Pooles Diner Ashley Christensen Poole's Diner

Poole's Diner Awards

Creative locavore fare takes center stage in a playfully restored mid-century diner.
Openings: Dinner nightly

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Poole's Diner, Raleigh, NC


Poole's Diner Restaurant Review:


Chef Ashley Christensen’s flagship restaurant is this 1940s-era diner transformed into a hot 21st-century bistro. Lipstick-red bar stools pop against graffiti-covered gray walls which, at closer look, are blackboards announcing the menu du jour. Order while sipping one of the bar’s creative cocktails: Truman 75, a cucumber-infused Hendrick’s gin finished off with Prosecco and lemon or Poole’s Black Tea, house-made tea vodka with fresh lemon soda. Only the best local produce is used in Christensen’s dishes, which change daily and may include the likes of rillettes of duck confit with a blackberry-honey reduction or Sea Island red peas and rice for starters. Move on to crisp-fried frogs’ legs, pan-roasted black bass with a black trumpet mushroom vinaigrette or pulled lamb ribs with ricotta dumplings. Top the meal off with dulce de leche panna cotta with broiled bananas and spiced pistachios and North Carolina strawberries with wildflower honey cream cheese on a shortbread crust. The wine and beer lists change weekly but always offer unusual bottles from small vineyards.