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CLT Restaurants

Nate Dogg

By Nate Dogg,
in Huddle Lounge

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PanthersBigD Newbie

PanthersBigD

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Nate Dogg said:

Staying in City Center Saturday night before the Falcons game. What restaurants uptown do you recommend that have good food and would be good for a group of 8? Preferably no more than around $30/plate. 

Essex - Tapas and good drinks

Aria - Italian

Rooster's - French influenced Southern dishes

King's Kitchen - Southern comfort food i.e. fried chicken, best green beans in Charlotte

Sea Level - Oyster Bar and seafood restaurant

Fahrenheit - Not in the $30 plate price range, but if it's a clear night, it'd be worth a trip up to their rooftop bar for drinks and great views of the city. 

I've eaten at all of these at least once and all have been good. Essex and Aria are our go-to's whenever we attend an event downtown. 

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Chimera Collaborator

Chimera

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Posted
59 minutes ago, PanthersBigD said:

How so?

Generally Americanized Italian food is very different from Italian food. It's probably not because the differences in recipes, but the difference in ingredients like tomato sauce. American tomato sauce is sweet and soupy. Italian tomato sauce is, well, tomatoes. Tomatoes are the one food I don't eat. I can't stand them. I can handle American tomato sauce because it tastes nothing like tomatoes. The difference really stands out to me.

Aria is a Tuscan restaurant. Tuscan dishes are supposed to be very simple. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Aria - I ate there once in 2012ish. But even the website talks about it having re-imagined Tuscany dishes and old world fare with a fresh air.

I'm not saying it's bad by any means. If OP is used to actual Italian food, Aria might be a let down. Or a pleasant surprise, you never know.

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PanthersBigD Newbie

PanthersBigD

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, Chimera said:

Generally Americanized Italian food is very different from Italian food. It's probably not because the differences in recipes, but the difference in ingredients like tomato sauce. American tomato sauce is sweet and soupy. Italian tomato sauce is, well, tomatoes. Tomatoes are the one food I don't eat. I can't stand them. I can handle American tomato sauce because it tastes nothing like tomatoes. The difference really stands out to me.

Aria is a Tuscan restaurant. Tuscan dishes are supposed to be very simple. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Aria - I ate there once in 2012ish. But even the website talks about it having re-imagined Tuscany dishes and old world fare with a fresh air.

I'm not saying it's bad by any means. If OP is used to actual Italian food, Aria might be a let down. Or a pleasant surprise, you never know.

The OP is from Winston Salem, but I get where you're coming from. He also specified center city. Fiamma is probably my favorite Italian place in Charlotte, but it's an Uber ride of a few miles into Dilworth. 

The wild boar ragu at Aria is at least comparable to the wild boar ragu they were serving all over Florence when I was there. Globalization has made the world so much smaller. Now that you can overnight ingredients between continents fairly cheaply, it's not so difficult to get fairly 'authentic' flavors far from their point of origin. You really have to look hard for places that are unique. That's why I suggested the weird fusion concept at Seoul Food in that other thread. I haven't seen anything else like it, and the food is really good. And I don't think any of their dishes use tomatoes. :D

 

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toldozer Veteran

toldozer

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, PanthersBigD said:

The OP is from Winston Salem, but I get where you're coming from. He also specified center city. Fiamma is probably my favorite Italian place in Charlotte, but it's an Uber ride of a few miles into Dilworth. 

The wild boar ragu at Aria is at least comparable to the wild boar ragu they were serving all over Florence when I was there. Globalization has made the world so much smaller. Now that you can overnight ingredients between continents fairly cheaply, it's not so difficult to get fairly 'authentic' flavors far from their point of origin. You really have to look hard for places that are unique. That's why I suggested the weird fusion concept at Seoul Food in that other thread. I haven't seen anything else like it, and the food is really good. And I don't think any of their dishes use tomatoes. :D

 

Seoul was soo good when I went there.  

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Chimera Collaborator

Chimera

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, PanthersBigD said:

The OP is from Winston Salem, but I get where you're coming from. He also specified center city. Fiamma is probably my favorite Italian place in Charlotte, but it's an Uber ride of a few miles into Dilworth. 

The wild boar ragu at Aria is at least comparable to the wild boar ragu they were serving all over Florence when I was there. Globalization has made the world so much smaller. Now that you can overnight ingredients between continents fairly cheaply, it's not so difficult to get fairly 'authentic' flavors far from their point of origin. You really have to look hard for places that are unique. That's why I suggested the weird fusion concept at Seoul Food in that other thread. I haven't seen anything else like it, and the food is really good. And I don't think any of their dishes use tomatoes. :D

 

Woops... I thought this was the thread with the guy coming from Scotland. My bad... Carry on.

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