First look at uptown Charlotte’s newest restaurant with a special nod to the city’s history
When walking into the new elegantly designed Albertine restaurant on the first floor of Charlotte’s Duke Energy Plaza, it’s hard to imagine that before the creative and culinary masterminds got ahold of the space, it was simply a glass box with concrete pipes.
Now, nestled in the heart of the city center near multiple museums, it’s very fitting that the fine dining restaurant named and designed as an homage to the city’s history feels almost like an art gallery itself.
Katy and Joe Kindred, the couple behind Kindred, Hello, Sailor and Milkbread, didn’t originally have their sights set on uptown for a new concept.
But after nearly two years, their vision of bringing a grand, upscale restaurant has come to life with their newest fine dining concept, which opened on Sunday, Sept. 22.
“It’s just been such a labor of love, and we’ve been working on it for so long, and so it’s really fun to finally share with everybody and get customers in here so we can just hope they fall in love with it as much as we’re in love with it,” owner Katy Kindred told CharlotteFive on a tour giving us a first look of the space ahead of its opening.
A labor of love
Since opening their namesake restaurant in Davidson in 2015, the Kindreds have made quite the mark on the Charlotte area’s food scene — to no one’s surprise, considering their personal and professional experiences with the industry.
Chef Joe Kindred, notably known as a five-time semifinalist for the James Beard Award: Best Chef Southeast, has been sharpening his skills in the kitchen since he was a teenager before going to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University. Fast forward a few years, the Charlotte native ended up meeting Katy at a Chicago hotel restaurant — where he worked as a sous chef and she was the wine director and a world traveler who worked in restaurants in the U.S. and Europe (even as a sommelier at age 21).
After their friendship blossomed into romance, they continued working their way up in the industry together at different restaurants before eventually settling down in the Charlotte area. It was here they began leaving a footprint on the Lake Norman and Charlotte-area food scene.
“Both of us had really valuable experiences before we moved back here to Charlotte to plant some roots,” Katy said.
“It’s a real, particular kind of honor, and it’s not lost on us … We feel very blessed and lucky and fortunate to be able to do what we love every day and make people happy and bring hospitality.”
‘Kindred touches’
Sitting in a 6,100-square foot space next to its newly opened sister cafe concept, Albertine is much different than the couple’s other restaurants. Expect “a bit more opulent and bigger scale” — with a bistro-style lounge with floor to ceiling windows, a bar and a 100-seat dining room.
Named after Queen Charlotte’s mother, Duchess Elizabeth Albertine, Katy worked with regional and international creators to capture a regal, luxurious “larger than life” vibe to the space. She made that happen using contemporary artwork from Ukrainian artist Milana Levanda and California-based Ali Beletic, along with velvet furniture and hints of rich purple and cerulean blue, with gold and marble details.
“I’m very excited about a lot of the details that went into that and all the little stories I get to tell folks about how I kind of came up with a lot of this. All our art around the space is all women,” she said “There’s all kinds of little Easter eggs around the space and around the menu.”
For the Kindreds, the creative process for their restaurants usually starts with the space before they even decide on a menu — or even a name. As Katy put it, “It’s more the space kind of drives the ideas and the creativity, and then it kind of just takes it a life of its own beyond that.”
Though they didn’t plan on expanding to the city center, because of the timing and an offer they couldn’t refuse, it all came to be.
“It’s this beautiful little jewel box in the heart of the city,” she said. “It’s safe to say we felt a responsibility to get it right,” she said. “We wanted to really make the city proud and do something really special.”
Mediterranean-inspired menu
Inspired by culinary flavors of the Mediterranean region and North Africa through Kindred’s “Southern lens,” Albertine’s seasonal menu under chef de cuisine Mark Machanic will feature a wide variety of chilled seafood, pastas, wood-fired entrees and more made with locally sourced ingredients, including:
Crispy pickle-brined quail
Dates with country ham and deviled taramasalata dip
Nigella seed and lemony brown butter pound cake
Man’oushe Za’atar sourdough flatbread
North Carolina oysters and poached Georgia deepwater shrimp with black mustard toum
Smoked Chermoula game birds
Lamb Merguez Sausage
Game bird fat-roasted potatoes
“We are leaning really heavily into the Mediterranean and how some of the oldest food cultures in the world can sort of speak to and through the American South,” Kindred explained.
“We tried to take the entire Greater Mediterranean basin and look at the whole thing through … sort of this historical lens, where we really wanted to kind of look at the roots that tie some of these cuisines together and how those intersect with the American South.”
Albertine’s menu will also feature a “Mediterranean-leaning” wine list, developed by wine director Danny Ike, and classic cocktails.
“We’re super proud of what we built here, and we’re excited to share it. And I hope everybody loves it and is supportive of their local homegrown chef and restaurateurs that live here and are building their family here, and want to be deeply rooted in this community,” Katy said.
Albertine
Location: Duke Energy Plaza, 525 S Tryon St Suite #125, Charlotte, NC 28202
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Instagram: @albertinerestaurant
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This story was originally published September 19, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
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