Prominent Triangle chefs and leaders share their best meals of 2026

🐓 Sunny Gerhart, chef and owner of St. Roch: The Bengali wedding chicken at Peregrine. Some of the most interesting food I've had in a long time. So much flavor, such a great story to tell with each dish.

🍽️ Christopher Prieto, owner of Prime Barbecue: The Amaretto Chicken at Hayes Barton Cafe. The perfectly cooked pan seared chicken with a creamy amaretto sauce and fresh peaches made my soul sing!

🦪 Tift Merritt, musician and owner of The Gables: Oysters at Les Halles in Biarritz. You can get any shellfish you dream just pulled from the sea and eat it right there on a tin tray, A half dozen oysters are 6 Euro.

🇪🇹 Paul Siler, co-owner of Ajja and Big Cat: About once a month, we love getting Ethiopian food. We wanted to try a new spot for us, Awaze in Cary. I called in our order and realized they were about to close. Since the drive is about 20 minutes I told them not to worry and that we'd try again next time. The woman, who I'm sure was also making the food, told me to please come anyway.

I arrived and it was clear that I was the only order that they'd had in the last 30 minutes or so. Again, I was apologetic, but she made me feel completely fine about keeping them there later than necessary. Upon arriving home … everything was so fresh and obviously made with love that it defined why hospitality is so important to all of us. It was such a memorable experience, made extra special by the fact that it could very easily have never happened.

🍑 Todd Olson, CEO of Pendo: The peach gaspacho at Figulina that had some poached shrimp in it. Absolutely delicious.

🦀 Coleen Speaks, chef and owner of Hummingbird: Steamed North Carolina blue crabs at the height of their season. There's nothing fancy about it: newspaper spread across the table, a pot of melted butter, and little piles of Old Bay for dipping the sweet, warm crab meat. You have to work for every bite — cracking claws, picking through shells — and that effort is part of the magic.

🥘 Lee Lilley, North Carolina's Commerce Secretary: Most memorable meal was in May at Stanbury. Date night with my wife. We ate at the bar. They had a softshell crab in a coconut curry with sugar snap peas. The crab was gently fried and the curry was perfect beside it. They're always blending traditional North Carolina staples, like seasonal softshell crab, with inventive cooking in different traditions.

🇵🇭 David Ellis, chef and owner of Figulina: Earlier this year I managed to steal a couple of days away in Asheville and finally made it to Neng Jr.'s. Chef Silver's adobo oysters were insane. Briny, rich, acidic, and some of my favorite flavors all in one bite.

🥪 Marshall Davis, co-owner of Mala Pata, Big Cat, Ex Voto, Patty Boy and Peyote: For me it was "The Best One" at The Black Pig in London's Borough Market — their signature toastie with 12-hour, slow-roasted, free-range Blythburgh pork shoulder. … My favorite bites are almost always street food, and since I travel with a crew these days, we get a bunch of things and share. It's the perfect way to get a feel for a place.

🇹🇭 Cheetie Kumar, c0-owner of Ajja and Big Cat: We just returned from a bucket list trip to Bangkok. The dish I keep thinking about is one of the first bites we had. We arrived late in the afternoon and immediately set out to find a spot on the river for sunset and we found Jack's Bar, an old, open-air, cash-only spot right on the Chao Phraya River. The vibe is Myrtle Beach meets, well, Southeast Asia…. A friend texted right when we sat down and said "get the egg salad." Well, this was a punchy, spicy julienned green mango salad layered with coriander, lime juice, fish sauce, Birdseye chiles, peanuts and lemongrass.

But the egg was the most memorable part: a deep fried whole egg that was so fluffy, it could be mistaken for fish. Something about the textures in that salad stayed with me the whole trip and I find myself thinking about it more than almost everything else we had on a trip packed with delicious food! 

🇪🇸 Angela Salamanca, co-owner of Mala Pata, Big Cat, Ex Voto, Patty Boy, Peyote and Centro: My best bite of the year so far was at Pulpería Rial in Padrón, Spain. This one came after an 11-mile walk on day four of the Camino. It was packed with pilgrims, everyone in a celebratory mood. … We were a group of six and ordered nearly everything on the menu, but the pulpo shined: tender boiled octopus cut into medallions, served on an aged wooden board, drizzled with olive oil, salt, and pimentón. Simple, fatty, and so satisfying.

🇵🇪 Bhavin Chhatwani, chef at Tamasha: The most memorable food experience was a Pachamanca I experienced during my travels through Peru. Pachamanca is an ancient Peruvian tradition in which meats, vegetables, and Andean crops are cooked slowly underground over stones heated in a wood fire. The process itself is as meaningful as the food.

For our Pachamanca, we cooked cuy (guinea pig), lamb, pork, and chicken alongside Andean potatoes, sweet potatoes, yuca, corn, and green fava beans. When the earth was finally opened and the food revealed, there was something incredibly primal and communal about the experience. You're not simply eating a dish — you've participated in a centuries-old way of cooking and gathering.

🌽 Paul Gagne, chef at Fearrington House Restaurant: The most memorable meal I have had in the past year was for a birthday celebration for my sous chef. We went to Mala Pata in Raleigh. What I remember most fondly of my experience wasn't one particular dish, it was more the many and varied uses of their heritage masa. Every item featured different heritage masa that they nixtamalize and grind in house. Their food inspired me to look into masa and heritage corn much more deeply and I have been on a journey of discovery with Masa and Hominy since.

Editor's note: These responses have been edited for length and clarity.