Knife and Fork

Amazing food and excellent service.
The chef did not stop to amaze us during the 2 hours that we were there. We ordered two Chef’s Tasting and the food did not stop coming.
The chef stopped several times on our table to explain is the food and his vision.

This is a destination. One of the very best burgers I’ve ever had! Crispy potatoes are also true art. Thank you to the chef for not over cooking good beef, and to the server for all his help and a beautiful smile. I’ll be back with friends in tow!!!

Spruce Pine, NC… on a Sunday… finally a fantastic experience other than trout fishing… Knife and Fork
Rushed there after finding out that they stop seating after 3pm. Very cool menu, eclectic to say the least. I was told they serve rabbit and as a purveyor of game, it was a no brainier, Rabbit Pot Pie with Radishes and Ruby Streaks.
Joe, my waiter said it was EXCELLENT! And it was! Added the IPA and it made for a fantastic afternoon! Chef Nathan Allen promised to email me the recipe… I’ll be back

I’m still in disbelief over what Spruce Pine has to offer the food scene. Knife & Fork is one of those solid offerings from this teeny-​tiny mountain town in Western NC.
The food here is spot on – every flavor and detail well thought out, perfectly prepared and beautifully presented. We had the meat and cheese plates. Both were delicious. If I had to pick just one, I would go with the meat plate. We also had rabbit loin wrapped in bacon goodness. After all that food to start, we shared the braised short rib (melt-​in-​your-​mouth perfection) and cinnamon bread pudding. Every bite of every dish was perfection.
If you find yourself in Spruce Pine, be sure to pay a visit to this foodies’ paradise. In fact, even if you don’t find yourself in Spruce Pine, find a way to get there for this hidden gem of a restaurant!
Be sure to make reservations. The interior is small (maybe 10 – 12 tables, max) and was packed when we arrived for our 8pm reservation.

We’ve been here twice now. Food is seasonal, fresh and always interesting. This is no run-​of-​the-​mill place. They have an excellent brunch menu. Make sure that you plan ahead and get a reservation if you really have your heart set on eating here. That being said, we were able to get a seat without one since we got there right when they opened.
I would not recommend it for kids since they don’t really offer anything for them and the atmosphere is not kid friendly. You almost feel like you’re sitting in a slightly larger dining room of an old house — which is cool but not when your two year old is dropping silverware on the floor. There isn’t really background music to help drown out everyone’s conversations around you either.
Staff is wonderful and very informed on what’s actually in all the dishes, my only complaint is the wait time on getting food. It’s a smaller place so I’m assuming this kitchen is probably small. They are hoppin back there from what we could see both times but just be prepared for a bit of a wait. Overall this is the best Spruce Pine has to offer!

What an incredible Restuarant. Menu reflects creativity mixed w farm fresh ingrediance

We couldn’t get in without a reservation even though they had 4 empty tables.

For Spruce Pine this place is great, great beer and wine, options besides sandwiches (which is all this area) though the menu is confusing I recommend asking questions, don’t be afraid. I work in NYC and I had no idea about some of there items.
Had the tomatoes soup which had a great base pumpkin? Which was nice, and the fig salad, which needs a better description (like the whole menu) but still I liked it, it was refreshing to have this cuisine in this area of rich food.

Once in a while, you stumble upon a place for a meal and leave stunned at just how wonderful it was. Knife and Fork was the case. The dining room is very simple — no clutter. The tables and chairs might remind you of a matronly country cottage — prim, proper and rustic. The petite handmade pottery vases with fresh flowers might be the only clue that something great is going to happen.
Just reading the menu — I got really excited — lots of local ingredients prepared in some intriguing combinations. Although my waitress was nothing but helpful from start to finish, the best advice I received for selecting dishes came from the gentleman sitting next to me. There are lots of locals who eat here on a regular basis and they openly chat from table to table about the dishes they’ve eaten and how good they are. My meal was off to a good start by drinking a bottle of Black IPA from Shipyard Brewing in Maine.
The table next to me said, «get the beans», so I did. Local string beans prepared with fresh basil, shiitake mushrooms and smoked ham hock — strong flavors that somehow went well together. Nice start!
For the «main event», I went with the «in house» Smoked Pork Shoulder and Slow Cooked Greens Sandwich. The greens were served mixed with the shoulder on the roll. Really amazing sandwich with homey flavors that let you know you are definitely in the South! A side of crispy potatoes and homemade ketchup paired up nicely. Even the ketchup was delicious — tart and earthy.
The dessert was not from this planet. Picture an «unseated» Chocolate Pot au Crème with homemade whipped cream. Now sprinkle lavender petals and fresh oregano sprigs on it. Then drizzle olive oil and add a pinch of sea salt. The depth to this dish was endless. The flavors intermingled and made for a delightful different bite with each spoonful. The gentle flavor of the lavender stretched lightly across your palate. Adding elements that are normally paired with a food that is savory (oregano, oil, salt), brought this to a magical level. This dessert was pure genius. Add to this Dark Roast French press coffee.
The menu changes almost every day, depending on inspiration and availability of ingredients. At Knife and Fork, Chef Nate brings Farm to Table to a whole new level of excellence. You will be impressed!

I wish I could give 6 stars. Everything was perfect.
We called ahead and placed brunch reservations. A smiling face greeted us upon waking in and the service remained superb throughout our experience.
I had the poached eggs, biscuit, steak, and breakfast potatoes. The side of fig jam and the house-​made tomato based sauce were delicious condiments.
Everything is sourced locally and our entire party thoroughly enjoyed the variety on the menu and their selections.
I hope this place never changes a darn thing! A hidden gem worth the drive!

After a long day of hiking, my girlfriends and I wanted to treat ourselves to a nice meal before heading back to Charlotte. Finding Knife and Fork in such a small and quaint town was definitely a treat!
The service was decent, however, all the tables around us were being offered bread except for us. That normally wouldn’t have bothered me, but we were starving! I ended up just asking for some. We started off with the Flower Cheese, which was a delicate small plate with cheese and fresh flower petals. Not sure it was worth the $ 10 but the presentation was beautiful! Next we tried the Charcuterie plate. The presentation was beautiful, rustic, and innovative. Sadly, my favorite part about it was the homemade mustard. My friends enjoyed the sausage, pork rinds and the rabbit terrine on the board.
The plate that completely redeemed it all and will make me return to Knife and Fork was the Trout Ceviche with fish sticks! The fish was unbelievably fresh, light and flavorful. The homemade tarter sauce was perfect. I actually think I had a dream about this dish that night– that’s how good it was!
We ended the meal with the sauteed zucchini, which was delicious but couldn’t top the trout.
I would like to go back to try one of their entrée dishes.

For most of us committed foodies, there is something especially intriguing about a purportedly outstanding restaurant in a small town, the more remote and obscure the higher the interest level.
This restaurant in Spruce Pine, with a population of well under 3,000 located an hour northeast of Asheville in the Blue Ridge Mountains, seems to perfectly fit the bill. Throw in a firm commitment, in word and practice, to the wildly popular «farm to table» concept and the culinary game is a foot.
This small (40 seats or so) place was opened in July 2009 by owner and head chef, Nate Allen, who had spent the previous 10 years in Los Angeles honing his culinary skills. The restaurant is simply, yet stylishly, appointed, with a feeling of relaxed intimacy. Each table has a small, stone table setting with a knife and fork emblem and a living flower or herb growing from it. They have recently opened a large patio area, with vegetables and herbs growing in pots in and around the entire area, attractive and pleasant — there’s a large stack of split wood and a nice Green Egg Grill back there, as well.
Now to the food — the farm to table concept has grown substantially over the last few years in every area of the country, and has moved from eccentric, to fad, through chic, to a strong culinary reality, for those committed to it, and who do it thoroughly and properly. Much like the word «organic», the term «farm to table» is thrown around rather loosely, with no defining protocol or structure — many use it as a marketing tool, and their adherence to the spirit of the concept is shallow and thin, at best. And in the final analysis, fine local meat and produce poorly cooked and plated is still a sad meal.
Nate Allen does the concept proud, and in meaningful ways takes it to a whole other level. He has forged a strong relationship with many meat and produce suppliers in the local area, as well as elsewhere in the state — he goes out of the area, out of state only when he has no alternative — cheeses, for example.
He also has incorporated a number of indigenous plants and herbs into his dishes — Indian Cucumber (weird, hairy little dudes but tasty), Ramps, Poke Weed, Purslane (basically an edible weed), Wild Ginger, Wrinkled Crinkled Cress, and a variety of wild greens, and flowers. He uses tender baby vegetables and unusual items — like carrots, beets, rhubarb, lion mane mushrooms, and pea tendrils, for example — in creative ways that enhance the basic dish, and generally it surprises the hell out of you that you actually ate that, and loved it!
We started with the house made complimentary bread coupled with honey infused butter — and you can tell, oh yeah, this is gonna get good! We chose the Charcuterie Board, the small one for $ 12, The Seared Rabbit Loin entrée ($ 20), and the Seared Trout entrée ($ 22). To accompany this splendid repast, we chose a very nice zinfandel for Alice, and a Stoudt’s Gold Lager for me — just wine and beer here.
The «small» Charcuterie Board was huge (check the photo, words don’t do it justice) was loaded with house made meats (Liver Pâté, Rabbit Terrine, 3 meat Head Cheese, Trout Tartar, and several others), fresh Bread, house made Pork Skins (outstanding), Indian Cucumbers, Ramps, a house made jam, and mustard. All of the meats were very flavorful, with the Head Cheese especially outstanding. The accompanying items were generally good, as well, though the Ramps should be consumed in small bites with meat and bread as buffer.
The Seared Rabbit Loin was nice tasting (at least for farm raised), but perhaps a bit underdone at medium rare for our taste — it was a touch chewy. The loin rested on top of a collection of Baby Beets, Sugar Snap Peas, and Purslane in a small amount of an outstanding broth. All in all this was an excellent dish, with a sublime combination of tastes and textures.
The Seared Trout was among the best I’ve ever tasted, exploding with an almost sweet flavor, well cooked, with a nice, crispy skin, the flesh flaking perfectly. The fish was atop young, Roasted Carrots, Napa Cabbage, cubed Rhubarb, and Pea Tendrils in another excellent broth, or Fumet — another great combination of tastes and textures.
We tried the Citrus Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream (absolutely amazing dessert) and Bread Pudding with Banana Ice Cream. The Bread Pudding was nice, but a little on the dense side, but the Banana Ice Cream was outstanding. Unfortunately they had no port or dessert wine to finish the meal with.
The service was very good — efficient, engaging, and knowledgeable. The Chef was constantly in the dining room, interacting with the customers, making sure all was right.
This was absolutely one of the best meals we’ve ever enjoyed — interesting, creative, and unusual combinations resulting in very deep, complex tastes, enjoyed in pleasant surroundings, and accommodated by great folks. We’ll be back!

We did the tasting with the wine pairing, and I’ll have it again next time. The best thing is the wild ingredients and local meat’s.

Whoa. This meal knocked my socks off.
I spent two (incredible) weeks studying at the nearby Penland School, and the BF and I decided on a nice «farewell» dinner before heading out of town. I wasn’t sure what sort of options would be available in tiny Spruce Pine, but Knife and Fork had a menu that sounded interesting, so I made a reservation and crossed my fingers.
Within moments of sitting down and being served complimentary fresh bread with butter that had been whipped with all sorts of herbs and some kind of magic that made it insanely delicious, I knew I’d made the right choice by coming here.
The BF and I ended up ordering half the menu, because everything sounded so delicious, we couldn’t narrow it down (and also because, we have very little self control). The charcuterie was fabulous. A trout appetizer had a delicious taste and texture. My pork chop entrée was a home run. The dessert of strawberry shortcake was, unquestionably, the best I’ve ever tasted. And every single dish was beautifully presented.
Our waiter told us that most all of the items on the menu are grown or sourced locally, which made us appreciate everything we were eating even more. It’s kind of staggering to think about the bounty of delicious meats and produce that are available in a radius of less than fifty miles.
We ate on a Friday night, and every table around us was full, so it seems like reservations are a very good idea.

Wow… so many things wrong with our experience. We decided to go out for our anniversary to this restaurant because it had great reviews, and the menu looked innovative, fresh and local. We arrived at 5:05 on Saturday without reservations because… well…it’s 5pm and we were going to be gone by the time most guests are arriving. We were told that the reservations were full and we needed to sit on the patio. Mind you, there was 1 couple sitting in the restaurant, and by the time we left at 6:10, the majority of the restaurant was still empty. They obviously book the restaurant w/​out factoring in turnover. But hey, let’s put the pregnant lady with swollen feet on the patio (that looks like it belongs to a college bar), in 85 degree weather.
Our server was polite, knowledgable, and helpful. That was the one redeeming quality of our experience. She gets the star above. We ordered potato and greens soup and the shiitake appetizer to start. My shiitake was good, but a bit salty. The soup was a bland purée, and would have been a better light sauce for the pasta entrée. We then ordered the trout and the pork chop. I was told that the pork chop comes medium, but could be cooked to order. I said that was fine. Both of our entrees came out looking the exact same, both in a pool of oily broth. My pork chop looked more like swordfish, thin poor cut, ¹⁄₅^th of it was fat, and was cooked well done (very chewy). The «cornbread» it came atop was charred on the grill but had soaked up a bunch of the broth, so it was hard and burnt on the outside and mushy on the inside. The pork chop, greens, and cornbread all just tasted like the oily, salty broth they were drowning in. My husband’s trout was cooked perfectly, but again, it and the greens just tasted like oily, salty broth. I told the server I wasn’t happy, and picked the only item on the menu that looked too easy to screw up; pasta w/​pork sausage and greens. It came out, you guessed it, in a pool of oily, salty broth. The pasta and sausage were both overdone. I was so hungry at this point I ate it anyway. When the server asked how it was, I replied «well, it’s better than the pork chop», because it was the only positive thing I could think to say. The chef took fresh and local items and droned them so that you could no longer taste the delicious flavours. We never saw a manager, and paid for the meal since we were so hungry we ate it. If I had seen a manager, I would have told them how disappointed we were.
For those of you who read this and say, «but the pictures on here look so good»! Yes they do… but they look nothing like any of the food that we saw.

Was lucky enough to be at Knife and Fork last night for a Blind Pig event. I had an amazing experience. The restaurant itself has a great atmosphere with an awesome outdoor courtyard. The food was superb and created by many different chefs. I can not wait to go back as soon as possible and try the actually Knife and Fork Menu!

Very creative fresh menu. Service and atmosphere are great! Cozy and cute inside. I believe the menu changes seasonally but each time we have been we always find yummy options to try. I had the winter squash soup and it was delicious. I also had the fried chicken sandwich which was huge. I traded out the crispy potatoes for a mixed salad item. Both were excellent. If you are a foodie you will really enjoy this place.

Would have given this place 5 stars but it took a very long time to get our food. I had an amazing fried chicken sandwich and my husband got the panko trout sandwich which he said was phenomenal. The food was soo good, we would go back if we had more time here. We would definitely recommend this place for lunch!
They change the menu every day and I was told that the chef makes the menu based on what is locally available.

Another month of great meals at Knife and Fork. The food keeps getting better (and it was fantastic to start). The restaurant keeps getting busier — make a reservation! If this isn’t the best restaurant in North Carolina, I will eat my hat (as long as Chef Allen cooks it first).

My family is from Spruce Pine, and the «nicest» restaurant the town has had to offer until recent years has been the Western Sizzlin. I’d passed Knife & Fork many times with no notice. It was only when I heard an employee at Linville Falls Winery boast of the acclaimed chef that I was enticed to see what it was about.
It is not uncommon to have mom and pop country cooking joints pop up and close as quickly as they opened in the area, so I had small expectations.
I took my mom and my husband there on a Wednesday night for dinner. I was greeted and asked if I had a reservation, at which point I almost laughed in the man’s face. Reservations? In Spruce Pine?
We were sat at a table draped in a clean white table cloth with a small vase of country wild flowers in the center. The restaurant is very clean, reminds of a décor Gordan Ramsey would use, lots of clean lines, simple yet refined.
They also have a beautiful and welcoming outside garden patio for outdoor dining when the weather permits.
They staff was extremely polite, and every single person who came to our table boasted an energetic passion for the food they would be serving.
One thing I like was that they served an empty wine bottle filled with water at your table. I drink a lot of water and find myself constantly waiting for my servers to refill my drink, so this was very convenient and elegant at the same time.
The menu was small but seasonal. I am currently a Pescatarian, but will still eat bacon (bacon isn’t meat, it’s candy). My menu options were some what limited. A lot of poultry, beef, lamb, veal, rabbit… they did have 2 seafood dishes, though. They didn’t really have names of dishes on the menu, they just list the ingredients. I chose a dish with shrimp, bacon, fennel, tomatoes, and some other vegetable I’d never heard of. My mother chose the same. My husband went with a Lamb Sausage dish, I believe. Surprising, because he doesn’t usually eat heavier meat either, but glad he was feeling adventurous.
We were served a complimentary baguette of bread and butter. We were told the butter was house made from fresh goats milk with RENDERED PORK FAT, sunflower or safflower (I forget) oil, some herbs and other stuff I can’t remember. HOLY COW I WANT A GALLON OF THIS STUFF. If I could have this at home I would smear it on everything! It was rich, creamy, sweet, salty, melted in my mouth!
Once the entrees arrived my dish was not what I was expecting. It looked like a deconstructed soup, for lack of a better term. The ingredients were delicious and fresh, it was definitely different. My mom, being a beans and potatoes kind of woman, was not impressed. My husband, however, was blown away by his dish. He said it was so amazing he had difficulty finding the words to describe it.
We were also offered dessert, but by that time I was already tallying up what would turn into a $ 60 check for 3 dinners (In Spruce Pine), and decided to pass on behalf of my wallet.
All in all, I did enjoy this restaurant. It is very upscale for Spruce Pine. I really do appreciate what they are doing with quality and freshness, the dish I had just wasn’t worth the $ 18 (x 2) price tag. Spruce Pine is trying to build a larger tourist market, so I can see where this restaurant will fit in with the growing tourism. I checked their menu today (it changes frequently), and there are a few dishes added now that seem like I would enjoy a great deal more than the one I had. It comes down to personal preference for me, I think.
I definitely recommend this restaurant if you want to splurge on a nice dinner. Make reservations. When I drove by there during the weekend they were packed non-​stop.
The restaurant is upscale but not too fancy. I would not feel comfortable in jeans and a T-​Shirt, though.