LaRue

First thing that hit me was the smell of old hot oil.
Watched the ‘chef’ wipe down the food counter and cutting boards with one filthy old rag.
Using a single dirty sink and no cleaning materials.
Place was unclean.
Ordered an Old Fashioned as I didn’t wish to look at the food menu.
Was served some sugar drink, little alcohol and a dirty steel cocktail stick with a black slime.
Listened to a bunch of «it’s not my fault» excuses.
Avoid this place.

For Greensboro this place rocks. Super savory interpretations of plainer items. Great breakdowns of various dishes in a way that is refreshing and not found around here. Good service and creative food, but if you’re thinking all white table cloths then this isn’t your spot. If you’re thinking food and fun, it’s the real deal.

Had a wonderful first time supper at this interesting restaurant. Small plates are all new. Menu changes. Love the experimentation bringing complex flavors together. Loved my shrub cocktail. We will be back. Highly recommend the fish tacos. Smoked fish in a vegetable root shell. Mmm good.

My wife and I ended up downtown last weekend for an event that ended earlier than expected and needed to find a place to have dinner. I’d remembered reading about La Rue and had not been there previously, so we decided to give it a shot.
First, it’s kind of hard to find — we drove by it trying to find parking without realizing it. Once we got there, you can tell that it’s kind of reclamation project. They’ve attempted to update the décor where they can, but it has lots of bones of whatever was in the space before it. It feels a little dated, especially towards the back of the restaurant, but we elected to eat in the bar area which is near the kitchen — the area that appears to have been updated the most.
It’s worth noting that the kitchen is tiny. Essentially some induction cooking with maybe a fryer or two. That makes what they’re doing really interesting — trying to run a full menu with limited resources — it’s very creative and generally works pretty well.
On to the food. The menu is one of, if not the, most interesting in Greensboro. It’s not set up as a traditional menu — Starter, Main, Dessert — but rather just a listing of a variety of small plates. This might not be for everyone, but since we almost always sample from the small plates on any menu (as they’re generally more daring), it’s particularly compelling to me.
We tried five different things — some worked and some didn’t quite work. But at around $ 10 per plate, you’re not making a huge investment if you don’t like something.
Our favorites:
— Anchovy fries — literally breaded and fried whole anchovies, served with an aioli of sorts. These were really nicely done and have no resemblance to what most of us Americans know of anchovy fillets. Well seasoned and really delicious.
— Pork Tenderloin — Because of the kitchen setup, the chef mentioned that they have to make use of sous vide for a lot of their meat preparation. For this dish, it absolutely worked. The meat was cooked perfectly and the accompaniments worked well. It was served over a broccoli purée that I wasn’t sure about, but ended up enjoying.
Good:
— Steak with a romesco sauce (topped with foie gras). Using sous vide again the prime steak was cooked perfectly medium rare and was quite tasty. What didn’t quite work was the «topped with foie gras.» More on that below.
— Steak tartare — not bad, but it seemed to me missing some saltiness or acid that would make it stand out. It came across as a little bland. The texture of the meat and egg was good, though.
Eh:
— Caps on Toast — Mushrooms (maybe enoki?) served cold on top of toast. The mushrooms were fine — might have benefitted from a little more punch. However what didn’t work at all was the bread. Understand that — given the setup — they probably can’t do any baking, but the bread wasn’t toasted that I could tell and was really just a thinly sliced baguette that you would find at a standard grocery. I’m sure that they could find a better bread purveyor than what they’re using — perhaps The Table Farm which just opened nearby.
A note on the foie gras:
— I’m a huge foie fan — generally in lobe form, sautéed simply. I believe that La Rue is constantly keeping the ability to add foie gras to any dish for an additional $ 4. So we’ll always give it a shot. However, the process they used this time around was to create a type of foie gras snow that was shaved over the dish (that we chose — the steak). In this instance it just didn’t work for us. However, I think they experiment with different preparations, so I look forward to trying whatever’s next.
They had a decent beer list and interesting cocktail program. We didn’t delve into the wine list, but there were some really nice reserve bottles listed if that’s your thing.
This was our first visit and we’ll definitely be back. It’s casual, the service was great and the people were really nice — in addition to being very adventurous and inventive. At La Rue, we found ourselves Bhaving have a hard time choosing what to order because there are so many interesting options. This beats the pants off of settling on something on a menu that you can likely make a decent version of at home — which we’ve found ourselves doing too often since moving to Greensboro.

The best «fancy food» I have had in Greensboro! Great flavors and top notch ingredients! You won’t find another restaurant in Greensboro that compares to this.

This place always blows my mind. Its so exciting when everyone who works in the restaurant is excited about their food

If your primary, visceral reaction to a much anticipated dining experience is a very simple, very genuine «interesting», that might not be considered a good thing by many, but it very much is a positive, a cautious positive, but a positive. This little place offers a different, still evolving change of pace, a change that can be challenging to one’s culinary comfort zone, change that is definitely creative, change that can be puzzling at times, change that succeeds more than it fails — and it does fail at times.
This spot has been reborn, the «seafood» place that was here before was more shabby than anything else, now it is trendy, in a modern kind of way, a bit stiff, but attractive. The «kitchen» area is smaller than that of most food trucks, not counting wiener carts, actually doing more constructing, more composing, more plating than actual cooking at the point of order. Heat is in fact applied, but not as much, or as often, as is the norm, part of the puzzle, part of the fail!
They are tweaking the menu a bit, not specifically offering the 8 course Tasting Menu, though it can be ordered. Some folks apparently felt they were being «somewhat forced» into this more expensive alternative — yeap, sounds like a lot of Greensboro. The menu we chose from had 11 items, ranging in price from $ 5 (Hummus) to $ 9 (Steak ‘N’ Egg, Ceviche, & Beef Tartar). with the option to add Foie Gras to any item for $ 4.
We decided on 7 items (one small plate too far as it turned out), beginning with Fish Tacos (2 for $ 6) and Caps on Toast, also for $ 6. The challenge to the culinary comfort zone began there — the 2 smallish tacos were served up refrigerator cold (puzzling), and the Pompano was somewhere between minced and grounded, and was accompanied by pickled kohlrabi. Once over the temperature and texture «shock», the taste was very nice — indeed an «interesting» start.
The Caps on Toast (mushroom confit on crostini) was also on the coolish side, though not quite as much, and was excellent, and Alice thought the small mushrooms were both tasty and cute! Next came Beef Tartar and the Ceviche, and both were very good dishes. The Beef Tartar was an ample portion (in fact, the largest portion of the evening), served with a perfectly cooked soft boiled egg, cilantro, and tobiko (Flying Fish roe). The Ceviche consisted of chopped White Fish, mango, and plenty of diced, varied citrus — the fish was rather minimal.
The Shishito Peppers followed, and fell into the interesting area — this is a normally sweetish East Asian pepper (though occasionally you will hit a pretty hot one), picked while green, and simply cooked in oil, almost blistered. They were served with crumbled chorizo, and a bit of avocado. As I said, interesting, in both taste and texture, but one time was probably enough.
The final 2 plates were Bone Marrow (with risotto and manchego) and Steak ‘N’ Egg (medallions of prime beef, an egg fried sunny side up, and romesco (a Spanish sauce of nuts and red peppers). The Bone Marrow, with a nice serving of risotto, was not a favorite of mine, in fact I found the taste rather cloying, with very little added by whatever bone marrow there was.
The Steak dish was very nice, the beef was very flavorful, though more than a little chewy. The sauce was especially tasty with the red pepper very apparent. I did not feel the foie gras (which was shaved on top of the last 2 dishes) added anything, was in fact not even noticeable, and I would not go that way again.
The service was engaging, efficient, and very knowledgeable, and the time out of the kitchen was very fast, perhaps a touch too fast — I think next time I would not order everything at one time, or I would ask that the plates be spread out a bit.
All in all, interesting, challenging, a puzzle or two, a fail or two — I squeezed a Four here, since half stars don’t exist. The menu changes often, in fact 2 of the items I really wanted to try were off the current menu, duck confit and escargot, but perhaps they’ll return, and I figure we probably will, as well. The variety of fresh, unusual ingredients, and the creative pairings of those ingredients, reminds me of the approach at The Knife & Fork in Spruce Pine, though much there is more locally centered.

A true dining experience! This spot is across the Carolina Theatre in downtown Greensboro. It is pretty hidden, but it has a little piglet on the front sign of the restaurant. One perk is you may utilize the reservation portion on Unilocal to place a seat ahead of time. The cuisine of La Rue (The Road) is French well so is the décor. It feels similar to the lost generation of Josephine Baker and Ernest Hemingway. The typewriters and classic French cookbooks are intriguing.
The menu has an 8 course option. The meals are stunning pieces of art and taste.

We had our first dinner at LaRue last night and it was a wonderful experience from start to finish. We started off with cocktails at the bar which is really fun because you get to see all the action. The cocktail list is creative and diverse and the drinks are beautifully presented. The wine list is curated by Reto’s, a downtown wine shop with an understandable focus on French wines (kudos for local supporting local). My only criticism is it would be nice to see a few more wines offered at the lower price range, at least by the bottle.
The kitchen is about one third of the area behind the bar and it is absolutely amazing that ALL the food comes from two chefs out of this tiny space using induction burners. We had an opportunity to talk for a while with the Chef de Cuisine, Trey Bell about his background (Charleston and NYC notably with Wylie Dufresne). His passion for food shines through in both the creativity with ingredients as well as the artistry of the presentation. He shared some of his innovation for cooking in such a small space, such as only using fresh ingredients (no walk-​in freezer) and techniques such as «sous vide» with great result. He has a wonderful collection of cookbooks you can peruse, but don’t spill on them! :)
The biggest thing that jumps out at me as unique about LaRue, especially for Greensboro is that the number of offerings are sparse, whether it is the menu, the wine list, the available spirits or dessert. This can be perceived as challenging in a world of seemingly unlimited options. But I think it is a very smart decision for this particular restaurant. The space is very small, the kitchen is very small and the menu is always changing. So they are offering a limited number of dishes, always within the same menu framework and doing the dishes amazingly well. I can’t say enough about the presentation, perhaps the best I have seen in Greensboro.
Ultimately, this would have been a five star review but my husband and I both agreed the portion sizes were quite small for the price. Specifically the roots salad ($ 9) was quite small. I can see pictures on here from a few months ago of a similar Roots salad that was much more appropriately portioned for this price point. The veal belly dish ($ 30) was described as a six ounce portion but appeared smaller. The house made pasta served with the veal was sensational but didn’t offer more than a few bites. I had the pork pâté ($ 9) and the scallops small plate ($ 21). Both of these dishes were absolutely delicious. We also requested bread and butter which was fresh and flavorful.
We will be back! I hope people will continue to check out LaRue. It’s very convenient with parking all around and it’s right across the street from Carolina Theater. I also follow LaRue on Instagram and they post some seriously amazing looking photos. That’s actually what finally brought me in here!

Wonderful lunch at a quaint find in Greensboro. Chef Trey and his team do an amazing «from scratch» menu that is one of my newest faves! The pig ear terrine was a great exploration into a tasty creation and the pork belly ravioli was simply incredible. I will be back!

Tonight I went for the December new menu tasting. Everything I ate was amazing! Trey Bell & his staff create unique, exquisite food with an incredible amount of thought, preparation, & detail put into everything on your plate! It is a true feast for both the eyes & the tastebuds!
If you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, this is it. You are guaranteed a meal to remember, & the best thing is you get to try new food every month! Plus everyone is so nice & welcoming you feel right at home, even when dining alone.
Thank you Trey for giving Greensboro such a wonderful restaurant to enjoy!

The experience is. personal, charming, visual, and hands on. I fell in love with this place and the atmosphere the first time I ever went. The open kitchen allows you to converse with some of the most talented and dedicated workers I’ve ever encountered. Chef Trey is a genius and is extremely passionate about his presentation. He and his team can accommodate literally anything for you if you have a food allergy, vegan or vegetarian preference, gluten free needs. you will have presumably the best meal of your life regardless.
By far, a favorite place of mine and that is not just limited to North Carolina.

A very pleasant place. Great food, drink, and service without being pretentious. I’ll go back again and again.
One of the best bars in town too. All the old standbys and some really exceptional new creations.
They’re not afraid to take a chance. They try things here. It’s new, inventive and delicious.

You’re going to feel sexy. You’re going to feel swanky and trendy. You’re going to eat your way through a Progressive French menu in an old oyster bar. The restaurant itself is as big as a school bus, but once you take your seat (at the bar or an intimate table) you will forget about that part.
The more obscure the menu item sounds, the more you should get it. Chicken liver cannoli? Get it. Foie gras anything, get it. Also, get a cocktail or three. Skip the beer, go directly to cocktail hour.
The service and the staff are extremely friendly and welcoming. No pretense or haughty attitudes here. Only amazing, creative food in a fun, interesting atmosphere. Don’t forget to use the typewriter at the entrance to write a love note to yourself or the restaurant. Want to spin a record? There’s a real, live turntable in the back. Girl, put your records on.
The menu changes monthly and the first Sunday of the month is a prix fixe $ 50 menu that has everything the menu has to offer on it. Thursday through Saturday LaRue turns into a late night noodle bar and is open til 2am. Hot, steaming bowls of noodles, fried rice or phở will melt your heart and your drunken face off, I swear.

Just to update, I had to return for more. The Foie Gras, had been on my mind for a week so I went back to have some. [served on banana corn bread!] This was the best dish of food I’ve had in a long time.
Of note for many will be the fact that the menu is 90% gluten free. It’s not noticeable but is important to some.
If you go here hungry you’ll need at least 3 dishes which will give you a great chance to try a variety of flavors. This night there were 4 small choices at $ 6 to $ 15, Entrees are $ 30-​ish+ and more, but are usually offered in both small/​large versions. Some will think the prices are too high for small portions. At this level of the quality scale I do not think so. This is luxury goods and the quality is tops.
My club soda on this visit was fresh and bubbly. The bar features some very special cocktails and concoctions, but also delivers old-​school with a $ 3 can of Schlitz.
Noise levels here are conducive to intimate conversation. I personally avoid some other local hot-​spots because of over-​noisiness.
Several of the patrons in close vicinity seemed to be thinking, as I was, that they wished they could lick their plate. I’m sure this isn’t acceptable in Downtown Greensboro so don’t be tacky.

oh by far THE BEST restaurant anywhere near. Trey has imagination, passion and the superior team to literally be a Michelin restaurant. Do NOT miss Sunday new menu tastings.

Words cannot describe how much I love La Rue! We visited on opening night in April and again for the first day of the new May menu. Chef Trey and his team are among the friendliest and most accommodating in Greensboro. All it took was one visit, and we were heartily welcomed back like long-​time friends or family.
Vegetarians: they will customize almost any dish to fit your needs. Each element is so exceptional that you don’t even realize a dish was originally intended for a meat pairing — vegetarians you are not a second class diner in the least!
Do yourself a favor and sit at the bar. Watching the culinary team at work is mesmerizing.
Tonight my partner and I enjoyed a personally curated vegetarian tasting menu topped off with Anderson Valley Gose, and a cheese plate for dessert. Each course was so different and beautifully executed, that it was like going on a journey of flavor around the world.
The starting plate consisted of a carrot and ginger purée (orange pillowy clouds of heaven) cupping a succotash of warm edamame, corn, wasabi peas, tomato, and fresh herbs grown in the aquaponic garden by the entrance. Southern comfort food meets delicate oriental-​inspired flavors.
The next plate was a playful interpretation of the ocean. I was immediately transported to an afternoon by the sea — a lotus root, so buttery and crunchy, topped with crisp snap peas, corn air (a foam made of salted corn cob broth), topped with fennel fronds and radish slivers. This plate was a delight to the eyes and mouth.
The finishing plate was a combination of the ratatouille and stuffed cabbage. The cabbages are stuffed ahead of time and finished in the sous-​vide. This infuses the flavors of the mission fig, lentil, mushroom, Bleu cheese and sunchoke filling into the buttery, melt-​in-​your-​mouth cabbage leaf. The ratatouille includes baby eggplant that is so tender and warm. I could quite simply eat this every day.
Do not miss the cheese plate! Each visit presents a new and masterfully curated selection of cheeses. La Rue sources the freshest chèvre in town. I normally do not like chèvre, but here I enjoy every bite. The cheese plate this visit was paired with a house-​made apple sauce and sprinkled with Ceylon cinnamon and dried fruits.

Serendipity can be your best friend when traveling. I hold this as my mantra whenever I leave home. And my best friend didn’t fail me when I was walking around Greensboro on a Sunday night.
Everyone failed to tell me that most places close on Sunday in Greensboro. To add insult to injury, I failed to do my homework and just assumed it would be a breeze to get dinner late on a Sunday… Mother’s Day Sunday.
Feeling a little discouraged, I headed towards a crowd congregating at a theater. I noticed the small entrance to La Rue and made my way to the door.
The space is small and tight up front. But it is inviting and warm. I headed to the bar and took one look at the drink menu. I was happy. I asked for the dinner menu. There was no dinner (I learned that they typically don’t open on Sundays except when there is a performance at the theater and they serve patrons). They did have a noodle dinner, with interesting list of optional protein and condiments.
Obviously, I will have to be back here for dinner. But I’m already a fan of La Rue. You have to respect anyone who takes so much care to craft a proper cocktail. It was apparent from speaking to the staff that there is a lot of experimentation going on here. But there is an attention to detail that I have only seen in places such as Hop Sing Laundromat, Franklin Mortgage, PDT and Death & Co. Take the Tangiers for instance. This Manhattan is made with orange juice and cold-​brew coffee. It has Knob Creek rye, Tia Maria and Lillet Rouge. The cocktail is finished with toasted almond and a coffee bean grated on top. This is not a random combination. It’s the result of careful thought and preparation.
I also learned about shrubs here. Shrubs are colonial-​era drinks also known as «drinking vinegar». They are made in-​house and are quite delicious. I hope to find them back in Philly. They are made from fruits or sometimes vegetables. I tried a beet-​based shrubs and it blew me away. Again, you can taste the care and love that goes into preparing them. Everyone here take pride in what they are making for you.
This place is a gem. If you visit La Rue, DO NOT order a Miller Lite as the patron sitting next to me did. You can get this unremarkable mess pretty much anywhere. Sit down, explore the menu and be prepared to be blown away.

Great menu — each dish has a wine, cocktail, or beer recommendation. Handy. Rustic French fare. Very well curated spirits and wine collection as well.
Gluten free and vegan options abound.
Some cool stuff happening here.

When evaluating Greensboro’s culinary repertoire, ambiance is not always top of mind in my assessments. Sometimes I am simply there to focus on the eats. At other times the proprietor may make location and atmosphere the top most objective. Whether by intent or fortune, during my opening visit to LaRue, I felt transported away. This feeling was far from the hustle and bustle of Greensboro’s typical downtown eatery and into an intimate space that is making a substantial showing during its first week.
LaRue Restaurant is downtown’s newest restaurant and one that has bravely jumped the Elm St. divide, locating across from the Carolina Theatre in a spot that many will remember as the former home of Shucka’s Alley. It’s great to see this space used again. The narrow building creates a long, focused interior. Appointments are made with upcycled wood accent walls, and an interesting textured bar that sets itself apart from most. Brittany A. and I arrived later in the evening when most of the crowd had gone on, making seating a breeze. We were greeted first by an antique typewriter sitting near the door that acts as a guest registry of sorts. We opted for the bar seating, which allowed us to view the action of Taylor’s cocktail mixology and the chefs at work.
LaRue shines with their drinks choices, which includes a well curated beer and wine list, with bottles and seven beers on tap, as well as numerous signature cocktails that use premium ingredients, infusions being an example. I started with the Fullsteam Common Ground american sour and finished with their Working Man’s Lunch. Brittany opted for two of their cocktails, which were smooth and potent. We finished off the night with a cheese plate, not officially on the dinner menu but prepared for us and several other diners. The plate gave us a Manchengo, pistachio encrusted Goat Cheese, what I assume was a Fontina, and a triple-​crème cheese. The plate was expertly adorned with fruits and a side of pan-​fried crostini. Pairing the crostini and triple-​crème made for absolutely decadent adult grilled cheese bites.
The restaurant claims its small plate cuisine as french-​inspired, and although I did not expect it, I was delighted by the vegetarian options that abound. In addition to the consumed cheese plate, options include a root vegetable and goat cheese plate, and a greens plate. Chef and owner Trey Bell is tweaking the menu currently, and plans to add Bahn Mi once he finds the perfect bread for the sandwiches. The menu will rotate monthly using fresh, locally sourced and foraged ingredients.
So let’s go back to that concept of ambiance. LaRue is somehow able to feel upscale and laid back at the same time. We felt that we were dining with a group of friends even though we had just met. The food, drink, and character of the restaurant took me out of Greensboro for 2 hours on a mini-​vacation, one that I would gladly take over again.