Durham isn’t just cooking—it’s smoking. But these days, the smoke rising from the Bull City comes from a red-hot dining scene and barbecue pits, not tobacco warehouses. Walk downtown and you’ll count just two chain restaurants among dozens of local establishments—proof that this former tobacco capital has become one of the Southeast’s most underrated culinary destinations.
That balance creates something special: a beacon of culinary diversity and community resilience. Here, you can fill your passport by eating your way across town—from oxtail flatbread pizza and South African baboti to brothy ramen and Italian panini—all without leaving North Carolina’s fourth-largest city.
Durham’s food scene sidesteps overcommercialization entirely. It’s authentic, unpretentious, and equally welcoming to adventurous eaters and neighborhood regulars—a reflection of the city’s century-old entrepreneurial spirit that still drives local business owners to work their own floors.
Best Places to Eat, Drink, and Explore
Most Life-Changing Biscuit: Rise Southern Biscuits & Righteous Chicken
The original location of this national fast-casual chain serves everything from country ham and egg to mac and cheese and bacon sandwiched between buttery-layered biscuits—each bite a revelation.
Most Likely to Convince You That Barbecue Is a Religion: Backyard BBQ Pit
This award-winning barbecue joint will convert the most hardened skeptics with its hickory-perfumed ribs that stain your fingers before the first bite.
Best Coffee Shop to Write Your Novel: Cocoa Cinnamon
Cocoa Cinnamon’s three café locations brew coffee from their own Little Waves Coffee Roasters, pairing it with eclectic art, Mexican-inspired murals, cozy corners, and baristas who remember your story as well as your order.
Most Dangerous Spot For “Just One More Beer”: Ponysaurus Brewing Co.
Ponysaurus Brewing Co. lures you with picnic-table patios and creative taps that make it far too easy to stretch an afternoon into an evening.
Most Mind-Blowing Sandwiches: Ideal’s Sandwich and Grocery
This East Durham spot redefines the sandwich using unexpected combinations with Northeastern roots—think fried eggplant with salsa verde or mortadella stacked with Calabrian chiles on housemade hoagie rolls.
Best Bakery to Ruin Your Willpower: Loaf
Loaf’s yeasty aromas drift down Main Street like a cartoon pie on a windowsill. Known for its organic, hearth-baked sourdough, croissants, and rustic pastries, the bakery’s rotating bread schedule, seasonal bread club, and weekly appearances at the farmers market keep crumb enthusiasts coming back for more.
Best Spot For You and Your Food-Obsessed Friend: Dashi
Dashi’s all-day ramen shop with its upstairs izakaya delivers slurpable bowls below and smoky skewers above—a two-level adventure.
Best Place to Run Into Your Entire Neighborhood: Durham Farmers Market
Durham Farmers Market doubles as both block party and pantry stop, with fiddlers playing between stalls and neighbors trading recipes over rainbow chard.
Most Beach Energy: Saltbox Seafood Joint
Ricky Moore’s Saltbox Seafood Joint garnered the chef James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southeast and serves fresh North Carolina seafood straight from dock to plate. When they’re out, that’s all, folks. Go early and order the fish, fried hard.
Best Wine Education: Wine Authorities
Wine Authorities turns each visit into a crash course in regions you’ve never heard of, with bottles you’ll brag about discovering.
Best Place to Experience History: Chicken Hut
Open since 1957 and owned and operated by second-generation Tapp family members, Chicken Hut, originally known as Chicken Box, is Durham’s longest-serving Black-owned restaurant. This community cornerstone is known for its legendary fried chicken made from a secret family recipe. The menu also includes oxtails with gravy, baked chicken, barbecue ribs, and other Southern and soul food favorites, preserving decades of culinary tradition and local history.
Claim to Fame
Hayti District (Black Wall Street)
Durham’s Hayti District, once known as Black Wall Street, was among the nation’s most prosperous Black business hubs in the early 1900s, home to banks, shops, and newspapers. Urban renewal and highway construction destroyed much of the neighborhood by the 1960s. Today, that entrepreneurial energy endures in Durham’s independent restaurant scene, where chefs and owners prioritize community-driven dining that honors Hayti’s legacy of resilience, enterprise, and history.
Where to Shop
Open on the first and third Sundays of the month, April through November, at Durham Tech Community College, this market supports Black farmers and entrepreneurs who provide produce and prepared foods. It also doubles as a pickup location for Tall Grass Food Box, a subscription service delivering fresh produce from Black farmers throughout North Carolina.
Open since 1990, this gourmet food market includes a charming cottage café led by chef and restaurateur Sara Foster, a Durham legend who once worked as a chef for Martha Stewart’s catering company. Shelves are filled with seasonal prepared foods, specialty grocery items, and locally sourced products, while a curated selection of cookbooks, kitchenware, and gifts adds a personal touch. The café serves breakfast, lunch, and weekend brunch, making it a go-to spot for meals and thoughtful shopping.
Casa Bella Market is a treasure trove of home goods, décor, and gifts from more than 50 local makers, each selected for being organic, all-natural, low waste, upcycled, vintage, or sustainable. For community-minded entertaining, the market offers a silverware library, allowing customers to borrow high-quality pieces for special occasions. From kitchen essentials to curated gifts and monthly crafting workshops, this retailer supports local artisans and encourages mindful shopping.
Where to Stay
21c Museum Hotel Durham combines boutique hospitality with contemporary art, featuring rotating exhibitions throughout the property. Guests can stay in sleek modern rooms, dine at Counting House restaurant with its locally inspired cuisine, and be in proximity to invitation-only The Vault Society, an underground speakeasy, which remains one of Durham’s best-kept cocktail secrets. The hotel’s mix of art, design, and craft cocktails makes it a memorable destination for visitors and locals alike.
Meet a Local
Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams, Restaurateur and Community Leader
What sets Durham apart is its “defiantly Durham” attitude, as Mayor Leonardo Williams puts it. Williams embodies this spirit in a way few public servants can—he’s as likely to be found bussing tables at his Zimbabwean restaurant on Saturday night as he is crafting policy at City Hall on Monday morning. This unique perspective as both civic leader and restaurateur makes him uniquely qualified to speak about Durham’s rise as a serious culinary destination.
As someone who lives at the intersection of policy and prosperity, Williams understands what it takes to build both a thriving restaurant and a thriving city. His dual roles offer rare insight into how Durham has cultivated a food scene that’s authentically local, fiercely independent, and nationally recognized.
Q. What makes your dual role unique, and how has Durham’s community shaped your success?
“I’m the only politician in my community who has to make payroll every two weeks,” says Williams, Durham’s mayor and co-owner of Ekhaya, a fine-dining restaurant inspired by his wife Zweli’s Zimbabwean heritage. Together, they previously ran Zweli’s Kitchen—the first Zimbabwean restaurant in the United States—before opening Ekhaya.
Williams sees his mayoral and restaurant roles as deeply interconnected. “There’s a beautiful crossover between policy and prosperity, and that is the life that I live,” he explains. “There was not a single Zimbabwean restaurant in the United States, and Durham gave it a chance,” he says. “That’s what this city does.”
Q. If you had one completely free day in Durham, what places would you eat, drink, and spend time?
“My ideal day is really a love letter to this city,” Williams says. It starts with coffee at Nectar Café, where the baristas named a drink The Mayor in his honor. “It’s my favorite drink and I can’t start my day without it.” After fueling up at Early Bird Donuts, he’ll grab lunch at Parker & Otis, a No. 21 (ham, smoked gouda, garlic and onion jam with sprouts)—“their paninis are legendary”—followed by what he calls his “midday cheat snack”: a blueberry and cheese danish from Ninth Street Bakery. “Be sure to microwave it! Don’t judge me,” he laughs. The day winds down where it always does: “For dinner, I spend my time nightly at Zweli’s Ekhaya. The menu changes often and I get to serve tables while at it.” He’ll finish the night at The Waiting Room for a cocktail called Smoking Jacket (bourbon, lapsang tea-infused chocolate liqueur, dry vermouth, Campari, and orange liqueur).
Q. What’s a hidden spot in Durham that you always recommend to friends or visitors, but most people might overlook?
“I always resort to The Vault Society, underground in the 21c Museum Hotel.”
Q. When you host out-of-town guests, what’s the one experience or place you always make sure to share with them?
“A must-visit is either The Durham Hotel or The Lenny at 555 for the views and brews.”
Q. What convinced you that Durham was the right place to plant your roots?
“Durham gave me a chance to evolve as a community leader who could contribute to making the city better—from educator to entrepreneur to elected official.”