This week, Crook’s Corner is bringing its beloved honeysuckle sorbet back for one day
One of the spring’s sweet delights will return this weekend.
Even though Crook’s Corner remains closed for now, the Chapel Hill restaurant is selling a batch of its famous honeysuckle sorbet out of the kitchen’s back door.
On Friday, June 3 from 12 to 4 p.m., Crook’s Corner will sell single serving to-go containers of honeysuckle sorbet from the kitchen door on Merritt Mill Road. Sales are capped at two servings each.
If there’s still sorbet left, a second day of sales will be held Saturday, June 4 from 12 to 4 p.m. Servings are $8 each.
“If you grew up with honeysuckle, a taste of the sorbet is a mind-bending experience,” said Crook’s Corner co-owner Shannon Healy in a release. “You can watch people’s faces when they taste it and see their reactions of pure delight and nostalgia.”
The taste of summer
The honeysuckle sorbet is one of Crook’s Corner’s most beloved dishes, invented by former chef Bill Smith and made from thousands of foraged honeysuckle blossoms. Though the official start of summer is a few weeks away, the honeysuckle sorbet captures those muggy North Carolina nights when the wild floral honeysuckle thickets hang in the air, distilling it all into a scoop of ice.
“It brings me back to running around barefoot,” said former Crook’s Corner owner Gene Hamer last year.
Smith typically makes a few hundred servings of the season’s sorbet, lest anyone is left without.
“The town is really childish about it,” Smith said last year about the fervor created by the sorbet.
Healy is in the process of reopening Crook’s Corner, though no timeline is set for its return. Crook’s closed last year amid the challenges the COVID pandemic posed for restaurants.
“I’ve always said I would love to reopen it,” Healy said earlier this year.
This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 10:06 AM.
