Asheville City Guide

It's no secret that Asheville is one of my very favorite cities. Between day trips and long weekends, we try to visit this gorgeous city as often as we can -- usually a few times a year. With every visit I blog about I receive lots of messages asking about recommendations! So I thought I would create a city guide with all of our favorite places to stay, eat and play. You'll notice that I don't have a ton of recommendations for each category and that's because we love to go back to the same places over and over and over again!

-- EAT --

BREAKFAST

Early Girl Eatery: Serves a wide variety of delicious southern dishes with made from scratch ingredients that are locally sourced. This restaurant has been featured in so many places -- Southern Living, Bon Appetit, National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times and more. This is my second favorite place to eat breakfast. It used to be my favorite...until they discontinued the Early Girl Benny menu item.

Tip: The wait is always very long. Grab a cup of their complimentary coffee after you put your name on the list and walk around downtown to check out all the street musicians and shops while you wait.

Corner Kitchen: My favorite breakfast bistro located in Biltmore Village. The cream cheese scrambled eggs with fresh herbs and chives are unreal. And you can't leave without enjoying a side of goat cheese grits.

Over Easy Café: An adorable café in downtown with delicious breakfast options.

LUNCH

Buxton Hall Barbeque: An Eastern-style BBQ joint that roasts a whole hog for 18 hours every day. This restaurant has been featured in Huffington Post, Garden & Gun, Bon Appetit, Martha Stewart and more. The buttermilk fried chicken sandwich with pimento cheese has won many awards.

White Duck Taco Shop: With more than a dozen taco choices to pick from, this restaurant serves creative and delicious a la carte tacos that you order from a counter and eat at a picnic table. Make sure to order the Bangkok Shrimp taco.

DINNER

The Admiral: One of my favorites! The Admiral is a cozy restaurant with less than 10 tables (books up fast) that has hundreds of outstanding reviews. However, when you first arrive you may think you're at the wrong place. The cinderblock exterior of the restaurant screams "dive bar" for sure and is located between a junk yard and gas station. Despite the appearance of the outside, The Admiral is definitely every bit of 5 stars and serves up the best seared scallops, rib eye, beef tare tare and more.

Cúrate: A Spanish tapas restaurant by James Beard finalist, Chef Katie Button. The ambiance is incredible and the food totally lives up to all the hype.

Nightbell: Another amazing restaurant by Chef Katie Button. This lounge is described as "a sophisticated contemporary nightclub designed in the spirit of the speakeasy," and is perfect for the cocktail enthusiast (think blow-torched rosemary, infused vodkas, berry ice, lavender foam, etc.). This is an especially perfect dinner spot for the girls (we went during a bachelorette party and it was amazing) or a perfect stop for a nightcap.

Rhubarb: Award winning chef John Fleer's downtown Asheville restaurant serving contemporary American cuisine including wood-fired dishes, plates made for sharing, house-baked breads, and other rustic creations. The menu is crafted daily, but check to see if the goat cheese burrata is available because it is out of this world!

Tupelo Honey: A destination for scratch-made Southern food in Asheville. Also a delicious breakfast or lunch spot!

Other spots on our short list that I've been dying to try but haven't: Rezaz, Posana and Limones

BREWERIES & COCKTAILS

COCKTAILS

Sovereign Remedies: The best spot for farm to table cuisine, fancy cocktails and late night food.

Nightbell: Another amazing restaurant by James Beard finalist, Chef Katie Button. This lounge is described as "a sophisticated contemporary nightclub designed in the spirit of the speakeasy," and is perfect for the cocktail enthusiast (think blow-torched rosemary, infused vodkas, berry ice, lavender foam, etc.). This is the perfect dinner spot for the girls (we went during a bachelorette party and it was amazing) or a perfect stop for a nightcap.

Capella on 9: Located on top of the AC Hotel, this trendy rooftop bar features gorgeous mountain views, delicious cocktails and lots of comfortable lounging areas.

Sunset Cocktail Terrace: My favorite place to sip a cocktail and watch the sun set.

BREWERIES

Burial: Last year this Burial was named the best craft brewery in Asheville. The outdoor space is pretty cool and they have live music.

New Belgium Brewery: A national brewery located along the French Broad River in the River Arts District. This place is easy to camp out at for an afternoon with brewery tours, beer tastings, lawn games and more. Oh, and the beer is cheap! This is my favorite brewery.

Green Man: A 3 story, 20,000 square ft. “brewtique” with an indoor/outdoor top floor taproom that overlooks production and the Blue Ridge Mountains! 

Highland Brewing Company: This brewery has it all -- good beer, live music, large grassy meadow and a huge patio.

Wicked Weed Brewing: This brewpub specializes in west coast style hoppy ales, open fermented belgian beers and barrel aged sours. The upstairs houses a full restaurant featuring 16 beers, a street level patio, tasting room, bottle shop, and original 15 barrel brewery. Oh, and they serve a super delicious bison burger.

-- PLAY --

River Arts District: A really cool area of town to that consists of more than 200 artists and working studios in former industrial and historical buildings spread out along a one mile stretch of the French Broad River. Plan on spending some time visiting artists working in their studios, grabbing some tacos at White Duck Taco Shop and a brew at New Belgium!

Asheville Brews Cruise: Definitely a fun way to sample several breweries! A huge yellow mustache school bus arrived to pick us up and our tour stopped at Pisgah, Highland, French Broad and HiWire breweries. All of them were fantastic and unique. At each brewery we received 4 ounce pours of 3-4 beers. This is such a fun activity for large groups too!

Blue Ridge Parkway: Take a scenic drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway with the windows down, stopping at as many overlooks as you can!

Hikes

Triple Falls: Located in DuPont Forest, this 3 mile hike features 3 gorgeous waterfalls, one of which you can stand in the middle of! Make sure to bring a picnic or prosecco to enjoy on the flat rock plateau. If you arrive early enough, you'll have the falls all to yourself.

Craggy Pinnacle Trail: Only 24 miles from downtown Asheville, this fun 1.4-mile roundtrip hiking trail goes through tunnels of rhododendron, gnarled sweet birch trees and wildflowers. At the top there are the most beautiful panoramic mountain views. This is the easiest and closest hike we do near Asheville.

-- STAY --

AC Hotel: The best place to stay in downtown. It's a trendy newer hotel that is super clean and modern, walkable to almost everything, offers easy parking and has an absolutely amazing rooftop bar.

Omni Grove Park Inn: I've stayed here twice and think the rooms are expensive and underwhelming. However, the resort is gorgeous, the restaurants are delicious and the sunset terrace is one of my favorite places ever to spend an afternoon. But what really sets this place apart is the Spa, which is consistently voted as one of the top resort spas in the...world. During my last visit I splurged on a Mountain View Massage in an outdoor pagoda overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Tip: Buy a day pass for the spa and spend some time on the Sunset Terrace, but save your pennies for a gorgeous room at The Biltmore Inn.

Grand Bohemian Hotel: One of my favorite places to stay in Asheville. I love all of the details of this hunting lodge-inspired property and the service is always top notch.

The Inn at Biltmore Estate: One of the prettiest places we've ever stayed with cozy places to sit inside. The large wrap-around porch offers unbelievable mountain views too! 

Tip: Spring for a mountainside view. It's worth it.

Other helpful tips and notes:

+ Uber is very accessible anywhere you are.
+ Book your dinner reservations WELL in advance of your trip.
+ Use my search bar to find more info or pictures on any of these places.
+ Wedding Venues: The Crest Pavilion // The Farm

Asheville Trips: 2nd Glamping Weekend (2018) // 31st Birthday Weekend (2017) // 1st Glamping Weekend (2017) // 5th Anniversary Day Trip (2016) // Wedding Weekend (2016) // Bachelorette Weekend (2016) // 4 Hour Day Date (2015) // Birthday Weekend (2014) // 2nd Anniversary Cabin Weekend // Farm Wedding (2012)

Now, I know I have readers who are huge Asheville fans as well. Please share your recommendations in the comments below!! We are always on the hunt for new things to try!

2nd Annual Asheville Glamping Weekend

Last weekend Matt and I joined our best friends, Brynn and Palmer, in Asheville for the weekend. We did this trip last year and it was so amazing that we decided to make it an annual tradition.

After coming off of a 3 day holiday weekend followed by 3 snow days, we couldn't have been happier to see Ms. Jamie bright and early on Saturday morning. Actually, the kids may have been even more excited for the change of scenery and we were ready for some adult time -- sans Doc McStuffins marathons.

A little over two hours later, we met Brynn and Palmer in Asheville at our hotel. We decided to try the AC Hotel in downtown this time and it is gorgeous, smells heavenly inside and offers the most incredible rooftop bar which we took full advantage of. We quickly checked in, dropped our bags in our rooms and ubered straight to lunch at my favorite Asheville BBQ spot, Buxton Hall Barbecue.

After lunch we walked down the street to Burial Beer Co. which was a really, really cool place for a few beers and some fun pictures in an old Ford truck. A little while later we decided to walk further down the street to Green Man Brewery for a little bit.



Afterwards we decided to head back to the hotel rooftop for cocktails at Capella on 9! This bar was absolutely gorgeous and the view was amazing. We lounged on giant couches over happy hour before heading to our rooms to get ready for dinner.

It was SO nice to have a late dinner reservation and leisurely get ready for the night out without our kids tugging on our shirts and asking for snacks. 

Once we were all ready we met B+P down in the hotel lobby for pre-dinner drinks before heading to dinner at another one of my (and Brynn's) favorite spots, The Admiral. I can't believe it had been almost 4 years since we dined here! And it was just as amazing as I remembered. Don't let the exterior fool you! I'll spare you pictures of every single thing we ate...minus the beef tartare and my scallops!

After dinner, the boys thought it would be a great idea to each take a 5 hour energy shot while Brynn and I stood by laughing and shaking our heads. Our last stop of the night  was at one of my very favorite cocktail bars, Sovereign Remedies. After a nightcap, Brynn and I headed back to the hotel to crawl into bed while the boys stayed out until...well, let's just say they didn't make it to breakfast the next morning. Before heading out of town, Brynn and I had some girl time over the most delicious breakfast at the cutest little spot next door to the hotel, Over Easy Cafe, before scooping the boys up back at the hotel and heading back home. 

It was another amazing trip to one of my favorite cities with some of my favorite people!

Asheville Birthday Weekend

We spent the weekend in Asheville celebrating my birthday! This is actually our second time celebrating my birthday in my favorite city (read about the last trip here), only this time we were sans kiddos! Early Saturday morning Ms. Jamie arrived and Matt and I were out the door 3 seconds later. 

We arrived in Asheville just in time to grab some BBQ sandwiches at Buxton Hall before checking in to our hotel.

Dress || Watch || Sunglasses

We stayed at the Grand Bohemian Hotel which is one of my favorite places to stay in Asheville. I love all of the details of this hunting lodge-inspired property and the service is always top notch.

Our room was so amazing! 

After we got settled in, we ubered to the Grove Park Inn for an afternoon of day drinking on their gorgeous terrace overlooking the Blue Ridge mountains. We arrived just in time to snag the most secluded table on the patio. It's a little grainy but Matt snapped a pretty cool picture from the top of the Inn...

 

Later, we both agreed that this was our favorite part of our trip. It was so relaxing and nice to spend quality time together over cocktails instead of our sweet but very loud toddlers. We brought books to read but ended up chatting away and forgot about them.

When we arrived back to our hotel we popped a bottle of champagne and slowly got ready for our night out. But first, dessert! The Grand Bohemian surprised us with a complimentary dessert for my birthday down at The Red Stag Grill so we stopped there on our way to dinner for a round of beers and dessert. We devoured the most amazing blackberry swirl goat cheesecake.

We ate dinner at Curate. I have been dying to try this Spanish tapas restaurant for a very long time but it is so dang hard to get a reservation. So when we booked our hotel a few months ago I immediately called and secured our reservation (yes, three months in advance)!

We arrived a few minutes early and grabbed a drink at the bar before being seated. The ambiance was incredible and our meal totally lived up to all the hype.

Everything was delicious, but Matt's favorite was the smoked pork sandwich and my favorite was the sauteed garlic shrimp! Oh, and we enjoyed a second round of dessert...because you only turn 31 once!

The next morning we slept in! On our way out of town we stopped for breakfast at our favorite restaurant, Early Girl Eatery. My favorite menu item was sadly discontinued, but to my surprise our waitress offered to put in a special request for it which made my day.

After breakfast we rushed home to squeeze our babies and spend the rest of the day with them. After naps we picked out Halloween costumes and ate dinner at Cowfish (Caroline's request), where Thomas devoured my birthday dessert. It was the best birthday weekend!

Previous Birthday Celebrations 30th Birthday Surprise Party  29th Birthday 28th Birthday Weekend in Asheville 27th Birthday

Asheville Glamping Weekend

I cashed in my Christmas present from Matt over the weekend -- an Asheville getaway with some of our best friends, Brynn and Palmer! This city is a very special place where Brynn and I have spent SO much time together camping, celebrating marriage, day trips and so much more. So you can imagine how excited we were when our husbands surprised us both on Christmas morning with a fully planned getaway to Asheville! Matt and Palmer nailed every detail from securing babysitting for the kids to selecting the most gorgeous rooms.

Saturday morning we sprinted out the door the moment Ms. Jamie arrived to watch the kids for the weekend, scooped up Brynn and Palmer and set off for Asheville. When we arrived in town we dropped our bags off at The Inn at Biltmore Estate which is one of the prettiest places we've ever stayed.

Most of our Asheville trips together have been spent in a tent, cabin or inexpensive hotels, so this was definitely our version of glamping. After dropping off our bags we ubered to lunch at White Duck Taco Shop.

The evening before our trip Brynn stopped by the house with her little man for a play date while our husbands were out watching basketball together. The kiddos had the best time running around and playing, but it was SUPER nice to finally catch up with her without interruptions every .32 seconds.

 

After filling our bellies with tacos we walked across the bridge to New Belgium Brewery to continue our day-drinking. This place was seriously the coolest Asheville brewery we've been to -- and we've been to a LOT. The brewery sits on the river and the day couldn't have been more beautiful for sitting on the patio. We accidentally stayed the entire day here and had way too much fun.

After many flights of beers and rounds of uno we decided to head back to the Inn.

Back at the Inn we enjoyed cocktails, french fries and magic tricks by Palmer on the gorgeous wrap around porch overlooking the mountains before checking out our rooms!

I was so excited to get away with Matt that I would have totally been cool with a parking lot room view. But nope, the surprises kept flowing when we entered our fifth floor room to find Matt had sprung for the mountainside view. 

Can I also say how dang nice it was to get ready for dinner without tiny people asking me for things or running away with my makeup brushes?! We took alllll the time we needed getting ready for dinner -- that alone was worth the trip! So relaxing! Meanwhile, back at home...

We love these little people so much but we also really, really, really loved missing a night of poop scooping.

 

The only thing the guys left to us to plan was our dinner reservations -- they know us so well! Brynn and I love so many Asheville restaurants but wanted to try a new place. And since we had several months notice to secure our reservations we were thrilled to get in to Rhubarb, which has literally been on our list forever. 

Rhubarb did not disappoint one bit. We started off with cocktails and appetizers and took our time before ordering our entrees. The menu changes daily, but if you ever get the chance to dine at Rhubarb you absolutely need to check to see if the goat cheese burrata is available. The only moment our table was absolutely silent was when we were devouring this incredible appetizer. So so so good.

Also, Matt didn't stop making fun of me the entire night for ordering the cauliflower steak over kale. But it was seriously SO good, surprisingly filling, and I was too curious not to try it! 

Dinner ended pretty late and we had a very long, fun day so we decided to uber back to the Inn. Brynn and I called it a night and both went to bed (yes, my dream getaway includes crawling into bed at 10:30 pm) while the boys closed down the lobby bar. And I only woke up twice throughout the night to phantom crying.

The next morning I slept in...until 7:30 am! Even though I was up with the sun I thoroughly enjoyed not changing any diapers or taking breakfast orders which would later be dumped on the floor. And I got to drink my coffee in a robe while looking at the most beautiful view!

And of course, we stopped for brunch at Early Girl Eatery before heading back home! It was a perfect weekend getaway! A huge shout out to Matt for being an all-star husband and for the most thoughtful and well-planned trip!