Local Limelight: Chef Brandon Sharp of Hawthorne & Wood
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Before moving back to Chapel Hill in 2016, Brandon Sharp held a Michelin star for seven straight years as the executive chef at Solbar in Calistoga, Calif., and has cooked in kitchens across the world.
- And yet Sharp — who runs the trio of Chapel Hill restaurants, Hawthorne & Wood, Bluebird and Proximo — says he is a little hesitant about the arrival of the vaunted dining guide.
What they're saying: "People have very different feelings about the Michelin Guide," Sharp told Axios. "And I was very relieved when I got here that there wasn't the pressure of a Michelin Guide, having held a star for seven straight years and felt that mounting pressure every year."
- So I'm a little distressed that the Michelin Guide is coming," he added. "I think that it will bring some awareness. But I don't know how much the Michelin guide itself will resonate with the residents here."
We talked with Sharp for our latest Local Limelight conversation. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
📱 First thing you read in the morning: Shift reports from the night before, which can have anything from daily sales numbers to guest feedback in them.
Why did you come back to the Triangle: This is sort of my third act in Chapel Hill. I grew up in Greensboro, but my grandparents lived in Chapel Hill, and I grew up visiting.
- Then I came to UNC as an undergraduate, graduating in '97 with a degree in philosophy.
- After my grandparents passed away, it was very odd not to have any Sharp family in Chapel Hill, because Chapel Hill always felt like the family's spiritual home. So Elizabeth (my wife) and I decided that we wanted to move to North Carolina, and really the only place we wanted to be was Chapel Hill.
🍣 Favorite place to eat in the Triangle: The two I always go to are M Sushi and Pizzeria Mercato.
📖 Last great book you read: "Prophet Song" by Paul Lynch, though I wish I had not read it. It's piercing and dark.
- A more enjoyable one would be Patrick Leigh Fermor's travel novel "A Time of Gifts."
🧑🍳 What do you think the Triangle is missing: I wish it had a deeper professional community of restaurant workers. I mean, restaurant workers are kind of always transient, ... and you know people come for professional schools and all sorts of things like that. But I just wish there was a kind of broader and deeper tradition of cooks here, like New Orleans, Charleston and now Nashville.
✏️ How you unplug after leaving the restaurants: We've started leaving a crossword, whether it's the New Yorker or the New York Times Magazine out on the counter with a couple of sharp pencils next to it.
- And so any family member — because now my kids are 17, 15, and 12 — can sit down with a cup of tea, cold beer, or whatever, and just turn off and work on the crossword.
🏔️ Favorite long weekend spot: Foscoe, near Boone. That's been the family retreat for five decades.
🏈 Whether there was a Belichick bump for Chapel Hill businesses: There was absolutely a Belichick bump. Three-day weekends can be hit or miss, but there was a bump.
- I have to protect the privacy of our guests, of course, but we had some big names at Hawthorne & Wood.
🗳️ What's it like being married to a town council member, Chapel Hill's Elizabeth Sharp: Neither of us comes from a political family, and I am relieved and encouraged by the fact that there seems to be transparency and the ability to affect change through town government, even though it happens slowly.
- I don't think there's a smoke-filled room or an old boys' club deciding things before the meeting. The town council is truly the fulcrum for policy.