Nibble your way through Charlotte, and you’ll taste the New South. Shining on the Piedmont with a modern skyline and brimming with emerging restaurants, this is a city that savors the fresh and the new.

Charlotte’s emergence on the food radar­—a recent and welcome debut—combines fascinating ingredients: a surging urban renaissance, support from the country’s No. 2 banking town, and fresh talent from the newest campus of Johnson & Wales University. This well-respected culinary school’s 2004 relocation from Charleston, South Carolina, cemented Charlotte’s position as the South’s new food city.

The Restaurant Revolution
You may remember Charlotte as a steak-and-potatoes place, home of the country club rib eye. That was before the banking boom brought an international workforce and a diverse market hungry for fine dining. Sophisticated palates demanded more—and got it.

Now the restaurant revolution is in full force. Take our neighborhood-by-neighborhood tasting tour, and tell us about your foodie finds.