Students rarely get the opportunity to deviate from the staples of college food. However, being more than just a college town, Raleigh’s fine dining scene persists despite college demand on pizza and takeout. Moreover, restaurants around the Triangle are collaborating to showcase their products next week.
More than 60 local restaurants will participate in the second annual Triangle Restaurant Week from Jan. 24 through 30. The event is modeled after national restaurant weeks in New York and Washington D.C., which both brought attention to and celebrated the culinary arts.
“It started in New York to get people to have access to higher-end menus,” Kevin Jennings, Urban Food Group public relations director, said. “The benefit is generally a reduced charge.”
The large scope of the event includes two restaurants close to campus. The adjacent restaurant pair on the other side of Hillsborough Street, Porter’s Tavern and Frazier’s Wine Bar, will offer special menus along with their standard menus. Both restaurants, managed by Urban Food Group, plan to attract business to Hillsborough Street despite a slow recovery after construction.
“This event is always a help for business,” Mark Johnson, Porter’s Tavern general manager, said. “As people come back to Hillsborough Street and realize that there is parking and everything is better, it’s a good thing for all of us.”
Porter’s and Frazier’s, played around with their menus to arrange specials that reflect the restaurants’ general style.
“The Triangle Restaurant Week special is three courses for lunch and dinner,” Johnson said. “Lunch is $15 and dinner is $30. We definitely do represent what we do normally with this special.”
The specials at Porters include French onion soup with gruyere-cheese toast, pork tacos, pan roasted flounder and handmade ravioli.
“We make everything in house,” Johnson said. “We wanted to have a little bit of everything. We do American food, like nice burgers, but it’s all over the place.”
Of the more than 40 Raleigh restaurants involved in the event, Urban Food Group has two more restaurants participating. Coquette, a French brasserie, and Vivace, an Italian trattoria, are planning exclusive menus focusing on local ingredients.
“Here’s the catch for us, we want to focus on what’s seasonal, but also playful,” Jennings said. “I believe that the cuisine at our restaurants is progressive.”
Triangle Restaurant Week and Urban food groups are focusing on the “locavore” trend that found its way back into contemporary restaurants. Throughout the Triangle, non-chain restaurants have been focusing with tremendous support on buying produce from the local farmers market and patronizing regional food suppliers.
“We try to get produce locally,” Johnson said. “I mean we get our bread from a bakery downtown. We want to support the local economy and local businesses. That is our policy. Therefore, we would like people to support us as a local business.”
Jennings reiterated the effects of celebrating local restaurants.
“There is definitely a rippling effect,” Jennings said. “It’s a long term sort of thing. Through a multitude of efforts, educations efforts, people start to get it.”
Restaurateurs and chefs are looking for a kick-start with the new year in what has been a tough time for restaurants.
Close proximity to the University has given Porter’s consistent business and the restaurant tends to attract faculty and students on budgets.
“I come here about once a week,” Sabrina Hunt, a graduate student in biochemistry, said. “I like the tacos but I sometimes get a salad and the price isn’t too scary.”
Despite the lunch rush after 12:10 classes, the student ratio that stops by for dinner drops off. Jennings touched upon this issue of appealing to the student demographic. Urban Food Group restaurants and the other eateries of the same caliber in Triangle Restaurant Week have elegance as a setback.
“One of the struggles is to bring people in,” Jennings said. “Consequently, people get intimidated, which is our biggest challenge.”
Nevertheless, the restaurants are expecting increased business next week. The restaurant economy is slowly coming out of the slump of the recession, which has consequently stymied culinary ventures, but chefs in the area are looking forward to being creative once again.
