‘Top Chef’ star plans his comeback with a new Mexican restaurant. Here are his plans.
In a matter of months, High Horse came and went.
The downtown Raleigh restaurant from “Top Chef” star Katsuji Tanabe was one of the Triangle’s highest profile openings in 2019 — an ambitious wood-fired spectacle that seemed to push the region into a different realm of dining destination.
Instead, it never really got its shot. It opened in November 2019, shut down in March 2020 with all other North Carolina restaurants, and then for good in July.
The closing set him adrift, Tanabe said.
“It was and still is a hard thing,” Tanabe tells The News & Observer in an interview. “I was in a bad spot. I needed to go into a kitchen.”
As restaurants look ahead to post-pandemic life, Tanabe also is plotting his post-pandemic move. Like he hoped to do with High Horse, he wants to make his mark on the Triangle restaurant scene.
This summer, Tanabe will open a new restaurant in Cary called A’Verde Cocina & Tequila Library. He is partnering with LM Restaurants, the owner of Carolina Ale House, Taverna Agora, Vidrio and other North Carolina restaurants.
A’Verde Cocina will be LM’s first Mexican restaurant. It will open at 2300 Walnut St., which was most recently a Wild Wing Cafe location.
In a rare partnership of two of the Triangle’s largest restaurant groups, restaurateur Giorgios Bakatsias will design the new A’Verde Cocina. Bakatsias owns restaurants throughout the Triangle, including Parizade and Vin Rouge in Durham, Rosewater in Raleigh, and Kipos and the new Osteria Georgi in Chapel Hill.
Memorable ‘Top Chef’ contestant
Tanabe was one of the most memorable contestants in the many seasons of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” a reality competition known for its elevated culinary pedigree. Tanabe first competed in Boston in 2014, “Top Chef Mexico” in 2016 and a season with returning favorites in 2017 filmed in Charleston, S.C.
In 2019, he moved his family from Los Angeles to Raleigh, looking to make a mark on a dining town that was gaining national attention.
In the short-lived months of High Horse, the City Market spot was a sought-after destination and quickly made a splash on Raleigh’s nightlife scene.
It was dinner but it was also a show. The wood-fire grill was set up on an elevated, open kitchen, where the flames could be seen throughout the dining room. The outdoor patio served shots in glasses made of ice, which drinkers could down and then hurl at an iron bell.
“High Horse was my baby,” Tanabe said. “I was involved in everything single thing, the decoration, the plates, the lighting. Every aspect — and it made me very happy.”
When it closed, Tanabe said he wasn’t sure what his next move would be. With his roots in Raleigh so shallow, he considered moving on. Then he said he made a connection.
“I could either keep getting drunk and crying about High Horse, or step out of the sadness,” Tanabe said. “It hurt me a lot when it closed, but I choose to be better, to be healthy.”
One day last year, he saw an ad for a chef position at Vidrio, a Mediterranean restaurant on Glenwood Avenue that’s part of the LM Restaurants group.
Tanabe said he wasn’t looking for a chef position, but wanted something. That something, he said, set him straight.
Tanabe said he just wanted to be in the kitchen. He and LM settled on a “chef in residence” title, and Tanabe got to work, finding joy and routine, he said, in chopping and peeling onions. Eventually he started putting dishes on the Vidrio menu.
For LM, expanding the restaurant group largely came down to finding a similar vision with Tanabe, said Amber Moshakos, LM’s brand president.
“I’m so grateful to work with him and do this partnership,” Moshakos said. “Our values are very similar, the way we look at business, out goals and desires. It makes this partnership natural and easy.”
Tanabe’s vision for next restaurant
Tanabe said the new restaurant isn’t aiming for strict authenticity, but will feature Mexican flavors and ingredients combined in new ways.
The menu is still being developed, but will include creative tacos and homages to classic Mexican dishes and North Carolina ingredients.
“There will be some serious tacos, but it’s not just about tacos,” Moshakos said. “(A’Verde will be about bringing in the flavors in the dishes (Tanabe) grew up on, while paying tribute to local produce.”
Tanabe adds it will be heavy on vegetables and chiles and house-made hot sauces. The kitchen will make fresh tortillas from nixtimalized corn, a process of alkalized masa producing a more nutritious, flavorful tortilla.
“This is a Mexican restaurant I can crave,” said Tanabe, who was raised in Mexico City. “It’s approachable. Not what people have in mind when they think of traditional Mexican food. ... I want a restaurant that represents me.”
A’Verde will have an open kitchen and a wood grill, but it won’t be quite as performance-driven as High Horse, Tanabe said. There will be a large window where diners can see tortillas being made.
A’Verde continues a trend over the last year-and-a-half of more projects signing up for the suburbs. At High Horse, part of the experience included Tanabe stopping by tables and chatting up guests. He said he routinely heard from diners coming from Cary to downtown Raleigh.
“What I noticed is people from Cary, people around my age who still wanted to have the downtown experience,” Tanabe said. “But they don’t always want to drive 25 minutes, or pay for a long ride after four tequilas. ... Downtown Raleigh doesn’t make the restaurant, it’s the ambiance and the chef.”
Moshakos said the trend existed before COVID, but has picked up speed. She said it’s a trend that elevates all of the Triangle’s dining scene.
“We saw this happening before COVID, but it’s only been accelerated,” Moshakos said. “There are enough guests to support chef-driven concepts here.”
A’Verde is still working through renovations to it space, but Moshakos anticipates opening in late summer.
This story was originally published May 11, 2021 at 10:06 AM.
