RESTAURANT NEWS | ASHEVILLE
Gourmand Opens in Asheville, Two Years After Helene Lifted Its First Building Off Its Foundation
A French rotisserie built around a single bird, with salads, sandwiches, cheese, and wine.
GOURMAND | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Eric Barton
Published 7:59 a.m. ET, Oct. 30, 2026
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.
At Gourmand, the whole menu comes down to a single bird turning slowly on a spit, the French way, juices dripping down, skin getting as crispy as crackers, served with the kinds of sides that’d make a fine picnic.
The French rotisserie opens in Asheville, North Carolina, on Nov. 6, in a converted gas station off the Reed Creek Greenway, and its rotisserie chicken is a comeback story for a business taken by Hurricane Helene two years ago.
It’s a bet that one well-cooked bird, done the French way, can carry a whole menu; there are no other proteins to hide behind. Mornings start with coffee, tea, and French-style grab-and-go tartines. Lunch and dinner includes salads, sandwiches, and meat-and-three plates with a choice of three sides. Baguettes and other baked goods come from French Broad Pastry, made just for Gourmand, and dine-in guests get small plates that aren’t on the to-go menu. A small selection of French cheese and wine will also be sold retail, with one local beer, a short cocktail list, and a single dessert for dining in.
It’s fast-casual and all day, with carryout expected to lead. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner all run through the same small counter. The space keeps the gas station’s bones: two roll-up garage doors and high banks of windows that open to the greenway, with tables inside and on a back deck overlooking the creek.
Chef Peyton Barrell and Katie Grabach run the place together, and this is their second try at the same idea. Their first standalone Gourmand, in the River Arts District, was nearing its November 2024 opening when Hurricane Helene’s flooding lifted its small building off its foundation. They’d already run Gourmand as a vendor at downtown’s S&W Market, from March 2023 until the following October, selling French dishes, cheese, and charcuterie.
Ingredients come from local producers, and the kitchen skips seed oils and processed sugars, desserts aside, with duck-fat French fries among the only deep-fried items.
The first building didn’t survive Helene. But the second one opens with the same bird at the center of it all.
