Get an inside look at the evolution of Counter-, Charlotte’s most creative restaurant
When you walk in the door at Counter-, you’ll want to do so with an open mind and an adventurous palate.
Staff members decked out in earpieces and pristine white sneakers will take the lead, navigating your way to your table around floor-to-ceiling black drapery marking off sections of the restaurant.
It’s not an experience you’ll find anywhere else in Charlotte. But it’s not fussy, and it’s not stuffy.
Instead, you’ll find a place dedicated to pushing the limits of the culinary craft. It’s a place where the staff reduces 100 watermelons into 1 gallon of juice and spends months blackening apples. A place where every detail of the experience is carefully arranged, with the perfect selected stemware at the ready for each sip and rotating, hand-picked utensils perched on a spoon rest for each bite.
As you take your seat, ground yourself for the culinary experience you’re about to undertake.
You see, it’s not the kind of high-end restaurant where you sit down and order from a menu of steak or seafood. At Counter-, you make reservations for themes — each offering a tasting menu that tells a story, paired with music meant to evoke your senses. You might find a nod to a familiar dish, but it will be entirely reinvented in a way you hadn’t envisioned. Expect to pay $250 per person for dinner — or $150 per person at lunch — prices built to pay staff competitively and provide benefits without tips.
Nothing is static at Counter-, a brainchild of chef Sam Hart built on the idea of stretching creativity and changing over time. As you can taste a different theme each time you visit the seventh-generation Charlottean’s creation, you’ll find that the restaurant itself has evolved in the few years that it’s been open, too.
Counter- opened in 2020 on Thrift Road, then moved to a new space on West Morehead Street in 2022. It shared space in the new building with wine bar Biblio, an innovative concept where you selected wine, then matched food to it — instead of the other way around. But Biblio closed in late 2023, making way for Counter- to further spread its wings. We’re at Counter- 3.0 now and counting.
When the team from CharlotteFive visited, we were invited for a special edition of Counter-’s RMS Titanic menu, arranged by Visit Jacksonville, that seamlessly incorporated seasonings and flavors from growers and purveyors in Jacksonville, Florida.
What to expect at Counter-
Sommerlier Jaime Alicea starts off the evening with your selection of beverage pairing, whether that be the spirit free option or a global wine pairing carefully matched to each course. Upgrades to higher-end “absurd” and “insanity” pairings are also available.
Soon after the first drinks are poured, Hart, a finalist for the James Beard Award’s Best Chef Southeast distinction, arrives at your table to start off the meal with hors de’oeuvres.
“Most of the fruits and vegetables you see tonight come from within a three-hour drive of this restaurant,” Hart announced, before starting off his Titanic tales.
Throughout the night, Hart, Alicea and the chefs visiting your table intertwine stories of how the food and drinks placed before you fit into the story being told — but we’ll let you find out those fine details for yourself so as not to spoil the surprise for those awaiting a reservation.
[KEEP READING: Every Charlotte area chef, restaurant ever nominated for a James Beard Award.]
The food and drink
Each course is plated in a vessel tailored to that particular dish, although it’s possible that no two visits will be exactly alike. Gorgeous glimpses of the RMS Titanic theme’s menu via Instagram appear to vary from our experience as one particular dish was plated, the other nestled in a toureen. Accouterments and accents also may slightly fluctuate.
In the pause between courses, you’ll soak in the music. More than once, the diners in our party shifted conversation to the instrumental music filling the room, wondering aloud if they were hearing songs from the soundtrack of “Bridgerton,” another historical reference made modern.
As you hear the descriptions and taste each course, you’ll notice that no bite is ordinary. In the salmon with mousseline course, dill is used not once or twice but four ways. In the soused halibut course, a variety of summer melons are infused with a medley of flavors, topped in watermelon and lime foam and paired with the accompanying grilled halibut, lacquered in watermelon molasses. Hart and their team have even entirely reinvented Chicken a la Maryland — a dish originally built from a pairing of chicken with gravy and bananas (yes, that’s somehow correct).
While most of my dinner companions left a bit on their plates here and there, I ate every single bite placed in front of me and scraped up every drop of sauce. I even sneaked in an additional fork full of the bread course’s house-made butter, topped with saffron threads and flaky sea salt.
I also drank every drop of the perfectly matched global wine pairing, leading to the kind of morning the next day where those of us who don’t bounce back quite as quickly as we did in our youth might want to start off with a Gatorade Zero and a dose of Advil. (I have no regrets.)
On your way out or before, you’ll want to visit the restroom, if for no other reason than to marvel at how well stocked it is — hospitality at its finest. In fact, the facilities even got a recent shoutout in the Charlotte Foodies Facebook group. The basket of individually folded hand towels shows off Counter-’s dedication to sustainability, while a well-stocked cart holds everything you could possibly need — and more. A Tide pen, eyeglass wipes, hair ties and Q-tips are at the ready, along with pads, tampons, mints and hairspray.
Counter-
Location: 2001 W Morehead St., Suite D, Charlotte, NC 28208
Cuisine: Tasting menu
Instagram: @counterclt
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