A celebrity chef returns to Downtown Raleigh with a fiery new restaurant

Celebrity chef Katsuji Tanabe, who blew into Raleigh in 2019 with High Horse, one of the city’s most daring restaurants of that year, returns to downtown with a new restaurant playing with fire and fresh pasta.

Tanabe opened High Horse in late 2019 in the middle of Raleigh’s City Market, with an elevated kitchen acting as a stage and flames from a wood-burning grill visible throughout the dining room. Art included a giant pastoral painting with a Barbie doll and horse glued on. Outside, diners could hurl their empty ice shot glasses at a brass bell, sending a ding into the night.

Then the pandemic set in, and High Horse was closed for good, just a few months after opening.

Tanabe’s new restaurant, Flour & Barrel, is situated near the bustle of Glenwood South in the former Little City Brewing space, which closed in 2023. Tanabe will serve as executive chef, partnering with V Pizza co-owner Anthony Rapillo.

Rapillo said he envisioned Flour & Barrel as a small plates pasta bar and will let Tanabe do the rest.

“The menu is 100 percent Katsuji,” Rapillo said. “We’re doing Italian small plates, all fresh-made pasta and freshly made bread. Other than the pot of water to boil the pasta, everything is cooked inside or finished in a live fire oven.”

Flour & Barrel takes its name from a couple of the restaurant’s building blocks: the flour that’s the foundation of pasta and the barrel that’s aging beer and cocktails.

The restaurant doesn’t plan to put its beer program front and center, but Rapillo said the space retains the brewing equipment from Little City and plans to create a few of its own drafts.

The dining room is made for nights, keeping the lights dim and the music loud, Rapillo said. Most of the tables are cobbled together from thrift stores, building a collective character.

“It’s a fun restaurant that doesn’t go over the top,” Rapillo said. “It’s very, very inviting, but you don’t feel like you have to whisper.”

Flour & Barrel menu

The menu is small, just more than a dozen dishes, meant to be sampled and shared by a group. You might find a pasta finished with a carbonara sauce that’s shaken up tableside, or maybe a dramatically dark squid ink pasta tossed with clams and octopus.

There’s a bone marrow dish, where once the fatty succulents are spooned out and devoured, a server will bring over a bottle of whiskey, pouring it down the bone like an ice luge into the diner’s mouth.

Parmesan cheese comes in little dime bag-sized plastic bags, Tanabe said.

Tanabe’s return to downtown Raleigh

Tanabe’s first restaurant since High Horse was A’Verde Cocina in Cary, owned by LM Restaurants, an upscale Mexican restaurant with a vast tequila selection.

With Flour & Barrel, Tanabe said he feels like he’s getting a second chance in Downtown Raleigh.

“I loved being downtown,” Tanabe said. “This is a more vibrant part of Raleigh that feels more alive.”

Tanabe said he doesn’t see Flour & Barrel as gimmicky, but that there is an element of theater.

Tanabe calls it “fun dining,” a foil to the “fine dining” expectations one might have for a chef of his background. Tanabe rose to fame through the Bravo TV cooking competition “Top Chef,” appearing in three seasons and becoming a fan favorite with bold dishes and a sometimes brash personality.

“I don’t take myself too seriously; I do take food very seriously,” Tanabe said. “It’s fun dining. I’m one of the first who brought fun dining to Raleigh. The number one compliment I get is people say ‘I don’t feel like I’m in Raleigh.’ When you’re here I want to take you somewhere else.”

Flour & Barrel has been doing a series of weekly sneak peek services, but is projected to open this month to the public.

To keep track of their progress, visit flourandbarrel.com.

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