Moonlight and Merlot

Good ol’ Southern cooking has been shoved to the back burner for Triangle diners who favor the “new Southern cuisine.” Now you can have your grits and truffles, too

Durham’s Magnolia Grill spices up its traditional Southern cuisine with influences from other countries. Author Reynolds price has described the bistro as “the best source of public cooking, not merely in the Triangle area, or the tar heel state, but in fact in the whole United States.”

Chapel Hill’s Crook’s Corner is known as the birthplace of shrimp and grits. The dish gained fame after Craig Claiborne wrote about it in The New York Times. A Washington Post reviewer calls the food “consistently outstanding, sort of nouvelle down home.”

Pittsboro’s Fearrington House, North Carolina’s only AAA Five Diamond restaurant, offers regional cuisine with a French influence. It features elegant dining rooms—along with amusing views of the famous striped belted galloway cows grazing just outside.