as I love this city with all my heart, there are moments when the coolness factor hits overload. Most of these moments occur […]
Valentine’s Day, along with Mother’s Day, is one of the biggest nights of the year for restaurant sales. This year, Zagat (a restaurant guide that offers food news and ratings) conducted a survey of about 600 people, finding that 44 percent planned to go out to dinner with their special someone to celebrate the oft-sneered […]
There’s no reason not to go local when it comes to chocolate for Valentine’s Day. Here are (lucky number) seven opportunities: If you haven't had a chance to yet, drop by Chocolate Gems, located at 25 Broadway in downtown Asheville. The shop’s handmade chocolates include fiery selections like a cayenne-enhanced confection and an ancho-chipotle variety. […]
Joshua Spiceland’s art is sprinkled all over downtown Asheville’s inside, outside even underside. Some works are highly visible, like his painting of a vivacious smiling face, nestled between Izzy’s Coffee Den and Dobra Tea on Lexington Avenue. Others are harder to see from the sidewalk, like the mural at Feathers Gallery on Battery Park Avenue, […]
Listen, we know. The food world is rife with clichés that sometimes reek of snobbery. One year’s star protein (pork belly, anyone?) is suddenly passé before you can say “bacon brulée.” We still have a special place in our hearts for pork belly, of course, but you must know how to do it right (if […]
Damien Cavicchi is the new executive chef of all of the Biltmore restaurants — no small task. But Cavicchi, former chef and owner of Sugo, a modern Italian restaurant on Patton Avenue that closed in 2008, is up to it. Cavicchi is working to further lift the culinary scene at Biltmore with more chef-driven events […]
Jacob Sessoms, chef and owner of Table, thinks that avant garde cuisine/molecular gastronomy (or whatever you’d prefer to call it) is becoming a has-been trend. “As I begin to see foams on menus even in small towns all over the country, it makes me think this approach to food will be accepted into the larger, […]
Denny Trantham, executive chef at the Grove Park Inn, was raised in Haywood County, so it should really come as no surprise that when Xpress asks him if he thinks that bacon in everything should cease to be big in 2012, he counters with the opposite sentiment: "Country ham and smoked bacon live forever!" Under […]
Here’s something that all chefs should know: judicious use of bacon is powerful kitchen magic. This humble staple is built on four simple pillars: pork, salt, smoke and patience. It has no equal in the kitchen. A pinch of bacon in collusion with a poached egg transforms nearly inedible frisée into one of the world’s […]
Susi Séguret is the director of the Seasonal School of Culinary Arts, a program that offers weeklong hands-on culinary experiences in Asheville, Sonoma, Calif., Ithaca, NY and Paris. The upcoming Asheville session will be held from July 15-21, on the campus of Warren Wilson College, and will include more than 30 of Asheville's top chefs […]
The chocolate beetroot cake recipe, culled from last year's SSCA cookbook, is provided courtesy of Jennifer Thomas, owner of the Montford Walk-In Bakery. A fresh take on incorporating vegetables in patisserie, it gives the effect of a red-velvet cake, without the food coloring and with only a smattering of the sugar, as beets are naturally […]
Asheville, you’ve got a lot of big ideas. So many, in fact, that we decided to feature your brilliant food-related projects for the year ahead just one more week. This, the third and final installment, marks the end of our Big Ideas series, but not, of course, the end of the innovation that continues to […]
Oxygen, along with extreme temperatures, vibration and sunlight, is the enemy of wine. One local oenophile’s big idea is fighting the good fight for fresher, “greener” wine and to stay on the forefront of her trade. Carla Baden, the owner of Santé Wine Bar, closed for a renovation at the start of the new year, […]
The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project is creating a Local Food Research Center dedicated to big ideas in the scaled-down world of local food. The center will research and test ASAP’s theory of food-system change, an idea grounded in the conviction that local food has the power to contribute to the greater good. ASAP preaches a […]
The big idea for local restaurants this year is going green, and we’re not talking about collards and kale. In an effort to achieve Green Certified Restaurant status through the national Green Restaurant Association, member businesses from Asheville Independent Restaurants are installing (or have already put into place) solar panels to heat water. Sound like […]
Asheville is poised to get its first dedicated food-truck food court early this year, marking the first time that truck owners will be allowed to vend in the central business district (besides during festivals and special events). The Coxe Avenue parking lot, nearing completion at press time, will accommodate four food trucks at once, with […]
Jennifer Lapidus is a champion of flour — specifically locally grown and ground flour for bread that reflects a sense of place from field to hearth, as geographically distinct as true Champagne (and then some). As organic grains coordinator for Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (http://carolinafarmstewards.org) Lapidus, along with a pilot group of seven WNC bakeries, […]
Kentucky has the Bourbon Trail, California has its wine trails and Western North Carolina is poised to get a Cheese Trail, says Jennifer Perkins, one of the faces behind Looking Glass Creamery. Looking Glass cheeses have been featured in the Willliams-Sonoma 2010-2011 catalog, Cooking Light Magazine and on USAToday.com. There are several cheese-making destinations and […]
Mark Rosenstein, former chef and owner of The Market Place, left the realm of fine dining to pursue his next career: rediscovering and advocating for the family-cooked meal. He’s the project manager for the new Green Opportunities Kitchen Ready Training Program, a cooking-based family training series. Green Opportunities is an organization dedicated to improving lives, […]
