Dreams came true this year — for Charlotte’s chefs, and for me, too
As Charlotte has had a particularly notable year in the food and drink world, so, too, have I while following around the city’s best chefs and mixologists.
In my capacity of CharlotteFive’s assistant editor and primary food writer, I’m always having a ball, as comedian Leanne Morgan says. After all, my idea of a great time is talking about food, looking at menus, eating, shopping for food, making that food and so on.
But throughout 2025, I’ve gotten to do some pretty remarkable things. I’ve sat down to chat with James Beard Award semifinalists, eat their food and drink their drinks. I’ve visited the set of “Top Chef” in Charlotte as TV crews film the next season of the Bravo culinary competition. And I’ve cheered on local chefs as they’ve celebrated wins at the Michelin Guide ceremony in Greenville.
I’ve also taken CharlotteFive readers along with me to restaurant previews and openings, new menu tastings and plenty of other food events. If you’re not yet following along, you’re going to want to sign up for our free, daily newsletter, follow our socials and get in on the action. And if you’ve got news to share, please let us know that, too.
In all, there’s almost too much to recap. But here are a few of my favorite highlights from 2025.
James Beard Awards
Each January, the James Beard Awards announces its semifinalists — a lengthy lineup of the best food and beverage professionals in the country.
This year, Charlotte was lucky enough to have three semifinalists: Sam Diminich of Restaurant Constance and Your Farms, Your Table and Chayil Johnson of Community Matters Cafe, each nominated in the Best Chef: Southeast category; and Colleen Hughes, beverage director of the Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group, was nominated in the Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service category for her work at Supperland.
Pretty quickly, I raced to Community Matters cafe to get to know Johnson and snag a taste of his exceptional food. Joy resonates in that dining room where employees are learning skills for a second chance at a stable life. And ever since, I’ve been recommending a visit there to anyone and everyone who will listen. (Citrus, beets and fresh fennel on labneh in the thick of winter? Yes, please. Any day.)
I’d been to Supperland before, but I hadn’t yet gotten a chance to spend time at the Bar at Supperland, where our visuals professional Alex Cason and I spoke with Hughes about her path to becoming a mixologist and what her days are like as one of the nation’s top beverage professionals. What still stands out to me is that she spends hours alone in research and development on the regular to perfect the delicious and carefully balanced cocktails we so carelessly swill down.
Restaurant Constance was another place I hadn’t visited, but not for lack of trying. Reservations were hard to come by then, and they remain so — unless you’re OK with a 9 p.m. seating. But even for the early-to-bed crowd, trust me, it’s worth the late night. Diminich is easily one of the warmest, kindest humans you’ll ever meet — and his food is out of this world. Do yourself a favor and try one of his salads, which are among the items on his seasonally-changing menu that truly highlight his genius.
In fact, The Charlotte Observer and CharlotteFive even teamed up in June to host an exclusive, private dinner for foodie subscribers.
We drank, we dined, we gabbed all night long about our favorite restaurants and favorite dishes. Best of all, it was a great chance to step out of our comfort zones and break bread with people we might not otherwise have ever gotten to know. It was a memorable night, for sure.
‘Top Chef’
For me, the biggest highlight of the year was something I can’t even talk about just yet, thanks to a few nondisclosure agreements. But what I can say is that I’ve been a fan of Bravo’s “Top Chef” for years — and only a handful of people will be quite as excited as me to watch the spring 2026 release of Season 23, filmed in Charlotte.
I can also safely say that I got to meet and individually interview “Top Chef” host Kristen Kish and judges Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio. Most of our brief conversations centered on what they were eating here in Charlotte, but the experiences were food writer gold.
Each seemed exactly in real life as they appear on screen. Kish is thoughtful and not afraid to show her emotions — which is what I love about her most. Simmons, a well-known culinary expert who worked for Food & Wine can speak at length about any food topic. And Colicchio may have a few rough and gruff edges, but he’s got a warm heart, too.
Michelin
Another huge highlight of the year was my personal (and nontransferrable) invitation to the Michelin Guide American South ceremony, which is basically the Oscars of the restaurant world.
As the only Charlotte media representative in Greenville, I walked the red carpet along with the chefs, bubbling over with joy. I even snapped pictures for several of them throughout the evening — so often, in fact, that the owner of a Nashville barbecue joint tracked me down as I briefly sat to snack on charcuterie because she thought I was an official Michelin photographer.
Of course, trailing all Charlotte’s honored chefs was my primary goal and highlight of the night. (Just ask Counter-‘s Sam Hart, Restaurant Constance’s Sam Diminich or Supperland’s Colleen Hughes how often I popped up right where they happened to be.) But a gleeful surprise was getting a chance to fangirl Emeril Lagasse, who’s early ‘90s cooking shows solidified my love for cooking. (I ate at Emeril’s — now a two-Michelin Star restaurant. — about 15 years ago and enjoyed every bite.)
But that’s not all. Due to my nonstop persistence in all things Michelin, I scored an interview the morning after the ceremony with Gwendal Poullennec, the international director of the Michelin Guides. Few things are more worldly than chatting about the best food on earth with a Frenchman sipping an Americano, am I right?
Big stories
It wasn’t all goodies and glamour, though. In what was probably the most unexpected storyline of my year, I dug deep into the world of livermush, a staple breakfast food across North Carolina.
Folks across the state, and particularly in Charlotte, had begun to complain about not being able to find their favorite Neese’s Country Sausage-made livermush and liver pudding.
As I started to dig for answers — which included an adventure to Tryon House Restaurant to try livermush for myself for the first time — my email inbox swelled. Many CharlotteFive readers reached out to thank me (or suggest I try scrapple). And I’ve been in a rolling conversation with one livermush-loving new friend ever since.
The much-beloved folks at Neese’s were reluctant to speak, and I understood why once I got back the first federal Freedom of Information Act request of my 25-year newspaper career. It turns out, positive tests for listeria were behind the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service partially halting production at the plant.
If that doesn’t put a cap on things, I don’t know what would. But there’s a little more time before the end of the year. Who knows what will happen next, but I’ll be waiting to find out!
This story was originally published December 18, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
