Restaurant News

Taste opens on Dixie Trail in Raleigh

Taste, a new American-style tapas restaurant, opened Monday in the former GAKS teahouse location off Dixie Trail in Raleigh.

Co-owner Edward Haag explained the "American-style tapas" moniker as "so we can put lobster mac'n'cheese on the menu and not have people hate us for not being Spanish."

The restaurant offers more than a dozen small plates, each costing $10 or less. The menu will change six to eight times a year.

Haag, who runs the bar and the front of house, says he and chef Alex Unger met while working at the same restaurant in Syracuse, N.Y. When Haag moved down here two years ago, he decided to open a restaurant and persuaded Unger and his wife to help him.

The kitchen hours are 4-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 4-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday. The bar stays open later. The restaurant is at 3048 Medlin Drive, Raleigh, across from Crowley's

For more information, check out the Facebook page: on.fb.me/z2Omce.

An restaurant in Cary gets new chef

Steven Devereaux Greene has been named executive chef of An restaurant in Cary.

Greene has spent the last several years working at Herons, the restaurant at The Umstead Hotel & Spa in Cary. An and the Cary hotel are owned by Jim and Ann Goodnight. Jim Goodnight is co-founder and CEO of SAS, a nearby business analytics and software company.

Greene had previously worked as chef de cuisine at The Dining Room at The Woodlands Inn & Resort in Summerville, S.C., under renowned chef Ken Vedrinski, who had spent a number of years at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. Greene incorporated the Asian fusion lessons from Vedrinski into the menu at his namesake restaurant, Devereaux's in Greenville, S.C., before he moved to the Triangle to work at Herons.

For more information about the restaurant, go to www.ancuisines.com .