GREENSBORO | NORTH CAROLINA
The Best Greensboro Restaurants, From Fisher Park to South Elm
Beyond barbecue and biscuits, Greensboro has built one of North Carolina's most varied dining scenes.
By Eric Barton
Updated Oct. 20, 2026
Yokai
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
I live part-time in Asheville, where entire conversations revolve around which chef is smoking which vegetable this week. We like to think we've cornered the market on small Southern cities with ambitious kitchens. Then I drive east to Greensboro and spend the weekend quietly jealous. The best restaurants in Greensboro don't imitate bigger cities—they've built their own thing, from duck wings that never leave the menu to shawerma sliced off a downtown rotisserie. There's a Peruvian kitchen on Elm Street, an izakaya in Fisher Park, and Southern cooking that still changes with the seasons. For a city supposedly obsessed with barbecue and biscuits, Greensboro has put together a dining scene that's distinct, confident, and, if I'm honest, enviable. Here are the best Greensboro restaurants right now.
1618 West Seafood Grill
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This is the spot Greensboro quietly loses its composure over—that place where you order seared Ahi tuna plated with wasabi-mashed potatoes, feta, sesame cabbage, almonds, balsamic glaze, and chipotle oil, and actually feel virtuous about it. They also do a Blackened Grouper over enchiladas and a Seafood Trio that roasts scallops, bass, and coconut-crusted shrimp into formal perfection. It’s polished, inventive, and never showy.
Best for: Elevated seafood at a pace that feels like a special night out
Bandito Bodega
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Bandito Bodega started as the Bandito Burrito food truck, and the brick-and-mortar kitchen on Friendly Avenue still cooks with a truck's instincts. The flavors run Asian and Latin at once: kimchi fried rice with pork, pork belly garlic noodles, a birria quesadilla, and tacos that borrow from both traditions. It's casual, fast, and far more interesting than the average takeout joint.
Best for: Fusion dishes that actually deliver flavor instead of gimmicks
Green Valley Grill
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Chef Jeffrey Barton builds a menu that leans into Old-World flavors while giving them the polish of a modern hotel kitchen. The wood-fired grill anchors the cooking, the panko-crusted ahi tuna now arrives with hummus, wilted greens, crispy halloumi, and a tahini-mint dressing, and the scallops are dusted with pistachio dukkah and finished with a blood-orange brown butter. Add a Wine Spectator “Best of Award of Excellence” wine list and the O.Henry Hotel address next door, and you've got one of Greensboro's most reliable fine-dining standbys.
Best for: European-inspired plates with a serious wine list
Inka Grill Peruvian Cuisine
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You don't go to Inka expecting hybrid trends—this is straight-up Peruvian flavors in downtown Greensboro. They bring ceviche, lomo saltado, frijol con seco served with tacu tacu, and arroz con mariscos, the kitchen's version of a seafood paella, plus those savory chaufa bowls—essentially Peruvian versions of fried rice, with chicken, beef, or seafood. Portion sizes are generous, and it's the kind of spot you bring a friend to show off downtown dining with some cultural depth.
Best for: fresh, bold Peruvian dishes that reward sharing
Jerusalem Market on Elm
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Jerusalem Market has been family-run since 1989, when Saliba Hanhan founded the original grocery in Sedgefield. His sons Easa and Omar Hanhan now run this downtown restaurant on Elm, serving Middle Eastern staples: shawerma sliced off the rotisserie into bowls and platters, crisp falafel, and the family's hummus, which anchors plate after plate. It's casual, affordable, and still manages to feel like one of the more distinctive lunches you can have in Greensboro.
Best for: quick, flavorful Middle Eastern plates that beat the usual lunch grind
Lindley Park Filling Station
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A converted gas station in Lindley Park, now a sandwich shop that feels like the heartbeat of its neighborhood. The menu names its dishes for Greensboro streets—the salads alone run Spring Garden, Elam, Westdale, and Longview—and the sandwiches follow the same habit, each stacked with meats, cheeses, and sauces that hit the comfort zone. It's the kind of place where regulars know their sandwich by name and out-of-towners get gently converted.
Best for: big, unfussy sandwiches in a neighborhood setting
Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen
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Lucky 32 has been cooking in Greensboro since 1989, and it still makes Southern cooking feel both rooted and modern. The menu changes with the seasons and leans on local ingredients: fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese, bacon, and pickled onions; black bean cakes over whipped sweet potatoes; and a skillet fried chicken that brings ham hock collards and cornbread with it. It's the kind of place where you can bring family from out of town and feel like you've actually shown them Greensboro.
Best for: Southern staples made with seasonal precision
Machete
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Chef Kevin Cottrell leads this Fisher Park kitchen with an insistence on refined, playful dishes that still feel welcoming. Think small plates rooted in Southern tradition but seasoned with global flair—everything is crafted around what the restaurant calls “the art of simple perfection.” Their duck wings, finished with hickory barbecue, stick around menu after menu, because they're too good to let go. In 2022, Machete earned a James Beard semifinalist nod for Best New Restaurant, and in 2024, Wine Enthusiast named it one of America's Top 50 Wine Restaurants.
Best for: Elevated, conversation-starting small plates, especially duck wings
Noor Indian Kitchen & Cocktails
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Noor brings big, bold Indian flavors plus inventive cocktails to Big Tree Way in west Greensboro, in a sleek space diners describe as quietly chic. The menu runs from samosa chaat and tandoori chicken tikka to butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, and lamb vindaloo. The bar earns its place in the name—the signature pour is a Noor Old Fashion, and there's a chai colata for after—so it's a spot that's as much for the drinks as it is for the curry.
Best for: Indian flavors matched with cocktails worth a second round
Print Works Bistro
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Print Works sits inside the Proximity Hotel, the first LEED Platinum-certified hotel in America, and the restaurant plays to that same sense of polish. Chef Jeffrey Barton—who also oversees Green Valley Grill—leads a French-leaning menu that covers Prince Edward Island mussels in Riesling and herbs, steak frites, and a pan-seared trout in a brown butter–sage emulsion, all matched with a wine list that pours more than 75 wines by the glass from a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence list. The glass-wrapped dining room looks onto gardens and a stream, making it one of the most elegant settings in town.
Best for: French bistro classics in a setting that feels quietly grand
Undercurrent Restaurant
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Undercurrent has been Greensboro’s fine-dining stalwart since 1998, known for polished service and a steady focus on local sourcing. Run by brother Chris and Wes Wheeler, Undercurrent’s menu leans seafood, with seared scallops, crab cakes, and salmon showing up as reliable standouts, alongside rotating seasonal plates. With white tablecloths, an understated dining room, and a wine list that rewards exploring, it’s the place locals book when they want dinner to feel like an occasion.
Best for: seafood-driven fine dining with classic polish
Yokai
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Yokai is the second restaurant from Machete's Kevin Cottrell and Tal Blevins, an izakaya in Lower Fisher Park, a block from the Tanger Center. The menu is built for grazing: a shoyu ramen with a soft soy egg, Korean double-fried chicken, crispy tuna wontons with spicy kewpie, and steamed bao with chicken katsu or pork belly. Finish with pandan doughnuts and shredded coconut. It has Machete's instincts—Southern chefs working through Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Filipino flavors—at a neighborhood bar's pace.
Best for: Izakaya grazing—ramen, fried chicken, and a proper sake pour
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