Charlotte Restaurants

Charlotte boasts some top-class Southern cuisine and dining, with many restaurants serving up perennial favourites such as Southern-fried chicken and Brunswick stew. In recent years however, more exotic offerings have begun to find their way to Charlotte, as the city has become more prosperous. This means that diners will never be stuck for a choice of restaurants and dining options in Charlotte.

Local cuisine

Charlotte is famous for Southern staples such as barbecue, grits (made of coarsely-ground corn kernels and boiled slowly like porridge, and served with salt, black pepper and butter as part of a Southern breakfast), cornbread (crumbly bread made of stone-ground cornmeal and buttermilk, baked in a cast-iron skillet), hush puppies (deep-fried cornmeal dumplings, either round or elongated, sometimes flavoured with chopped onion and served alongside barbecue or fried seafood), baked macaroni and cheese, meat loaf and of course, old-fashioned banana pudding.

Country ham is thinly-sliced and heavily salted. It's typically pan-fried and served on a biscuit as a kind of breakfast sandwich. The drippings are mixed with black coffee to make red-eye gravy, which is served over the country ham or other breakfast foods.

Where to eat

Charlotte's NoDa and Plaza Midwood districts are full of chic hangouts and cool cafés that open early, often serving all-day breakfasts. Uptown Charlotte is home to more traditional cafés and eateries, catering more for the business crowd, while locals still prefer to visit the nostalgic roadside joints.