Bright and airy, with dandelion-yellow walls and white-on-white enamel crown molding, columns and trim, the square-shaped dining room is bathed by natural light through six large-paned windows framed by green curtains, located on two walls in the right corner of the room.
Seventeen tables provide seating for 64, keeping the restaurant intimate. The coziest dining areas are located in four semi-walled sections. |
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By Tom Crosby
No eating place in the Chapel Hill area can rival the historical pedigree of The Carolina Crossroads restaurant.
Located in The Carolina Inn, owned by the University of North Carolina, the Inn and restaurant sit where a small New Hope Episcopal chapel was located more than 200 years ago at a trading crossroads. The town of Chapel Hill derived its name from that chapel.
Today, a AAA-rated Four Diamond restaurant, Carolina Crossroads is the third name the restaurant has borne since it opened in 1924 as the Dining Room. After a renovation in 1951, it was renamed the Hill Room, in honor of the family who built the Inn and gave it to the University. The most recent renovation in 1994 led to the name being changed to Carolina Crossroads.
The restaurant honors the history of the trading crossroads, which merged travelers and traders, goods and produce together at the same site by “bringing together the harvest from North Carolina’s fields, farms and waters for the enjoyment of our guests who gather at the Crossroads for fine food, good company and gracious hospitality,” according to the restaurant menu.
Located down the right hallway of the Inn’s spacious lobby, the entrance to the restaurant is directly across from the Carolina Bar, once the original main lobby of the Inn until 1970 and eventually converted into the current bar in 1994.
 AWARDS
Entering the restaurant, there is a matri’d desk on the right side of the small foyer decorated with AAA and Mobil award plagues and on the left, cushioned chairs, a huge armoire and some small oil paintings of nature scenes. Double French doors on the right lead into the Blue Ridge Dining room, a private dining area for parties of ten or less.
Bright and airy, with dandelion-yellow walls and white-on-white enamel crown molding, columns and trim, the square-shaped dining room is bathed by natural light through six large-paned windows framed by green curtains, located on two walls in the right corner of the room.
Seventeen tables provide seating for 64, keeping the restaurant intimate. The coziest dining areas are located in four semi-walled sections.
The restaurant’s left wall holds decorative fish plates and the back wall is the serving area.
Wooden armchairs with a blue-and-white check design on the cushions surround the tables with some chairs sporting an English cornucopia design.
Tube vases filled with fresh flowers sit on the tables.
China is “Schonwald” from Germany, silverware DJ from Korea and the crystal wine glasses are from Spiegelau.
Overhead, the drop-down ceiling supports four chandeliers. A white-on white enameled column in the room’s center has a John Lee Loughborough antique grandfather clock resting against it.
CHEF STAPLETON
Carolina Crossroads Executive Chef Brian Stapleton, 44, prepares food with a “simplistic style that takes the finest quality ingredients I can find and not cook them to death or overwork them.”
A typical menu might include as an appetizer a summer tomato salad with sliced sweet onions, basil, Tuscan olive oil and shaved aged ricotta cheese. North Carolina lump crab cakes with sweet onion aioli and pepper apple slaw might be a choice or caramelized vidalia onions and assorted summer mushrooms wrapped in herb flat bread with a parsley garlic dressing.
Prices range from $5.25 for sweet onion bisque to $10 for a lobster stew with smoked bacon, hominy grits, green beans, chanterelle mushrooms and corn bread.
“I like to use the natural taste of the ingredients along with the textures and colors,” said Stapleton, who has set as the goal of the restaurant “to keep that feeling of genuine southern hospitality and relaxation. We want the dining experience to be warm, relaxed and refined from a southern point of view but not stuffy.”
Diners enjoy an extensive wine list, including the Carolina Inn’s own brand of Cabernet Sauvignon from Chalone Wine Estates in San Luis Obispo, CA for $28 a bottle. Prices reach $400 for a 1990 magnum of Dom Perignan Champagne.
Entree choices, most using local ingredients, may include charred monkfish with chanterelle mushrooms for $19.50 or smoked portabello mushroom filled with barbecued tomato and hominy for $17.50 or hazelnut coated lamb noisettes with grilled summer vegetable ragout, basmati rice and oregano flavored lamb jus for $22.50
Another menu item in season might be North Carolina white shrimp and grits, fire roasted bell pepper and fresh crawfish soup and potato gnocchi.
Stapleton came to Carolina Crossroads in 1999 after being named Chef of the Year while working at the Sienna Inn’s Il Palio Ristorante. His resume includes the Sheraton Grande in Los Angeles and working for Ritz Carlton in St. Louis, Atlanta and Palm Beach.
Married to a Chapel Hill native, Stapleton is the brother-in-law of Ben Barker, executive chef of the Magnolia Grill in Durham.
Currently, Stapleton is the Inn’s Food and Beverage Director and Executive Chef for Carolina Crossroads and the Paul J. Rizzo Conference Center, which provides culinary courses to college students.
Allal Kartaoui, 35, who worked at the Sienna with Stapleton, manages the restaurant and uses “a good training program that explains good service and teaches what guests expect and how to be a server.”
The restaurant hires only experienced waitstaff and most are upperclassmen and graduate students.
“Their job is to create warmth,” said Kartaoui. “We want to create an atmosphere were people want to come to work and guests want to come and dine.”
PIEDMONT ROOM
In addition to the main dining room, there is the Piedmont Room, which can seat 32, located through a walkway in the rear of the dining room. With one wall of windows and glass doors, it has an airy, light-hearted ambiance and serves as the primary location for afternoon tea.
White walls are crowned at the top with a four-foot high pink border, fish and plant prints hang on one wall, another has a large cabinet full of dishes that does double duty as a serving area. Bonsai trees reside in two corners.
Outside the windows a bricked-in patio is topped with a white trellis that sits over wrought iron tables beneath a pair of overhead, outdoor fans.
AFTERNOON TEA
For tea, tables are covered with a light green linen cloth, a single rose emerges from a bud vase and a silver creamer, sugar and tea cozy complete the on-table decoration. Antique Wedgewood bone-china cups and saucers are used and tea is prepared and served at the table.
Choices on a multi-tiered serving tray may include cucumber sandwiches, salmon with capers, ham with hardgrain mustard or sweet gherkins on top and underneath apricot brandy pound cake, chocolate mouse tarts, strawberries dipped in chocolate and pecan tarts.
Scones with Devonshire cream are signature item.
The elegance of the room, combined with attentive service, make it a favorite location for college co-eds to take their grandmothers (or vice versa) for conversation and afternoon tea. (Tea can also be served in the lobby, if requested by a guest. )
BRUNCH
Another specialty of the Carolina Crossroads restaurant is the Sunday brunch served in the bar area across the hallway from the restaurant entrance.
Three of the walls are lined with food, in a U-shape. Circling the room, choices may include: greens; potato and pasta and chick pea salads; breads, cheeses; raw vegetables; assortment of cold cuts; salmon; tomatoes with goat cheese; fresh fruits; cream of mushroom soup; sauteed green beans; roasted root vegetables; spring rice medley; chicken; fish; pork; bacon and sausage; cheese blintzes; waffles; bread pudding; pies; cakes and an assortment of small pastries.
An omelette chef cooks to order or provides a fresh cut of roast beef cuts.
CAROLINA CROSSROADS BAR
For alumni and other Tar Heel fans, the bar is a perfect place to discuss the fabled North Carolina-Duke basketball rivalry.
Sports photographs hang from the dark red wallpapered walls and help create an appropriate mood, along with the dark wood counter with white-on white underpinning at the left of the entrance and on the main wall, a stone, gas-fueled fireplace with an antique clock tick-tocking on the mantle.
Glass cabinets stocked with liquor are the backdrop for the counter and over the bar, a brass rack holds wine and martini glasses. An elevated TV shows sporting events and news. Nine leather bar stools serve the bar.
One wall holds a series of windows with a set of French doors overlooking the Inn’s lawn - and identifies where the entrance to the Inn once was.
Five tables for four are complemented by four overstuffed leather chairs with wood box tables between each pair of chairs in front of the fireplace. The floor is polished pine and a 15-light brass chandelier hangs overhead. Davidoff cigars are offered for sale and can be smoked only on the front porch or the bricked-in terrace outside Piedmont room.
Whichever experience you choose at the Carolina Crossroads Restaurant, you can be assured that you too are now part of its history. |
