Pandemic Dining Awards: The 10 Triangle restaurants with the most memorable to-go meals

Every January, for more years than I can remember, I’ve published an annual Best Restaurants list. Drawing on my experiences dining in restaurants all over the Triangle, the list featured a Restaurant of the Year Award, and also included scores of Best-in-Class and Best New Restaurant selections.

In 2020, I reviewed only six restaurants before the pandemic struck. That “dining in” part of the restaurant experience — what’s essential to reviewing restaurants and compiling such honors — became impossible.

Instead, I started writing about dozens of contact-free takeout and delivery experiences — experiences that left me with a greater appreciation than ever for the people who nourish our bodies and souls. Their courage and perseverance were rare beacons of light in a very dark year. Far too many of those beacons have been extinguished, but the memory of their hospitality continues to leave a warm glow.

The best burger I had all year was from Gov’t Cheeseburger, the limited-menu alter ego of Postmaster in downtown Cary. I’m grateful that I was able to savor the beefy goodness more than once before the restaurant closed.

Same goes for the fried seafood platter and the ingeniously packaged ready-to-slurp raw oysters at Saint James’s short-lived incarnation as Jimmy’s Dockside.

Taking my cue from the adaptability of these and many other restaurants, I’ve put together a Top 10 list of awards based on my most memorable takeout and delivery experiences last year.

This list isn’t comprehensive. As the pandemic has continued, restaurant and bar owners continue to find innovative ways to pivot so they can continue serving great food, and just as importantly, keep diners safe.

And if you haven’t guessed it yet: In my book, every restaurant that had a part in keeping us safe and well-fed — shuttered or still surviving — is Restaurant of the Year.

Model Citizen Award: ko.an

The paint was barely dry on the dining room walls of ko.an when the pandemic forced the restaurant to close its doors. The Cary restaurant responded like a seasoned pro, quickly converting the menu to a streamlined a la carte offering supplemented by ready-to-heat meal kits and — a real lifeline in those early days — a small selection of groceries ranging from bacon to toilet paper. Ko.an’s commitment to safety protocols, along with its support for worthy charitable causes, have been an example for other restaurants to follow. (Ko.an and sister restaurant so.ca in Cameron Village donated 100% of all proceeds to the NAACP and Black Lives Matter Bailfund Campaign on Juneteenth.)

And the food? So good I’ve ordered it on multiple occasions, with highlights including lobster gyoza, a Singapore chicken meal kit, and complimentary chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies, still warm from the oven.

Ko.an is currently closed, but owner Sean Degnan hopes to reopen in time for Valentine’s Day.

Superstar Chef Unplugged Award: Crawford & Son

Scott Crawford’s resume sparkles with a veritable constellation of stars, and I’ve singled him out twice for the Restaurant of the Year Award: Herons in 2010 and Crawford & Son in 2018. Naturally, I was curious to see how the chef would respond to the coronavirus challenge.

Very well, it turns out. Crawford’s famous attention to detail is evident in everything from the seamless contact-free curbside experience (including a reserved space directly in front of the Person Street restaurant for takeout customers) to entrees that fit into their lidded plastic to-go containers as precisely as pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

The chef’s trademark finishing flourishes were understandably kept to a minimum as he pivoted to a menu designed to survive the trip from his kitchen to your table. The result — rustic dishes like cavatelli in a savory duck and pork bolognese and beef short rib with mushroom bread pudding — is an elegant take on comfort food that shows just how rewarding it can be when a superstar chef gives an unplugged performance.

DIY Picnic Award: Chef’s Palette

Well, not DIY, exactly. Chef’s Palette does most of the work. All I had to do was go online and order one of the Family Meal Specials (specifically, chicken-fried chicken with choice of two sides and warm rolls), then pick it up at the appointed time from the Cary restaurant.

The chicken — eight pieces of boneless breast, juicy in a craggy batter — was still warm when we got everything set up on the deck. The sides — creamy slaw and bacon-riddled baked beans — enhanced the picnic vibe. And a bottle of Portuguese vinho verde rosé, from Chef’s Palette’s eclectic, reasonably priced wine list, was the crowning touch for a magically satisfying al fresco meal on a warm April evening.

Anyone Can Be a Chef Award: ClubHouse

In addition to being a nationally celebrated chef (notably, winner of the 2019 James Beard Outstanding Chef Award), Ashley Christensen is known as a generous mentor for a large circle of other chefs. Last year, that circle expanded to include anyone who ordered a dinner kit from ClubHouse, the takeout-only shop that Christensen opened last year and operates out of her commissary in Raleigh.

Figuratively speaking, that is. You don’t have to be an actual chef to open the meticulously prepared, precisely labeled components of a ClubHouse meal and, following the excellent instructions that are provided, to produce a meal that will make you feel like a chef. In all modesty, I’d give the tea-brined roast chicken, Banyuls-dressed pink eye peas, and lemon cake that I put on the table one night a solid four stars.

Not five stars, you ask? Well, I may be a chef, but I’m not Ashley Christensen.

VIP Parking Award: Mi Calvillo

I was hesitant to order takeout from Mi Calvillo, whose Ninth Street location in Durham conjured up images of having to park several blocks away. But the friendly woman who answered the phone when I called in my order was reassuring. If I wasn’t able to park near the restaurant, she said, I could park in the lot across the street, then call the restaurant with a description of my car, and she’d find me.

She did even better than that. When I got to Ninth Street and called to tell her I was parked a few storefronts away, she said the space directly in front of the restaurant was open, and she’d hold it for me. In no time, I was on my way home.

Even if parking had been a hassle, Mi Calvillo would have earned a place on this list. I’d just have to come up with another name for the award. As I think back on the meal — exemplary green chicken enchiladas, and a quartet of generously filled tacos (asada, lengua, higado and cochinita pibil) in soft, still-warm tortillas, with chopped onions, cilantro, radish slices and lime for garnish — I’m thinking The Real Deal Award sounds about right.

Serendipity Award: Hawthorne & Wood

I was torn. On the one hand, Hawthorne & Wood — a restaurant I’d awarded 4 1/2 stars just a few months earlier — was offering a Cajun feast summer special featuring oyster po’ boys, red beans and rice with andouille sausage, corn maque choux and watermelon. On the other hand, Hawthorne & Wood is a 35-minute drive from my home. Chances of fried oysters still being crisp at the end of that drive were iffy.

The oysters won. After scouting Google Maps for nearby picnic tables, I placed an order, and my wife and I set out for Chapel Hill. Worst case, we’d eat the po’ boys in the car and take the rest home to finish.

Then, as we pulled into the East 54 complex where Hawthorne & Wood is located, we spotted them: two picnic tables in a small pavilion at the far end of the parking lot. Both were unoccupied. After picking up our order, we took one of them and proceeded to enjoy one of the most memorable meals of the year.

Nostalgia Award: Cantina 18

Last year, as the pandemic was forcing a disheartening number of restaurants to close permanently, Cantina 18 owner Jason Smith delivered a much-needed dose of consolation. He brought back to life 18 Seaboard, the beloved Raleigh restaurant that had closed in 2019.

Well, not the actual restaurant. What he did was to revive many of 18 Seaboard’s favorite dishes, and put them on the menu at his Mexican restaurant, Cantina 18, in Raleigh’s Cameron Village. Dishes like wood-fired meatloaf, and cracklin’ pork shank, and (if you were lucky enough to order during local tomato season) one of the best heirloom tomato samplers around.

For longtime fans — and for that matter, anyone suffering from a case of the Coronavirus blues — the dose of nostalgia was just what the doctor ordered.

Culinary Wizard Award: Saint James

I’m still marveling at the ingenuity of Saint James owner/chef Matt Kelly, who devised a way to offer pre-shucked and vacuum-packed “ready to slurp” raw oysters for takeout in his rebranded Durham restaurant, Jimmy’s Dockside.

Saint James closed (for the third time) in December, and Kelly isn’t sure what form the restaurant will take if and when it reopens.

In the meantime, I plan to console myself with another of the chef’s innovations: paella in a pizza box, which he’s offering at his Southern-accented Spanish tapas bar, Mateo.

Take-and-Bake Award: Centro

It didn’t take long for restaurants’ ready-to-heat meal kits to surface as a solution to the problem of making sure that food that’s meant to be hot and/or crispy is just that. Our household reaped the benefits many times over the course of the year, from vegetarian lasagna to flaky-crusted chicken pot pie.

But the meal kit that stands out in my memory — partly, I’m sure, because I was craving Mexican at the time — I got from Centro in downtown Raleigh.

Make that meal kits, plural. The first was the Taco Kit: eight soft corn tortillas and choice of filling (carne asada or sour orange-marinated pork cochinita pibil) with sides of cilantro rice and creamy refried black beans). It wasn’t long before I was back for an encore, in the form of the Enchilada Platter that serves up chicken, bean and beef enchiladas under a Mexican flag blanket of tomatillo, Mexican crema and chipotle salsas. A six pack of Tecate to-go was, you might say, icing on the tres leches cake.

Corned Beef on Rye with a Side of Chutzpah Award: Mookie’s NY Deli

As much as I admire the people who kept existing restaurants alive last year, I’m downright amazed at the courage of those like Ron Didner, who had the courage to open Mookie’s in Cary in the midst of the pandemic. Surely it helped that he had two things going for him, one being pent-up demand for an authentic New York deli.

The other? Didner makes a mean corned beef. Also pastrami, both of which the New York native cures himself.

You can get either meat (or both) piled between slices of seeded rye with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Thousand Island dressing, for a Reuben that will bring a tear to a transplanted New Yorker’s eye.

Homesick New York transplants also will be happy to learn that Mookie’s menu covers the classic Jewish deli repertoire, from matzoh ball soup to chopped liver to latkes and knishes. There’s also the Mookie Wilson platter: lox, tuna salad, whitefish salad and egg salad, served with a bagel flown in from Long Island.

But this Southerner is here to tell you you don’t have to hail from the Big Apple to appreciate this kind of New York chutzpah.

This story was originally published January 18, 2021 at 5:40 AM.