Tupelo Honey Cafe

Description:

• No other restaurant in Asheville so effectively captures the imagination of both the down-home breakfast crowd and, on Friday and Saturday nights, the very-late-night supper crowd. Behind a storefront in downtown Asheville, it's a place where Sunday-morning breakfast crowds line up and wait (in some cases, for up to an hour) for an available table. Students at the nearby university also drag their parents here for a sense of how much Asheville really does respect old-fashioned Southern virtues and cooking. Breakfast is served throughout the day, with such dishes as grit cakes stuffed with cheddar cheese and served with green tomato salsa; sweet-potato pancakes; many kinds of omelets; and crab cakes topped with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. Lunches and dinners focus on updated Southern favorites such as shrimp and goat cheese grits, Cajun-seared catfish, and Tupelo burgers. In honor of Elvis, you can order a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich, prepared with either honey or (if you're a hard-core Southerner) mayonnaise.

• © Frommer's 2012