From our Top 50 list, here are our picks for the best restaurants in Raleigh

In North Carolina’s capital city, you can find old school barbecue with a modern twist, tacos trucks with a dozen diners in line and fine dining with miles of southern charm.

Recently, The New & Observer named the Top 50 restaurants in the Triangle. Of those, 19 are in Raleigh.

FULL STORY: The N&O’s Top 50 Restaurants of 2026: The Triangle’s best places to eat

Ajja

At Ajja, you’ll perfect your dipping, swiping and dabbing as your table passes and shares whipped feta dressed with apple chutney, or the brightest yogurt dip, colored with beets, each devoured in pinches of housemade bread. The fried anchovies get a crunch from pickled fennel and crushed potato chips, and bitter coffee and sweet dried cherries set off the roasted carrots. An aromatic lamb tagine offers rich meat cut with fruity tartness. Ajja mirrors the rhythms of the best dinner parties, where the meal unfolds as you and your dining companions push platters around, sharing a journey with a skyline backdrop. James Beard-nominee Cheetie Kumar leads the kitchen at this endlessly dazzling Raleigh gem.

209 Bickett Blvd., Raleigh | ajjaeats.com | $ $ - $ $ $

Benchwarmers Bagels

The fire in this wood-burning oven was lit with an audacious idea: that great bagels could exist in the Biscuit Belt. Leave it to the fermented minds behind Raleigh’s great Boulted Bread to pull off world-class bagels while pushing the form: Grits bagels, anyone? The days of AM sellouts are over, thank goodness, meaning you can now walk up and out quickly with housemade lox atop a creamy, tangy spread of smashed deviled eggs between the explosive confetti of a crispy, chewy everything bagel. But don’t sleep on the simple $4.25 pleasure of drip coffee, plain bagel and plain cream cheese.

500 E. Davie St., #107, Raleigh (in Transfer Food Hall) and 1015 S. Saunders St., Raleigh and (to come) 540 St. Albans Drive, Raleigh | benchwarmersbagels.com | $

Brewery Bhavana

Only part of Brewery Bhavana wants to be a restaurant. On one side, there’s the sleekest marble bar with hightop stools, seeming to answer the age-old question: Yes, there will be beer on the space station, and it will be Belgian-inspired. Then there’s the flower and book shops. But ultimately, it’s the dumplings that make Brewery Bhavana special, and the rich and dramatic xiao long bao is a must. There’s also an important lesson: Bring enough friends to split the lacquered peking duck, because what a thing to miss out on.

218 S. Blount St., Raleigh and 850 Lower Garden Lane, Cary | brewerybhavana.com | $ $ $ - $ $ $ $

Brodeto

Compared to the intimacy of Crawford & Son and Jolie, James Beard-nominated Chef Scott Crawford went big with Brodeto. The cavernous room invites a swirl of experiences, from icy oysters dressed with grapefruit or tomato, or sharply punchy razor clams tossed in Calabrian chilies and served in their shells. The pastas are tender, carefully crafted bites, like agnolotti stuffed with sweet corn and tossed with chanterelles. The wood-burning grill lends a smoky char to everything — from a thickly sliced pork chop rubbed with fennel to the burned strawberries juiced for cocktails. And after all that, somehow the simple vanilla bean soft serve, bejeweled with drops of olive oil and flaky salt, will still seem improbably delicious.

2201 Iron Works Drive, #137, Raleigh | brodeto.com | $ $ $ $

Chuan Cafe

This is the place to come for the tingle and thrill of Szechuan cuisine, where the Spicy Chongqing noodles are slicked with chili oil and numbing peppercorns, though the fiery Dan Dan noodles are the most popular plate. Make sure to get at least one dry fried dish, maybe broccoli topped with those prickly peppercorns and dried chilies, or the crispy, tender fried flounder, served on a bamboo platter.

2004 New Bern Ave., Raleigh | chuanxiacafe.com | $ - $ $

Crawford & Son

Scott Crawford himself admits it, from the painted black exterior, the exposed brick walls, the art with elements of bullet holes: Crawford & Son appears to be an overly masculine restaurant. And yet, it serves the prettiest plates of food in the Triangle. Once, there was a cantaloupe carpaccio as lovely and luminescent as stained glass, dotted with plump blackberries, tiny tomatoes and toasted pine nuts, a drizzle of olive oil cutting the sweetness of the fruit. Ostensibly a neighborhood restaurant, Crawford remains as inventive as any Raleigh kitchen, with true daring, exacting flavors and visual wonders.

618 N. Person St., Raleigh | crawfordandsonrestaurant.com | $ $ $ $

Death & Taxes

Many of the trends in the Triangle dining scene — the wood-burning grills, the handmade pastas and ember-warmed oysters — were put in motion by Death & Taxes. The fine dining restaurant from two-time James Beard Award winner Ashley Christensen has aged into the axiom from which it takes its name: The certainties in life are death, taxes and the consistent pleasures of a crusty, smoky steak or the sweet saltiness of crab pasta.

105 W. Hargett St., Raleigh | ac-restaurants.com/death-taxes | $ $ $ $

East End Bistrot

Unabashedly luxurious, East End Bistrot veers in the opposite direction of many restaurant trends, content to leave casual cool to the Doordash crowd. Here you’ll find out why classics are classics for a reason, like the buttery pageantry of just-cooked dover sole slipped from its bones tableside. Caviar shows up in familiar and unexpected places, perhaps a sizeable spoonful on a blini, but also on crispy karaage, because why not? It takes tremendous skill to make ancient dishes feel this fresh, but that’s what restaurateur Giorgios Bakatsias does best.

2020 Progress Court #110, Raleigh | eastendbistrotraleigh.com | $ $ $ $

Figulina

Three cuisines are interwoven at Figulina, where British expat chef David Ellis has created a fairly traditional Italian restaurant with a distinct Southern accent. The flagship plate (one that’s been on the menu every night since Figulina opened two years ago) is the country ham carbonara, finding the same guanciale funk in local cured hams amid the rich eggy, parmy pasta. But more recently, perhaps inspired by homesickness, Ellis has added a few British standards. The best of which is a Scotch egg, currently the only one in the Triangle, coated in nduja instead of traditional sausage, then deep fried, with the soft boiled egg still miraculously gooey on the inside.

227 S. Wilmington St., Raleigh | figulinaraleigh.com | $ $ - $ $ $

G’s Tacos

This popular food truck should be praised for its traveling trompo, a rarity in the Triangle’s otherwise robust taco scene. G’s is a spin-off from the giant Gym Tacos, and still operates as a food truck parked on the edge of a gas station parking lot. Everything is made in-house, from the tender griddled tortillas to the chorizo sausage. But if the trompo is spinning, how do you not get crisped-up al pastor?

220 E. Six Forks Road, Raleigh | tacosbyg.com | $

Mala Pata

Corn is the star at this desert oasis kitchen and bar in Raleigh, showing up in impossibly thin and flavorful tortillas, perhaps slicked with pork fat and wrapped around warmly spiced carnitas topped with crunchy crumbles of cracklins and the zing and bite of salsa verde. Corn is also the crunch in a bright and spicy aguachile, where chilled local shrimp are dressed with chiles and corn nuts and scooped with dark heirloom tortillas. Mala Pata is just getting started, and we should all be excited about how it will grow.

2411 Crabtree Blvd., Raleigh | malapatanc.com | $ $ - $ $ $

Oakwood Pizza Box

Somehow Oakwood Pizza Box manages to remind you of the uncomplicated joy of your favorite childhood pizza place, where maybe you gently folded the slices and left the crusts for your parents. You probably don’t do that anymore, or shouldn’t if you’re eating at Oakwood, where the crust is as flavorful as a fine baguette. The pies are simple, but they’re not humble. There’s even a semi-secret wine list with fine Champagne and red Burgundy, cluing you in that you’ve found the good stuff.

610 N. Person St., Raleigh and 1842 Wake Forest Road, Raleigh | oakwoodpizzabox.com | $ - $ $

Peregrine

How dramatic to see the Bengali wedding chicken arrive at the table, the claw still attached to the crisped-up leg quarter, atop a creamy, nutty cashew sauce with dried rose petals. Peregrine embodies the way dining has expanded beyond the meal, to how restaurants have added flourish and swag to the menu. That’s why when you order an Old Fashioned here, a bar cart might show up, offering a range of whiskies, the cocktail stirred up in the middle of the dining room.

1000 Social St., #150, Raleigh | peregrineraleigh.com | $ $ $ - $ $ $ $

Poole’s Diner

This Raleigh jewel has been the spiritual center of the Triangle’s food scene for nearly two decades. As Ashley Christensen’s original restaurant, Poole’s helped invent our understanding of contemporary Southern cuisine through dishes like the macaroni au gratin, which relies on classic French technique to create a rich, cheesy sauce and craggy, toasted crown — but would be welcome at any potluck. Recently, Poole’s expanded into a space next door, using bright skylights and a towering ceiling to usher in a new era, but the double horseshoe bar and its timeless elbow-polished counter in the original location live on.

426 S. McDowell St., Raleigh | ac-restaurants.com/pooles | $ $ - $ $ $ $

Sam Jones BBQ

If you’re able, you should take a drive out to Eastern North Carolina and eat at Skylight Inn, one of the state’s finest barbecue temples. If you have the same hankering for North Carolina-style whole-hog barbecue and only your lunch hour to spare, you should go to Sam Jones BBQ in Downtown Raleigh. As barbecue bloodlines go, Jones is royalty in North Carolina, a third-generation pitmaster who serves the same hand-chopped whole hog that his grandfather made famous, where the pork skin gets blasted with the coals, crisped up and mixed in for the most satisfying crunch in barbecue. But Sam Jones BBQ goes beyond that, serving smoky dry-rubbed chicken, new school sides like mac and cheese and barbecue baked potatoes and, sneakily, one of Raleigh’s best bourbon selections.

502 W. Lenoir St., Raleigh | samjonesbbq.com | $ - $ $

St. Roch

You will encounter things at St. Roch that you won’t find anywhere else in the Triangle: a solid gumbo for one, served here with potato salad, and the best local red beans and rice. Alligator bolognese for another, now in a layered lasagna. St. Roch operates as a Cajun-accented oyster bar, but it’s full of surprises. The New Orleans classic Barbecue Shrimp appears here with coconut milk. St. Roch manages to do a very rare thing for a nearly 10-year-old restaurant: It keeps getting better.

223 S. Wilmington St., Raleigh | strochraleigh.com | $ $ - $ $ $

Stanbury

You probably have a friend who is one of your best friends, who you slowly realize is actually everyone’s best friend. Stanbury is everyone’s secret best friend. Everyone thinks this Raleigh neighborhood restaurant is a “hidden gem,” but instead it is the Triangle’s worst-kept secret. Stanbury rules, and everyone knows it. Above all, Stanbury proves that “make it good” is the only rule that matters in restaurants. On this fine dining pirate ship, you could try (if it’s on the often-changing menu that night) pho-spiced boiled peanuts, Nashville-style fish collard or an indulgent pastrami-spiced pork chop. Here, good has never tasted so fun.

938 N. Blount St., Raleigh | stanburyraleigh.com | $ $ $ - $ $ $ $

Standard Beer + Food

If you’re keeping track, this is Standard 3.0, one restaurant over a decade of time and in three very different iterations. Today’s Standard Beer + Food is by far the most casual and by far the most fun. This Standard came about in the age of the smashburger, and happens to serve the Triangle’s very best, guaranteed to slick your fingers with fat and stir your soul. Standard bubbles up to the top of a certain kind of popular restaurant concept — elevated bar food — largely because every dish, from tangy, tingly buffalo wings, to fancified tater tots hit with truffle, is the best version of itself. It also, as the name implies, Standard brews its own beers: clean basic versions of lagers and bright IPAs that are refreshingly, uncomplicatedly simple, crushable, wonderful.

205 E. Franklin St., Raleigh | standardbeerandfood.com | $ $ - $ $ $

Tamasha

Perhaps Raleigh’s most theatrical restaurant, Tamasha brings the drama to the dining room. Elegant, with a touch of maximalist, diners cozy up in green velvet booths and experience Indian flavors and flare in ways the Triangle never has before. It’s the gunpowder spice of dried chiles that sets off the Dakhni Jhinga, a shrimp dish where the heat is tempered with coconut milk. But the real fireworks come at the end with the dessert everyone orders: North Meets South, where a crispy spongy ghewar, as delicate as fried air, soaks up the creamy Elaneer payasam, poured tableside, for the most ornate coconut pudding.

4200 Six Forks Road, Raleigh | tamashanc.com | $ $ $ - $ $ $ $

The summary above was compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.

This story was originally published April 6, 2026 at 10:47 AM.

Drew Jackson

The News & Observer

919-829-4707

Drew Jackson writes about restaurants and dining for The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun, covering the food scene in the Triangle and North Carolina.