Let the culinary road trip continue! Mom, Dad, and I made the hour and half drive to Kinston, NC and after a 3 hour meal I can confidently say it was worth every mile driven. I first learned about The Chef & the Farmer in 2010 at the Raleigh Round Up event, but it wasn't until recently watching the new PBS series, A Chef's Life, that I became fully convinced we should make the trek.
Vivian Howard and her husband, Ben Knight, first met while working at a restaurant in New York, Vivian was back of the house, Ben was front of the house, and seven years ago they moved back to her hometown of Kinston to open The Chef & The Farmer. Everyone should watch A Chef's Life because they're an incredibly endearing couple with a fascinating story about how they live their busy lives as restaurant owners, parents to twins, and strong members of the Kinston community.
Dining Room
Bar
Best seats in the house!
(Not only could we see all the action on the line, but it gave us the perfect opportunity to meet Vivian (Ben wasn't there) and talk to her about the restaurant and her TV show. She was delightful and just as beautiful in person as she appears on TV. It was a busy night at the restaurant with every seat filled, so we were appreciative that she took the time to talk to us and answer so many of our questions.)
Menu
Pizza menu
Manhattan "short" (aka a mini-Manhattan)
The Pork Belly Skewers with candied bell peppers and cilantro was our first dish and probably a favorite of the evening. Each skewer was the perfect two-bite size seared on the flat top and then coated with the heavenly glaze dripping off the candied pepper mixture piled on top. This sweet, tangy topping balanced perfectly with the fatty pork belly, making it a mouth watering combination.
Disclaimer: we were so anxious to dig into this one that I forgot to take a picture of the complete dish, so this picture is once we were already halfway through it. Our intuition was correct because this was yet another delicious dish named Benton's Country Ham Wrapped Peaches with gingered goat cheese, balsamic honey, and spiced pecans. The peaches were juicy and ripe, wrapped in salty ham, and coated with the tasty honey mixture. Another "must order."
Then we had the Benne Fried Green Tomatoes with chèvre and curried peach preserves. It's not a true Southern restaurant if they don't have fried green tomatoes on the menu, so we were happy to see these on there. They had a unique coating on them that I wasn't sure what exactly it was and I forgot to ask Vivian, but they had a great texture and the curried peach preserves was a great twist to the dish.
Fried Okra with Ranch ice cream.... for $5... now who could resist trying this?! The okra was fried in the lightest, fluffiest tempura style batter I have ever tasted and they were perfectly salted too. I even ate half of them plain because they were so tasty, but the Ranch ice cream was a fun addition that made them even better.
I am a sucker for wood-fired pizzas, but this one far exceeded any that I've had before. We chose the Sweet & Smokey pizza with caramelized onion, bacon, garlic crema, and fontina cheese. Holy cow, it's all of my favorite things all on one pizza. The garlic crema is definitely the stand out of it all with its velvet texture and sweet garlic flavor. We grilled pizzas at Philip and Ashleigh's just this week and while they were delicious I know that next time I'll be adding my own version of this garlic crema to them. In fact, because Philip and Ashleigh couldn't make the trip with us for dinner we ordered them their own Sweet & Smokey pizza to go so they could try it too!
Next we had the End of Summer Tomatoes & Hand-pulled Mozzerella with charred sweet onion, basil, and Georgia olive oil. When reading the menu I thought everything about this dish sounded ideal except for the charred sweet onion because I thought it was unusual to have a cooked, let alone charred, component to a dish composed completely of raw, fresh ingredients. I thought this might upset the balance and muddle the fresh flavors, but I could not have been more wrong. The onions were practically melted and therefore super sweet, making them an awesome addition to the tomatoes, mozzarella, and the unbelievable pesto that they sneakily tucked under the middle pieces of cheese. My only wish for this dish would be to have more pesto!
Our last savory dish for the evening came from a section of the menu entitled "Pimp my Grits," just one of the many tiny quirks that I loved about this menu and restaurant in general. There were three grit choices this evening and per the recommendation of our wonderful server, Angela, we chose the Grits with stewed apples, white cheddar, and crisp country ham. The texture of the grits was perfect, just like my grandmother use to make them, and the cheese, apples, and ham created a winning flavor profile. Plus I loved the presentation of the grits in a mini-cast iron skillet. Too cute.
Our first dessert was the Muscadine, Lime & Buttermilk Parfait with Citrus Chantilly. Being my mother's daughter and the chocoholic that I am, this wouldn't have been the first dessert I would have chosen, but Vivian was kind enough to send this out to us and it turns out she knows my palette better than I do because it was exceptional. There were so many flavors and layers going on in there and they worked together perfectly! I'm so so glad that we got to try this one. I feel like this dessert would make Willy Wonka proud because of its wacky creativity.
Dad can never resist an apple pie on the menu and when the name is Triple Decker Apple Pie with cinnamon ice cream and caramel there's no way he would pass it up! It was delicious and he even let us have a few bites of it. :)
Then the king of all desserts came out, The 10 Layer Chocolate Layer Cake with old fashioned caramel icing and toffee crunch. It was sinfully rich and oh-so-delicious and we loved that she made her toffee with saltine crackers because that's how we make ours as well, so it brought back lots of happy Christmas memories for me.
Chef Vivian Howard
It was a remarkable evening that started with a warm welcome, inviting dining space adorned with beautiful artwork painted by Ben, knowledgable and personable waitstaff, and an extremely gracious and humble chef. But the best part was seeing the love and pride that they put into their menu to showcase North Carolina ingredients that rounded out the whole experience and made it one of the best we've had in a long time. Thank you again for everything, Vivian; we can't want to return again!
It was a beautiful night in Kinston, North Carolina and I highly recommend The Chef & The Farmer to anyone in the area. If you don't live in the area you should consider planning a trip, but don't forget to make a reservation; seats fill up quickly!
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