Charlotte’s Essential 18 reflects the city’s wide range of cuisines, budgets, and levels of fancy. This year, a hyperlocal menu switch-up, a taco truck, and an unpretentious pizza joint are all actively remedying the city’s culinary stagnation.

Warning: relative newcomers on the scene have swept some archetypal Charlotte standbys aside. We still love them, but change is good. Fresh faces are good, and a remembrance of longtime underdogs is good, too.

It’s 2024, and restaurants don’t exist in a vacuum — they are integral parts of the cultural fabric of this city and can’t be separated from social, cultural, and environmental issues. That’s why each one of these spots lives on the list. They show off Charlotte’s pockets of diversity that stretch across town, they spotlight new voices unafraid to break the mold, or they flex the rich Piedmont produce that has the potential to put Charlotte on a national map. Sometimes, they do it all…

 

Customshop is a cornerstone of Charlotte’s food scene; the obvious answer for when someone asks how to impress their out-of-town friends or their new crush with good taste. Coming from Miami, chef Andres Kaifer revamped Elizabeth’s Customshop into a handsome, lively place to be. What’s cool about Customshop is that it transcends being a spot with singularly good seafood or a singularly good cut of meat. Each item on the menu — from the crudo trio to the duck breast painted with miso and blackberry — could be considered the restaurant’s claim to fame. The whole menu is full of smart but simple offerings. The marble bar stuns, and the cocktails, like a chili salt espresso martini and a mezcal and beet sour, match up to the food.

 

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