Tupelo Honey started in downtown Asheville in 2000, one of the first scratch-made, farm-to-table kitchens in a mountain town that later became known for exactly that. The Greenville restaurant carries that Blue Ridge heritage down to the top of Main Street, cooking Southern and Appalachian dishes from scratch with ingredients that change with the season.
It runs all day, from weekday lunch through weekend brunch to dinner every evening, with a full bar of hand-crafted cocktails, wine, and local craft beer plus a weekday happy hour. The honey-dusted fried chicken is what most people say they come back for, with reviewers singling out a crust that stays crisp. The buttermilk biscuits, baked with White Lily flour and served with blueberry jam, run a close second, and the shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, and fried green tomatoes come up again and again.
The restaurant sits in ONE City Plaza with its front door on the fountain, an open kitchen, and a main dining room that gets lively while the bar side stays calmer. It makes an easy weekend brunch downtown, and it is the kind of place out-of-town visitors put back on their list every time they are in Greenville.