Durham Restaurants

Famished diners are in the right place when they’re in Durham. Chefs here do soul food like no one else, and local farms have plenty of fresh ingredients to work with. For barbecue, pork rules in these parts. The crackly exterior is smothered in tangy vinegar-and-ketchup sauce that begs you to dip a steaming hunk of cornbread into it. If you’ve never had mac and cheese that was baked in a dirty skillet, you haven’t lived, and who knew that it was a vegetable? Everything from collard greens with shrimp and grits to fried catfish is splashed with Texas Pete hot sauce, a local invention. Just don’t embarrass yourself by ordering a Coke in the home state of Pepsi or ask why there’s a dish of pimiento cheese on every table.