Chef & the Farmer

This is the best resturaunt in North Carolina…

Is it worth a 90 minute drive? Does it live up to all the hype?
Short answer, sadly no.
We celebrated our anniversary at the Chef and The Farmer.
Positives: friendly staff, good (but expensive) drinks.
Negatives: very noisy; small size entrees; lack of flavor; value
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice restaurant, but it just doesn’t live up to the hype or standout from similar class restaurants in Raleigh.
Staff were very friendly and accommodating. Our table wasn’t ready at our reservation time so we waited at the bar and had drinks. Good, but $ 12 and $ 15 drinks? Hmmm. In Kinston? Double hmmm.
Seated within 15 minutes took waitress’ recommendation with the flat bread appetizer and it’s blue berry BBQ sauce. Good appetizer, but missed the blueberry flavor somewhere! Had decided to split a salad, but after about 20 – 25 minutes after the appetizer was finished waitress came to apologize that she forgot to place the order. No points off for bring upfront and honest. We decided to skip it as we were sure our main entrees were waiting.
A very young and a bit cocky (but inexperienced), Wine Sommelier delivered our wine — my wife’s favorite: Cakebread’s Chardonnay.
I had, again waitress’ recommendation, the BBQ Short Ribs — over cooked & lacking flavor served with corn on the cob that was grilled, but got cold as it sat on the plate waiting for the short ribs to be placed. My wife had the Tilefish — extremely small portion that was over powered by the sides — rice & veggies. I actually asked where the fish was and she had to show me. The entrees were a big disappointment.
We shared a dessert — chocolate chess pie and matched with a Brandy Alexander. Best course of the night.
With so many great restaurants in Raleigh, I don’t see myself driving 90 minutes again. It just didn’t live up to the hype for me. Sorry.

Going to Chef and the Farmer is Carolina Foodie gold. We made reservations weeks in advance for dinner and booked accommodations at the swanky, historic and incredibly unique O’Neil Hotel across the street. I’m glad to say our experience at Chef and the Farmer was a real treat! My husband and I are both big fans of the show so it was really cool being in the space itself, looking around and recognizing people from the show, including Vivian’s parents! Too cool.
I’m happy to say not only was it exciting being in the space but the food was absolutely top notch. I just tried to savor every bite of it!

We went to Chef & the Farmer to celebrate my birthday. Everything about it was perfect! Jessica (our waitress) took great care of us. We had the Crab Toast, Bluefish with vegetables, & the short ribs. All were delicious! We treated ourselves with the Blueberry parfait & the Chocolate chess pie topped with pecans. I tried not to scrape the plate to get every last morsel of the pie — it was that good. Thanks for a great evening Chef & the Farmer team!

What can I say that hasn’t been said about this amazing restaurant. My wife and I had dinner there Tuesday for her birthday. Bar was great, dinner was amazing. My wife had the soft shelled crab, and I had the short ribs. Absolutely amazing. Ended the dinner with the chocolate chess pie and coffee. Even the coffee was good !
We will absolutely be going back every time we are in the Carolinas.
Worth the road trip while on vacation for sure.

I am not sure what I can write about Chef and The Farmer that has not already been written. Everything we ate was simply excellent. We decided to eat a variety of small plates and then share the rib eye. Everything was crafted and cooked to perfection.
The wait staff was exceptional. They were all professional yet personable. It was a great dining experience.
Chef Vivian was walking throughout the restaurant during the evening. I just wish I would have been bold enough to ask her to take a picture with us.

Great anniversary dinner at Vivian Howard’s superb restaurant. Great service and interesting entrees. When I come here I eat foods I normally don’t like, but here they are delicious.
A bit noisy, but casual elegance and a great dining experience that is worth the trip to Kinston.

Second visit! My first visit was such a treat, I leaped at a chance for a second. Tonight, Miss Jessica was our server. Request her, you will not be disappointed. Her passion not only for the food but her chef and farmer family was was very noticeable, based on her stories and how she described the food.
We started out with the flat bread. YUM! Little did I know they also sell the blueberry BBQ sauce that is on it. Now if I can just get my hands on the recipe for the flat bread, my life would be complete.
Second, we tried the squash blossoms and crab toast. While the toast wasn’t my favorite, simply due to personal taste. My boyfriend, loved it! I very much enjoyed the squash blossoms. Light and savory at the same time. I preferred the blossoms without the aioli. I didn’t think it needed it.
On to dinner. I went with the braised pork shoulder. My only regret, was I ate too much prior to the meal coming out. Pace yourself people.
I could probably eat this everyday. Throw it in with tacos, over potatoes, eggs you name it. My boyfriend had the soft shell crab. As he would say in his Homer Simpson voice «it was awesome.» The acidic balance of the sauce medley compared to the natural flavors of the crab were unbelievable.
Now to the last part. Dessert. My first visit, I left thinking. Eh, I could have skipped the dessert. I am glad I gave it a second chance. We ordered the flight of 3 thinking perhaps they were smaller portions. Not the case, but we rallied. In order of favorite. Number 1, favorite carrot cake. Especially, the cinnamon crunch thingyies on top. 2. Chocolate chess pie with caramel bourbon sauce and ice cream. This is not the chess pie I am used to in Raleigh, but when you mix all three together it’s amazing. Lastly, the pound cake and lemon curd. I love lemon curd but it can punch you in the teeth in terms of flavor. It kind of takes over the dish, you lose the flavor of the strawberries and pound cake. I also don’t believe crisping the pound cake is necessary.
I cannot complete this review without complimenting the sommelier. The bottle of wine we requested had just sold out. He went above and beyond to get us a replacement. Anytime we have encountered this in the past, even at some very high end restaurants, we are simply given an option to pick a new bottle. He went way beyond that.
I cannot praise this staff enough!
Thank for allowing us to truly gorge! Cannot wait for my third visit.

This is a gem of a restaurant, and would be anywhere. The facilities are gorgeous and the food was excellent. They’d succeed anywhere. Kinston count your blessings.
We started with the addictive flash fried collards, bread and a lovely Pinot Noir from Joe Dobbes winery — a good value at $ 46. I had the soft shell crab special and Precious had grits casserole with broccoliini and tobacco onions — both superb.
Our only misfire was self induced. I thought the tasting of four desserts would be four samples. Wrong. It was four desserts. Nice kind of mistake to make, and the problem went away this afternoon.

I was able to eat at this critically acclaimed restaraunt last night. After years of hearing how good it was from others that had been, I finally got my chance to go on an unlimited tab so I was able to order many appetizers, and any entrée plus 4 desserts.
The restaraunt is very nicely put together. Nice lighting, friendly staff, very clean… exactly what I like.
The appetizers came. the collards are very different and good, but felt they were very oily… not sure what kind of oil is used but it has that lard taste which isnt a bad thing but it was very oily. Sauce biscuits were terrible, just taste like lard. i grew up on souce and it had onions, peppers, allspice, bay leaves. Tom Thumb… :(:(:(.umm yuck .Beef Amara wraps were good. I recommend just getting the collards
Finally my entrée, the short rib. VERY TENDER! very pretty dish but… I wasnt blown away at all by the flavor. reminded me of pot roast without salt nor pepper or any other seasoning and again this was extremely fatty and oily.
Last here comes the desserts. strawberry suffle? i believe. chocolate pie. carrot cake and pound cake. I’m a pound cake fanatic. i was dissappointed. this was like eating french toast sticks. i was expecting a moist, flavorful, rich and fluffy warm pound cake. nope. The mint ice scream is fantastic though.
All in all im glad i went to experience it on an unlimited tab. I doubt i’ll come back, a little over hyped for me. all the food needs more flavor

Once again this place is amazing! Everyone is working together producing & serving wonderful food even when Ben & Vivian are off site. Susan gave us wonderful service. Its great to see the same faces as last year. The Tom Thumb was super tasty!

So to continue our review.
She could have the bread. She could have the strawberry salad. She could have the raw flounder without one element. She could have the whole trout or the slow cooked ham. Everything else was out.
When we came last year we had more options. They knew we were coming. I wish a very famous restaurant critic was allergic to onions and would love to see how they were treated. I mean come on. It wasn’t like they didn’t know. Everything is supposed to be from scratch. The chef couldn’t even come up with a few no onion selections that didn’t include raw fish or a whole fish with bones and skin and tail???
So she had the bread. 3 small pieces with butter and a clump of country ham that no one explained for $ 4. And the strawberry salad which she said was very good.
I had the raw founder and have to say it was delicious. The crème fraîche and sunflower seeds were a perfect addition to the very thin slices of flounder.
I also tried the slow roasted pork and found it wonderful. The favors were great and the roasted cabbage and fried potatoes were great.
We did love watching the kitchen. They knew what they were doing and the young man doing the beef and pork never stopped it seemed. They were serving lots of beef rib with a potato suet cake and 4 stalks of grilled asparagus with an onion mushroom toppings. We had to say the visual presentation looked horrible but perhaps it tasted better than it looked and they were selling a lot.
For desert we had the ice cream and crispy pound cake with lemon curd which were both good.
Their beer list is lacking especially in this time of great beers and when I ordered the only draft they had the waitress came out with half a glass and said the keg ran out but they wouldn’t charge me for half a glass. Wow now that was something. And guess what when the bill came she had charged me for it. She took it off no problem.
So all in all it was not a great night to drive 4 hours. We love the show. We love watching Lilly and Warren and Vivian and her family but not sure we will come back. They are packed and doing well and probably won’t miss us but just saying.
Love the restaurant and the art work by Ben is wonderful. He was actually there bussing tables and moving tables and we could see the immediate change in staff when he came in. It was sort of amusing in a restaurant sort of way.

It was well worth traveling across the country to **finally** go to C&F, and I would return again and again. I was there for family reasons, but this establishment does not disappoint. All food and beverage (Hobo cab/​sauv & espresso) were on point (bacon oysters and roasted young chicken — OMG!!), and incredibly delicious. I highly recommend sitting at the bar where I sat because the line cooks will chat with you and answer questions, so I got to pick their brains on execution – a foodie’s dream!
They miss a star because I experienced two hiccups in service. The server forgot that I ordered my dessert and wine all together, and when dessert came, it was kind of a blunder. The chocolate chess pie was the best I’ve ever had, but it was accidentally paired with basil ice cream instead of the bourbon ice cream. It wasn’t a delicious combination at all, as you can probably imagine. They corrected it and brought me the right ice cream in the end, which was perfect. I think the new person at the dessert bar mistook the two because they look exactly the same in color.
Brava, Chef Vivian! Thank you. Keep on keepin’ us inspired. :)

Oh my! Delicious.
Service was amazing! We were with a large group. Our waiter were great, especially OJ. Chef Vivian Howard came out to meet us all and was so kind to take pictures and sign autographs. It was a wonderful experience!

The bread is unbelievable. Tracy says «We are in KinstonNC having dinner at The Chef and the Farmer (remember I was telling upon about the PBS show the other night?). Omg you would love it here! True fine dining in a hick NC town — the best food I have had in years! Great wine list, atmosphere, art, etc. love. We should do a road trip this summer! It’s about 1.75 hours from your house.»

An event restaurant in little ol’ Kinston that has facilitated sort of a cottage industry locally and become a destination of its own, thanks to exposure on the PBS series «A Chef’s Life». Oh, and also thanks to the fact that it’s superb and lives up to high expectations.
One thing that doesn’t really come across on the TV series (or at least, it didn’t to me) is how attractive the restaurant is in person. Beautiful wood grains, several levels of dining areas that have been discreetly divided, and well-​spaced tables all allow for a buzz in the room without your neighbor’s elbow in your soup.
I don’t know how much point there is in waxing poetic about specific dishes, since they will most likely be gone soon and replaced by some other wondrous creation, because the menu rotates constantly based on what’s available locally. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed a Cornish game hen with Carolina gold rice, winter root vegetables, and a pecan gremolata. A recurring theme seems to be that the «Farmer» part of the restaurant’s name is particularly critical, since vegetables run rampant through every dish, and a welcome presence they are. Everything I sampled had a wonderful depth of flavor, with rich stocks and sauces used very well.
Bread service is an appetizer selection ($ 7) and is worth getting for the creativity. The night we were there, the bread was presented with both apple butter and a deviled ham spread. Cocktails are well-​made and the wine list is ample. Service is educated and friendly, with just the right touch of down-​home camaraderie.
Go, and make it a group party so you can share dishes and sample as much as possible.

The new head chef delivers. According to our waiter, he’s been there about a month.
To me, the Chef and the Farmer used to be one of the better restaurants east of I-​95. We just ate there again last night. Now I think it’s among the best in the state.
The beef short ribs were the very essence of beefy flavor. The red snapper was perfect, which was first sautéed, then finished in the wood oven. The skin was crispy and smokey, almost like bacon. The flash fried collards were delicate and crunchy.
They have a good bartender too!

My party are fans of the PBS ‘A Chef’s Life’ and Vivian Howard/​Ben Knight. C&tF was just what you’d expect because if you even know about it, you know it’s gonna be great. A laid back, NYC gourmand treat, sans attitude… make time to have several meals here if you are traveling from out of town.
I highly recommend staying at the boutique hotel ‘The O’Neil’, across the street from C&tF, with it’s comprehensive, loving upscale renovation of an depression era bank and owner collections of art and intriguing art objects. Don’t miss the Lenoir County Farmer’s Market (small but just across the street from C&tF) or the Community Council for the Arts (one of it’s docents-​a women to boot-​custom designed/​welded the railing in the lobby of The O’Neil), with great, serious local art (not craft) and a fabulous renovated warehouse space.
Kinston is like 1980’s era SOHO when artists lived there; over sized, windowed storefronts and fabulous work space begging for a full on revival, which means it charming as all get out. Local art installations, good coffee houses, Mother Earth brewery, Boiler Room (also owned by Vivian Howard and Ben Knight) and other pioneering folk bring Kinston to life so don’t miss out! Also, make time to drive the neighborhood, the arts and crafts homes and bungalows are a treat.

I have no idea how anyone could detest this place.
Bread and fried collards were an awesome start. the compound butter with the bread was DELICIOUS. «shared plates» followed by «large plates» of duck and rabbit. I may have preferred the husbands rabbit, but only bc the duck’s sauce was citrusy and sweet, and the rabbit had a little more spicey/​nuttiness (peanuts are so underrated. their use here was amazing!). no regrets, though. I was trying to branch out from my usual fish
beet cake for dessert was perfect.
we drove 3.5 hours to experience this place, I only wish I could’ve eaten more!

«I’m Vivian and I’m a chef» — and so it begins…
My journey to Kinston is the tale of two tomato sandwiches. One was an artisan creation made with slices of Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes, smoked corn mayonnaise, pickled onion and housemade onion bread. The other sandwich was made for her mom and dad with plump slicing tomatoes, Duke’s mayonnaise and two pieces of white bread. This polarity fascinated me, and it was this episode of «A Chef’s Life» that really drew me into Vivian Howard’s cathartic return to her Eastern North Carolina roots where she and her husband Ben transformed the regional cuisine into striking dishes packed with vibrant flavors.
After being enraptured by the series’ first two seasons, I decided it could be fun for Jamie W. and me to take a trip from San Francisco to taste the food that has been making my mouth water for 28 episodes. So happy we did this because they treated us like family. When we saw the familiar sign, we felt like we broke through the fourth wall and became part of the show. The interior is more spacious than I had expected with the walls dominated by Ben’s impressively rendered abstract paintings. We were lucky enough to meet and chat with him earlier that day, and he generously gave us an art tour (photo:
).
It was busy for a Wednesday. Susan served us, and I recognized her from the show with her trademark ponytail. So warm and lovely through an evening that lasted 3 ½ hours. The time floated by so quickly that we could barely get up from all the food we ate. The menu is robust considering it was off-​season for most of the local produce (photo:
). I started with a cocktail, the $ 10 Moonjito, a tasty Havana-​in-​the-​Smokies mix of mint rum & syrup, Cat Daddy shine, lime and Jack Rudy tiki bitters (photo:
). From there, it was one outstanding plate after another in a blur of culinary bacchanalia.
It started with a pull-​apart Monkey Bread peppered liberally with Ancho Chiles and served with Lime Butter (photo:
) followed by the first of several complimentary dishes, the $ 14 Curried Citrus Marmalade Pork Belly Skewers with Pickled Jalapeños and Cilantro (photo:
), lollipops of joy with a sweet kick for discriminating carnivores. Then came an early high point, the $ 15 Dirty Grits, a cast iron pan full of them mixed with Sage Sausage, Sweet Onions, Crispy Chicken Livers, Sliced Celery and Chopped Apple (photo:
). The cavalcade of flavors just blew us away and yet there was still a down-​home feel to the execution.
Because I was so taken by Vivian’s mother Scarlett’s love for potlikker, we ordered the $ 14 Turnip Run-​Ups in Potlikker with Air Dried Sausage, Cornmeal & Ricotta Dumplings and Tomato Jam (photo:
), and now I understand Scarlett’s obsession. It was a thrifty portion but intensely flavorful. Then came another complimentary dish, the $ 13 Smoked Beef Carpaccio thinly sliced and topped with Pear, Pecorino Romano Shavings and Pickled Peanuts and slashed on the side with a Garlic Leek Aioli, an artful presentation and quite a bold contrast in flavors and textures (photo:
). Next was another audacious creation, the $ 13 Boiled Peanut «Risotto».
Not really a risotto with the peanuts softened to the consistency of arborio rice. There was an exotic Indian slant even with the local flavors of Rutabaga Relish, Benton’s Bacon and Cornbread blended in for good measure (photo:
). Nearing belly capacity, Jamie and I decided to share an entrée which Susan had saved just for us even though there was a big ‘86’ printed over it on the menu. It was the $ 33 Heritage Farms 16-​ounce Bone-​In Pork Chop with Sweet Potato Butter, Peanut & Celery Relish, Mustard and Pork Belly (photo:
). They obligingly sliced it into equal portions, and the result was like butter.
We didn’t have any room for dessert, or so we thought until Susan generously served us three free of charge. I’m guessing, but I believe they were the Triple Decker Apple Pie with Cinnamon Ice Cream and Caramel (photo:
), the Key Lime Curd & Coconut Meringue with Pecan Crumble and Graham Crackers (photo:
); and the 10-​Layer Chocolate Cake with Old-​Fashioned Caramel Icing and Toffee Crunch (photo:
). Each was a brilliant take on a Sunday favorite. We just couldn’t finish them, so we had them packed up to share with Warren back at the farmhouse. What an extraordinary evening we will never forget.
«I’m Ed and I’m a hopeless glutton» — and so it ends… or does it?
FOOD — 5 stars… simply amazing, culinary artistry combined with fresh local food elevates the senses
AMBIANCE — 5 stars… warm and spacious, never too loud
SERVICE — 5 stars… major kudos to Susan and her assistant James
TOTAL — 5 stars… a unique dining destination well worth the effort