Founded by Jim Noble of Noble's Restaurant renown, the unassuming striped awnings and pale bricks at Rooster’s conceal an unconventional dining interior dominated by a wall of wine on one side and a wall of stuffed roosters on the other. The dinner menu offers Noble's tomato basil bisque ($7) as a soothing opener to a charcuterie sampler ($18) of chicken-liver mousse ($6), house-cured duck ($7), house-smoked salmon ($8), and other cured delicacies. Gourmands with a taste for heartier fare can skip ahead to sweet potato gnocchi with hazelnut pesto ($10), rib-eye filet ($22), or spitfire-roasted Carolina BBQ pork shoulder ($9) served with a side of Anson Mills grits with bacon ($6). All entrees pair well with assorted mushrooms fresh from the woods ($10), fire-roasted asparagus fresh from the garden ($7), artisanal cheese fresh from the artisanal cheese tree—and especially with the ginormous selection of French, Spanish, Italian, domestic, and sparkling wines.
