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Story and Photography by Melanie Votaw
Raleigh, North Carolina
A Place for Food, Shopping, History and Culture
If you don’t know what to expect from Raleigh, North Carolina, you might be surprised by what you discover. The city is dedicated to the arts with its own symphony, opera, and ballet companies, and it boasts some great museums and world-class restaurants.
I visited the city in May, and there was more than enough to do. The summer brings all sorts of special events besides the sights that are available year-round. One such event is Artsplosure, an outdoor art fair that includes special activities for kids and exhibitors from all over the country. I appreciated the varied work from pottery to jewelry to paintings.
 We stayed at two hotels during our 4-day visit. The first, The Umstead Hotel and Spa, is in the neighboring town of Cary and is a member of the Leading Hotels of the World. The Umstead is an award-winning luxury property in a wooded setting with views of a three-acre lake. My room had a balcony overlooking the pool and lake, which was exceptionally relaxing. I’ll take that kind of view over a city view any day.
 The nature theme continues throughout the hotel in the 98 pieces of commissioned artwork, and there is a gallery hallway with changing exhibitions. In one area of the hotel is a potter case displaying the work of well-known North Carolina potters Mark Hewitt and Ben Owen.
The Umstead has added many little touches to make it special, such as doorbells on the room doors, double sinks, iPod alarm clocks, and portable telephones. The 12,000 square feet of meeting  space include a great deal of natural light, which is unusual for hotel meeting rooms. There is a harpist during the afternoon tea service and a free pastry bar in the morning. I didn’t get a chance to sample a spa treatment, but I had dinner at Herons, the Umstead’s restaurant, which has received a well-deserved 2009 AAA Four Diamond Award.
Our waiter was one of those rare servers who have turned the profession into a career rather than just a job. Even after visiting 34 countries on 6 continents, I have never experienced a more entertaining waiter with so much knowledge of the menu  and wine list. He was funny without becoming obnoxious and made our meal all the more pleasurable, although the food by Executive Chef Scott Crawford would have been more than enough. Everything was beautifully presented, and we had extra servers who made sure our wine and water glasses were always full. I ordered pork cheeks with rosemary grits, toasted pecan gremolata, and sour cherry jus, which was an inspired combination of flavors, and I especially savored the surprising combination of chocolate and tea in my dessert of chocolate Earl Grey fritters.
Our second hotel was the Renaissance Raleigh Hotel, a Marriott property located in the neighborhood of North Hills, which is a prime shopping area with large national brand name stores and small local boutiques. The Renaissance is listed as a four-star property, but it felt more like a three-star to me. It’s a perfectly nice hotel, especially if you want to be in the North Hills area, but the only special amenity to  report is the imbedded television screen in the bathroom mirror. That said, the hotel was certainly comfortable, and every staff member I encountered was courteous and helpful.
One of our first experiences in Raleigh was the North Carolina Museum of History. It houses numerous exhibits, including the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, one of Dale Ernhardt, Jr.’s cars, a military gallery, and galleries focusing on American Indian history. Its current special exhibit, Knights of the Black Flag, was created at the museum and involves piracy – both ancient and modern. Scientists believe that Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, was wrecked off the coast of North Carolina, so there are artifacts displayed in the museum that are believed to come from that ship. While there may never be a way to prove that the ship found is Queen Anne’s Revenge, numerous scientists are convinced that it is.
The exhibit includes an interactive section for kids with a pirate ship tour on computer, a pirate play ship, and a “make your own pirate flag” game on computer. The most interesting aspect of the exhibit for me was placards which taught about famous female pirates Fanny Campbell, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read.
We took a late morning tour with a new company in Raleigh called Taste Carolina, which hosts guided gourmet food walks at some of the local restaurants. This is a fun way to find out where you might like to have a full meal later. We visited Dos Taquitos, a Mexican restaurant that served us some delicious morsels, including a hibiscus flower infusion drink, that really whetted my appetite for more.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go back there for a full meal. Then, we visited the Mint, which is a luxurious restaurant in a building that was once a bank. The restaurant utilizes the original vault door and some original etchings, and it’s elegantly designed with a few large sage green booths. Of the small tastes we were served, I especially loved the mango sorbet with red onions. I would never have thought to put the two together, but they complimented each other beautifully.
Our next stop was Zely & Ritz Tapas Restaurant and Wine Bar, which we visited again for a dinner during our visit. The family-run establishment uses local organic ingredients for such dishes as Carolina ruby sweet potato gnocchi with roasted rutabaga and turnips in sweet potato sauce, which I enjoyed after a salad with a fantastic strawberry lavender dressing.
 Then, the Taste Carolina tour took us to Escazu Artisan Chocolates. Named after a town in Costa Rica where the shop gets most of its cocoa beans, the owners grind their own and make chocolate from scratch. I had a couple of delicious dark chocolate creams in the intriguing favors of cinnamon chipotle and strawberry balsamic. The shop’s bars can be ordered online. Our last stop was the popular Cupcake Shoppe Bakery with a variety of flavors from strawberry cake and icing to dark chocolate cake with espresso buttercream icing.
In keeping with our afternoon chocolate theme, we visited a traveling exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences about the history and culture of chocolate. The museum also houses an impressive collection of dinosaur skeletons, including the enormous mouth of a prehistoric shark.
The next thing we knew, it was time for dinner, and we headed to The Pit, Raleigh’s premiere restaurant for Eastern-style barbecue, which is a vinegar-based sauce. The restaurant’s Pitmaster, Ed Mitchell, has become quite famous since his appearance on the Food Network’s Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Mitchell worked with a farm to breed the kind of organic and free-range pigs he wanted, and no one else gets this breed. The restaurant smokes the whole hog in-house for 48 hours, but all sorts of meats are available on the menu. Bring your appetite because you won’t want to eat light here!
The next morning’s breakfast took us to Big Ed’s City Market Restaurant, where southern cooking has remained alive with brains & eggs, fish roe & eggs, biscuits with sawmill or red-eye gravy, and pancakes made from pound cake batter. Big Ed claims that some of the recipes originated with his Confederate mess sergeant great-grandfather. It’s a family atmosphere with big portions, so it’s definitely a place to forget your diet and hide from your doctor.
After breakfast, we visited the Marbles Kids Museum, which is an inspired place for kids from birth to age 10, and we caught a 3-D IMAX film about ocean life at the adjacent theatre. For lunch, we did a 180 and had Lebanese food at Sitti in downtown Raleigh. Every bite was mouth-watering from the hummus to the kabobs to the baklava.
 We also took a Raleigh Rickshaw ride, which is an open vehicle driven like a bicycle. Our guide was a retiree who grew up in Raleigh and is very proud of his city. He imparted a lot of information as he wheeled us through the city’s downtown streets.
I should mention one other restaurant that we visited during our time in Raleigh. North Hills’ French brasserie, Coquette, is a great place for Sunday brunch. It isn’t a buffet, but I enjoyed the house-made breads and crepes.
What I discovered about Raleigh is that it’s a vibrant city with a great deal to offer the tourist. In the downtown area, there’s free bus service that gets you around from sight to sight. There’s plenty of everything, whether your interests are food and wine, shopping, history, culture, or fun things to do with the kids.
For more information on the city, please see Visit Raleigh
© July 2009 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.
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