A Guide to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Area
Welcome to Raleigh and the Research Triangle, which consists of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, as well as Cary, Carrboro, and Hillsborough. You are in a metropolitan area of well over a million people, but it is sorted into a number of communities rather than clustered around an urban core. Raleigh is the largest of these communities (about 350,000 people) followed by Durham (250,000), Cary (110,000), and Chapel Hill (50,000).
You are two hours from the Atlantic Ocean, if you go east on I-40 to Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach. You are three hours from Asheville and the Blue Ridge Mountains, if you go west on I-40. You are 5 hours south of Washington, DC on I-85/I-95, 5 hours north of Charleston, SC on I-40/I-95, and on I-40/I-85, 3 hours east of Charlotte, NC and 8 hours east of Atlanta, GA.
The focus of the Triangle is the three major universities – NC State University in Raleigh, Duke University in Durham, and UNC-Chapel Hill, in (of course) Chapel Hill. Each is worth a visit. The RDU Airport puts you right in the middle of the Triangle, and I-40 takes you to Chapel Hill (westward) and Raleigh (eastward). I-40 westward to US 147 takes you to Durham.
The Research Triangle Park is also worth noticing as you drive past on I-40 or US 147. It is home to the US headquarters of GlaxoSmithKline and Lenovo, as well as a big IBM facility. To your right as you approach Raleigh on I-40 is the world headquarters of SAS, another computer software development company.
Raleigh is the capital city of NC, where you will find the state government complex downtown, and also a number of state cultural institutions, including the historic capitol building downtown, near the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History, and the NC Museum of Art on Ridge Road on the westward side of the city. Raleigh has a city museum downtown on Fayetteville Street.
Durham is a historic tobacco city, also home of the Durham Bulls baseball team (of Bull Durham fame). They play in a shiny new park and are a AAA team now but when the movie was filmed (in Durham), they were an A team and played in an old ball park that is still there, on the other side of downtown Durham. Duke has a gothic revival campus and a new art museum, the Nasher Museum, well worth a visit.
Chapel Hill is smaller, and pretty much taken up by the university, which has a planetarium and a strong art museum. UNC claims to be the oldest public university in the USA, though others dispute that claim.
The Triangle also has other towns, especially Cary, just west of Raleigh, Carrboro, just west of Chapel Hill, and the historic town of Hillsborough, just north of Chapel Hill. There are other institutions of higher education – NC Central University in Durham and Shaw University and Meredith, Peace, and St. Augustine’s Colleges in Raleigh.
Guide to the Triangle – Look for a copy of the Independent, the local weekly arts and culture newspaper, available at restaurants and in boxes on the street. One should be available for you in your hotel. Or, you can prepare for your visit in advance by checking their website. The major local newspaper is the Raleigh News & Observer.
Dining
Here, you are in the world of Southern cooking – in both traditional and gourmet/nouvelle versions. But there are many restaurants that do a wide range of cuisines exceptionally well. Listed below are some good choices in all these areas. Most have websites with menus so you can get a sense of what they are like.
People who have heard of this area usually have heard of fried chicken, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and of course barbeque (or BBQ). A word about BBQ – you are in a part of NC (eastern NC) known for its distinctive BBQ, usually pork BBQ, chopped, with a vinegar-based sauce. To the west of us, near Greensboro, the style changes to Lexington-style BBQ, which is also pork but it has a tomato-based sauce. You have to go to Texas for beef barbeque.
There are loads of BBQ restaurants and traditional Southern restaurants in the area. The best of these restaurants are:
Raleigh
Clyde Cooper’s BBQ – downtown Raleigh at 109 E Davie St
Big Ed's City
Market Restaurant – at 220
Wolfe St in City Market
Durham
Bullock's
Barbecue – 3330 Quebec Dr, Durham
Chapel Hill
Mama Dip’s – 408 West Rosemary St, Chapel Hill (real Southern cooking)
For really good food and memorable dining in downtown Raleigh (these three are at the top of our list):
Enoteca Vin – 410 Glenwood Ave (award-winning wine bar with great locally grown food, fantastic!)
Zely & Ritz – 301 Glenwood Ave (another award-winning wine list, organic, locally grown food, wonderful!)
Riviera – 135 S Wilmington St (great! Italian/Mediterranean, opened this year)
Also very good:
Bistro 607 – 607 Glenwood Ave (French bistro food)
Humble Pie – 317 S Harrington St (tapas, in Warehouse District)
Duck & Dumpling – 222 S Blount St (Chinese/Asian, on Moore Square)
Bar food:
Raleigh Times – 14 E Hargett St (great bar, good food, downtown)
Near the Hilton North Raleigh:
Vivace – 4219 Lassiter Mill Rd (Italian)
Mura – in the North Hills Shopping Center (Japanese)
Tartines
Bistro – 1110 Navaho Dr (French Provincial)
Near the Airport:
Saffron – 4121 Davis Dr, Morrisville (Indian, excellent!)
Angus Barn – 9401 Glenwood Ave (supposed to have a great wine list, mostly beef, near the airport on US 70 – their chef won on Iron Chef)
Durham:
Magnolia Grill – 1002 Ninth St (splendid nouvelle Southern, James Beard award winning chef, regarded by many as the best restaurant in the Triangle)
Nana’s – 2514 University Dr (Southern/French/Italian influences, superb!)
Chapel Hill/Carrboro
Bonne Soiree – 421 W Franklin St (French – regarded by many, along with Magnolia Grill, as the best restaurant in the Triangle)
Elaine’s on Franklin – 454 W Franklin St (refined Southern cooking)
The Lantern – 423 W Franklin St (Asian fusion, uses local ingredients)
Crook’s Corner – 610 W Franklin St (nouvelle Southern, home of Bill Neal, who may have started nouvelle Southern cooking)
Acme – 110 E Main St, Carrboro (more fine nouvelle Southern cuisine)
Attractions
Nightlife in Raleigh:
Yancy’s on Fayetteville St (a jazz and blues club with a restaurant)
Sports in Durham:
Durham Bulls, of Bull Durham fame, and, yes, you can see the bull that snorts when a Bulls player hits a home run, at the DBAP, or Durham Bulls Athletic Park
Museums and Parks
West Raleigh:
NC Art Museum – 2110 Blue Ridge Rd, on the way into Raleigh from the airport. (a major collection of fine art; they are building a new building now but the museum is very much open and well worth a visit)
Umstead State Park (a large green woody state park in the heart of the Triangle)
Raleigh Downtown:
NC Museum of Natural Sciences – 11 W Jones St (a fine nature museum, big dinosaur skeleton, also the dinosaur fossils from which they were able to extract dinosaur DNA recently)
NC Museum of History – 5 E Edenton St (exhibits focus on the history of North Carolina)
Exploris – 201 E Hargett St (a museum of international cultures, also has an I-Max Theater)
Raleigh City Museum – 22 Fayetteville St (focus on the history of Raleigh)
Durham:
Museum of Life and Science – 233 Murray Ave (eclectic museum in north suburban Durham with nature trails, airplanes, scientific exhibits, and a great butterfly exhibit)
Nasher Museum of Art– 2001 Campus Dr (new fine arts museum on Duke campus)
West Point on the Eno River – A 388-acre natural and historic park located along a two-mile stretch of the scenic Eno River, six miles north of downtown Durham (a green and watery oasis in the midst of growing urbanity)
Chapel Hill:
Morehead Planetarium and Science Center – 250 E Franklin St (historic planetarium, astronauts trained here)
Ackland Art Museum – S Columbia St (museum of the University of NC, a very nice teaching collection of fine art)
Enjoy!