2 NC Restaurants Make Daily Meal's 101 Best In U.S. List

NORTH CAROLINA — If you're looking to dine out on a patio — or get to-go dinners from some of the region's top restaurants — we've got some tasty news for you. The Daily Meal published its list for the "101 Best Restaurants In America," and the online food and dining site included two restaurants from North Carolina.

These restaurants serve food that's thought-provoking, a stellar level of service, a good beverage list and a true sense of personality, imagination and consistency, the editors said. "Visiting one of these restaurants feels like a truly memorable culinary experience," the site said.

Here are the best restaurants in the state, according to The Daily Meal's rankings, and what the food writers said about each.

No. 82, Curate in Asheville: "Katie Button, the chef/owner of Cúrate, a popular tapas bar located in Asheville, North Carolina, spent time working under Spanish masters José Andrés and Ferran Adrià before opening the restaurant along with her husband Félix Meana in 2011. Since then, Cúrate has become one of Asheville’s most beloved restaurants, with an all-Spanish wine list and an attached vermouth bar. The menu, as all great tapas menus are, is sprawling, but don’t miss the patatas bravas, housemade morcilla, seasonal vegetable paella and baked-to-order Marcona almond tart."

No. 34, Lantern in Chapel Hill: "Chef Andrea Reusing’s Lantern is an Asian-influenced Chapel Hill, North Carolina, restaurant with a strong priority for using local ingredients and has won widespread recognition. The menu is variable, but standouts include local beef sashimi with smoked chestnuts, salt and pepper shrimp with fried jalapenos, a hotpot with housemade soba, and steamed wild local black bass with local bok choy."

To compile the rankings, The Daily Meal contacted hundreds of dining experts around the country to ask which restaurants they considered the absolute best in their respective cities. Those restaurants were then added to other establishments that have "garnered near-universal acclaim" and eateries that have been featured on previous Daily Meal lists. The restaurants were ranked according to metrics such as food, service, beverage options and environment.

"These 101 restuarants serve food that's thoughtful and thought-provoking, and they also have a dining room and a level of service that suit the quality of what's on the plate, a good beverage list and a true sense of personality, imagination and consistency," authors of The Daily Meal rankings wrote in an introductory statement to the list. "Visiting one of these restaurants feels like a truly memorable culinary experience."

Alinea, the three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago, was ranked as the No. 1 eatery in the United States, according to The Daily Meal. The top five restaurants were rounded out by Eleven Madison Park in New York City, Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, Le Bernardin in New York City and Inn at Little Washington.

The full list of the 101 best restaurants is available on The Daily Meal.

Deb Belt, Patch staff, contributed.