Food & Drink in Boone

For the past 30 years, Makoto's has remained a reliable tableside performance grill and sushi bar that has satisfied patrons with Japanese seafood, steaks, and other savories served up by expert and entertaining chefs. The sushi bar artfully decorates plates and stomachs with offerings such as the spicy kani salad ($6.95), inari or smoked salmon nigiri ($3–$4.50), and rolls ranging from the spooky roll with calamari and asparagus ($7.95) to the exotically creative fuji apple roll with apple, goat cheese, samurai secrets, and spicy tuna ($11.95).

Originally the homestead of a miner, River House has grown to cover 170 acres of Blue Ridge wilderness along the North Fork of the New River and encompasses several converted farmhouses, three cabins, and the Inn House Restaurant. Like a Mercedes wrapped in burlap, the rooms at River House combine rustic façades with luxurious interiors. Though every room has its own distinctive personality—from the porch swing and packed bookshelves of Room Five to the honeymoon-friendly Chicken House's chicken-coop coffee tables and private deck looking out onto the river and mountains—each is outfitted with a mammoth bed (all but one are king-size), a gas-log fireplace, and a jacuzzi. Every morning, you'll wake up to find fresh coffee waiting for you outside your door. A cooked to order breakfast in the main house quells the morning munchies and is best enjoyed from rocking chairs between the porch's pristine white columns.

Frogurt Boone’s staff sprinkles 96 dessert garnishes, including granulated peanuts and mandarin oranges, onto fro-yo flavors such as root-beer float, cranberry-hibiscus tart, or french vanilla. Frogurt frozen yogurt ($0.43/oz.) nourishes bodies with digestive-friendly probiotics, calcium, and modest amounts of sodium and cholesterol, making it a healthier alternative to scarfing down cookies or chugging Pepsi-flavor toothpaste. Sugar-free and dairy-free flavors also await yogurt-craving tongues.

Crave treats diners to the fine art of food shrinkage with their internationally influenced menu of tapas. Tapas are smaller plates intended for snacking, sharing, combining, and carting home in microscopic doggy bags to create unique full-course meals. Crab-cake sliders layered with roma tomato and remoulade ($4.15) slip past dental defenses to tickle exposed taste buds, and fried goat cheese ($3.95) fills tonsil caverns with the echoing flavors of its pecan crust and granny-smith apple garnish. Chefs reflect their global modus operandi with battered plates of vegetable tempura ($5.95), bowls of spicy tomato-tortilla soup ($3.95), and miniature cowboy hats filled with 4-ounce portions of filet mignon ($9.95). Those saddled with heftier hunger pangs can satiate themselves with a large plate, such as duck confit with mushroom risotto, french beans, and mushrooms ($16), before stifling cacophonous sweet chompers with a delectable dessert of poached anjou pear with Grand Marnier sauce ($4.55).

In 1964, brothers Leroy and Forrest Raffel banded together to come up with a new restaurant concept. Arby's took off almost immediately on the coattails of its hallmark roast-beef sandwich and the founders’ idea of providing customers with fast, quality food. Over the company's 48-year franchise history, its foundational pièce de résistance of thinly sliced, juicy beef has been served in a many permutations, and continues to be popular today, served at more than 3,500 stores in North America. Today’s menu still ignites appetites with traditional beef sandwiches, plus hot and seasoned curly fries, fresh-chopped salads, and desserts good for richly capping off meals or bribing any bridge trolls on the way home.

High Country's Blue Ridge Mountains and surging rivers set the stage for whitewater-rafting and cave tours. In the winter, the snow-capped slopes double as runs for skiing and sledding. In addition to undertaking outdoor adventures, vacationers can step into the past at nostalgic general stores and sift for precious stones and docile pet rocks at old-fashioned gemstone mines.