Obviously we need increased density downtown for smaller retail to work like it does in other cities. I find it unlikely that people are going to come downtown to visit a small retail shop as often as they would a food hall. You’d really have to gather a bunch of small retailers together in a similar model that people from out of the urban core would want to go to as a “destination”.
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There are different options that already exist in Raleigh and elsewhere like mobile kiosks for food vendors late at night, more permanent kiosks that are mostly seen in shopping malls, weekly markets that you see in many European cities, etc. I think that we have to include but go beyond traditional brick and mortar stores, and I certainly think that we need to rethink the presumed footprint required to run such a brick and mortar business.
Some development is already thinking about non-traditional retail. That plaza between 1Glenwood and 2Hillsborough is going to have that “shipping container” retail. I suspect that, like North Hills, SH will also have some sort of retail in their pedestrian plaza. We just need many more smaller footprint spaces created for small business.
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Yeah, there’s that saying, “retail follows rooftops” so perhaps tackling retail directly isn’t the entire picture, it’s getting the resident count up, which it does tick upward year after year.
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@dtraleigh + @Tenkai This has been on my list for a while now. A multi-vendor “mini mall” of sorts, but obviously more hip than what most would think of a mini-mall to be. Check this out, this is where I draw my inspiration from: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-mini-mall-williamsburg
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So I went tonight and suffice to say it is probably my new favorite restaurant in Raleigh. I also wrote a book about my experience and didn’t even take any pictures of my food!
So I was pretty excited to visit High Horse after seeing the beautiful job they did with the string lights and outside seating. It ties in perfectly to the City Market vibe, and elevates it to a whole new level (something I later realized the restaurant itself does as well). I’ve also read the articles about a celebrity chef coming to Raleigh and all of the positive and negative buzz that creates. To be fair, he comes from humble (and very interesting) origins, and has chosen to relocate himself and his family from Los Angeles to make a home in Raleigh because he genuinely likes it here. As a transplant myself, I have a special appreciation for someone like this. Anyways, on to the actual dinner…
We arrived early and each had a bourbon cocktail from the gorgeous bar, both delicious, and both oddly priced well below what I’ve come to expect downtown or anywhere in Raleigh. We wandered around the cozy but spacious entry area and noticed the fun neon-backlit paintings with actual Barbie dolls riding various animals, wearing Santa hats just for the holidays. This was the introduction to a subtle but fantastic theme.
Our table was ready, and we had the pleasure of sitting at a 4-seater table with only two adjacent chairs, with a perfect view of the open kitchen area. I’ve been to open kitchen seating before, and this was something else. Both intimate and far enough away to be private, we had front row seats to a show that never got old. A half dozen cooks were preparing all of the menu items over huge wood fire stoves, with the celebrity chef himself at the end: finishing, inspecting, and handling every single dish that came out, while calmly giving out tips, critiques, and instructions to the cooks and runners.
So the dinner itself… Our waiter and all staff were friendly, informative, and efficient in a way that makes you feel simultaneously at ease and engaged. Each small plate and entrée were thoughtful and unique, and bursting with complex and comforting flavors. We had the cornbread (the chef’s grandmother’s recipe) which was cake, with whipped honey truffle butter. I don’t really care for cornbread and this was one of the best things I’ve ever had. There were bacon wrapped dates stuffed with spicy sausage, served with a rich Calabrian tomato sauce with grilled bread. Sounds simple, but it was like two wonderful plates combined perfectly. There was the briny and savory roast chicken with a tangy, rich, complex achiote broth and pickled cherries and fennel. There was the petite New York steak with a whole head of roasted garlic crushed on top tableside, perfectly charred and medium-rare. I’m neglecting other items like the local shrimp, ready to eat fried with tails, head, and shells on (think soft shell crab) over togarashi almond salsa and the hamachi tostada (a true blend of the chef’s Japanese-Mexican background). Dessert consisted of a churro bread pudding with rye toffee sauce and a dark morello cherry pie, both with rich vanilla ice cream. They were decadent and absolutely delicious; the suggested cabernet pairing with the pie was unexpected and perfect.
The food and service were absolutely stellar, as I hope I’ve made clear. But the true test of a restaurant is the time you have when you’re there. We were there for over 2 hours (which flew by), and we were enjoying every moment. There were so many interesting details to the restaurant, some subtle and some more obvious. For example, the wine list denotes which vineyards were run by women. They don’t carry brands that are anti-LGBT (Bulleit bourbon for instance, who knew?), but aren’t blatant about this. The best part of all…. The bathrooms. You can judge a restaurant’s true character by the bathrooms. We’ve all been to the classy restaurants that have vintage pin-ups of scantily clad women, etc., etc. This place turns it on its head: The men’s room is lovely but ordinary, with a single framed New Yorker-esque cartoon of a horse (the High Horse) as a waiter suggesting ordering whatever is trending on Instagram. The women’s room is a completely different story. There’s a disco ball. The walls and each stall are adorned with a topless picture of Ryan Reynolds, The Rock, Zac Efron and the like. There’s people serving champagne in those little white paper funnel cups and velvet couches. Seeing the reactions of the patrons, and the waiter when I asked about it, was priceless.
The final touch came when we left, completely delighted and stuffed, and I went to offer a quick thanks to the tirelessly busy celebrity chef who had not left his post the entire time. He came over and shook my hand, wanted to know what we had, where we came from (when I mentioned we too had chosen to move here), and seemed genuinely surprised and touched when I told him what we thought of his new venture: that it’s perhaps the best restaurant in Raleigh.
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We went with a party of 8 two weeks ago and I’ll have to agree with everything you said. It honestly is one of the best restaurants we have, the only thing you left out that we really enjoyed were the frozen shot glasses you can order and throw at large bell outside.
I think this restaurant will help Raleigh gain even more national attention for great food.
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This is a great review. You have officially convinced me to try and go soon! Explain the funnel cup champagne people? Haha.
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I went with family. It’s ok, they did not have the first 3 beers I asked for, no paper towels in the men’s room. Small plates are just awesome. The main plates and dessert are ok. great bar for cocktails. I had the ribs, they were a little above average.
The Chef is great at supervising everything that comes out of kitchen.
7 out of 10
We went to High Horse on Friday night with some friends and we also did the ice shot. There were no tables available so we just got appetizers at the bar but everything we had was delicious, especially the cocktails.
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The only thing I’d give negative remarks towards would be the beer list. We went the opening week so maybe it has changed, but literally not 1 NC beer, let alone any Raleigh beer. I mentioned this to the guy who created the beer and wine list and told him sometimes people from N.C. can be picky when it comes to beer. I believe this is one of the things that went downhill for whalburgers.
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I believe their draft list was NC beer and their bottle list was more international beers, but I ended up ordering cocktails and wine so I can’t say for sure. Maybe they listened to you!
One thing I would recommend to them and all restaurants that like it really dark inside is to get a backlit menu. A lot of ppl had to use phone to see it.
I had a backlit menu in a restaurant in Manila, very cool, and ppl did not need reading glasses as the text expanded.
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I’ll second the ice shot. Definitely an experience if you go
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I walked in one night with a few friends and ended up ordering 75% of the menu. Food wise, the bone marrow was amazing, so were the shishito peppers. But the other items are a bit too much on the sweet side. Great service and location though.
There is even a documentary about Durham’s restaurant scene which goes through the conception of several Durham places. Nothing in the documentary tries to explain express how these places, or Durham as a whole, is exceptional. In a nutshell its essentially, 6 different people decided to open restaurants in Durham. Interestingly I think two closed, which was pointed out, so I was really left scratching my head…Edit: here it is, Food Town on PBS.
I personally don’t like to find local restaurants beer lists dominated by NC beers. I can just go to the breweries and pay less. I want the restaurants to go to the extra effort of bringing in hard to find stuff.
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My thoughts exactly. You can buy NC beers almost anywhere in Raleigh. One restaurant not having mostly NC beers is almost a breath of fresh air at this point haha
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Yeah, I don’t care as much about locality as I do about quality. Hell, even if you’re going to carry only Anheuser-Busch InBev stuff, at least get some of the Brewers Collective beers on the menu too.
Except I think the breweries make more off the restaurants (and distribution) than they do the taproom. I’ve been meaning to ask some people exactly what the breakdown is. Anyway I’ve usually found that restaurants aren’t good places to find new beers or hard to get beers. They usually don’t have the right contacts; better places to find those are one of the various bottle shops like Tasty, House of Hops or the beer centric places like the beer garden.
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Yeah I’m a huge fan and customer of the bottle shops. Pelagic is my closest but SOB and Paddys get a ton of my money too. North Street has a nice cozy feel too. Raleigh seems like a leader in the bottle shops scene from what I can tell, for its size especially. I mean, we don’t have a Chucks Hop Shop level place, but ITB there is almost always one within walking distance which is awesome.
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