At the intersection of the U.S. South and Appalachia, Asheville has become a crossroads for culinary exploits. The city is studded with promising upstarts, James Beard Award nominees and winners, biscuit makers, and brewers. Whether you’re in town for a road-trip stop or a long weekend, here are six of the best things to eat and drink in Asheville.
Can you handle the Country Ham Biscuit breakfast sandwich?
Courtesy of Biscuit Head
Country Ham Biscuits or Filthy Animals at Biscuit Head
Southern home-cooking spot Biscuit Head is free of pretense and focuses on supporting local vendors, thus minimizing its carbon footprint. As for the eats? The ham is salty and unctuous; the fried green tomato brings the acid to cut it. The biscuit is softer and flakier than the northern biscuits I’m accustomed to. Creative breakfasts are just one of the things Asheville’s robust restaurant scene does well (to wit: Biscuit Head serves gravy flights, a must-try). With everything from the gravy-smothered biscuit stuffed with fried chicken, pimento cheese, bacon, and scrambled eggs—aka the Filthy Animal—to that Country Ham Biscuit, Biscuit Head tops the breakfast hit list.
Locations in West Asheville, near Mission Hospital, and in South Asheville
Among Curatés tapas are pan con tomate with manchego and mushroom croquetas
Curaté
Tapas and rossejat negro at Cúrate
Asheville is home to numerous James Beard–awarded chefs and nominees, including Katie Button, who was named among 2022’s best chefs for Spanish tapas restaurant Cúrate. At her downtown Asheville restaurant, she serves up tapas like croquetas de setas (creamy mushroom croquettes) and pan con tomate with manchego and rossejat negro, a squid ink paella-style dish, with thin noodles instead of rice. Next to Cúrate is sister La Bodega, a restaurant, market, and bakery.
Taste farmhouse ales and barrel-aged sour beers at Wicked Weed’s Funkatorium
Photo by Howder Family/Shutterstock
Farmhouse ales at the Funkatorium
If Asheville is well known for its culinary scene, it’s equally beloved for its beverages, especially beer. Locals credit Oscar Wong’s Highland Brewing Company with kicking off the craft brew culture here in 1995, and it has exploded in the two decades since, making Asheville one of the go-to cities for a beer tour. To taste your way through the offerings, head first to the South Slope, where a dozen breweries line the streets. Not to be missed is the East Coast’s first taproom dedicated to sour beers, Wicked Weed’s Funkatorium. Slide into a table at the outdoor beer garden, then sample from flights of farmhouse ales, barrel-aged sours, and new releases, all of which can be paired with bites like the cheese fries with sour-beer-cured bacon or wood-fired pizzas.
Appalachian spirits at Eda Rhyne
The flourishing craft beverage scene in Asheville doesn’t stop with beer. Among the more intriguing craft spirits ventures is distillery Eda Rhyne. Here, the focus is on whiskey, distilled from local corn and grain, but even more intriguingly, on liquors and spirits crafted from locally harvested botanicals—including many foraged wild from the surrounding mountains. That includes amaro (an Italian herbal liqueur), an Appalachian fernet, and a nocino made from wild-crafted North Carolinian black walnuts.
Chai Pani’s pav bhaji, with soft brioche-style buns and spicy vegetable curry, is comfortingly delicious
Daniel Peach
Chaat and Pav at Chai Pani Asheville
Molly and Meherwan Irani took home the 2022 James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant, and there’s usually a huge number of people waiting for a table at Chai Pani. At the pair’s Indian street food restaurant, order chaat—a category of savory, vegetarian street snacks served across the subcontinent—that’s at once crunchy, a little spicy, and a bit sweet. The Pav—a sandwich that originally fed textile workers in Mumbai—is zhuzhed up here, the lightly griddled brioche-style bun filled with spicy lamb or vada, potato dumplings fried in curried chickpea batter.
Scallop crudo and any pasta at Leo’s House of Thirst
Leo’s House of Thirst opened in the fall of 2020 and is among the newest offerings from chef-owner Drew Wallace, founder of the Admiral and the Bull & Beggar. The wine list is a carefully curated selection of unique finds; most of them come by the glass—a spritely txakoli, a pinot noir from Germany’s Rheingau region, a sparkling gamay, and a César Florido sherry.
Food options include a chicken liver mousse served with crisped bread; steak tartare; yuzu-y scallop crudo, and pasta options including bucatini, dressed up with unexpected shishito peppers, cherry tomatoes, feta, corn crunch, and an essential drizzle of Calabrian chili oil. They all confirm the rumors: Asheville is a foodie’s town, from the first savory biscuit sandwich of the morning to the last bite of handmade pasta at night.
This article was originally published in 2021 and most recently updated on August 6, 2024, with current information. Sophie Friedman contributed reporting.
Read more about Asheville in Afar’s new 52 Unexpected Places to Go in the USA story celebrating the depth and breadth of the country in 2024.
