Restaurants in Hendersonville

Hannah Flanagan’s captures the welcoming the welcoming camaraderie of the Emerald Isle in its menu of hearty pub staples and more than 100 bottled and draft brews. While glasses clink to the sound of rousing cheers, fresh, local ingredients transform into Irish favorites including bangers and mash, Reubens piled high with corned beef, and mushroom-laced pot roast. Flanagan's also puts forth a seasonal menu of weather-matching fare, gracing tables with country-fried steak in the winter and sautéed kites in the spring.

More than 6,000 blocks of yellow pine compose The Square Root's floor, sprawling beneath a 1930s art-deco bar back salvaged from a Kentucky dispensary and a bar top made from repurposed ambrosia maple. Brunches of eggs florentine and beignets give way to lunches of dagwood sandwiches and roasted-beet salad and dinners of sea scallops and slow-roasted thyme pork belly. Each dish is meticulously presented—sprigs of herbs or julienne vegetables are placed just so, and sauce is artfully swirled into curlicues or used to write the initials of all your childhood crushes. The Square Root's newest outpost in Hendersonville emulates its original location with exposed-brick walls, rustic wooden tabletops, and a nearly identical menu of favorite The Square Root recipes.

The brainchild of two husband-and-wife teams, Mark and Jenny Henegan and executive chef John Daniel Schwalje and his wife Dara, The Asheville Public fills its rotating menu of gourmet gastropub fare with locally grown produce, grass-fed beef, and other quality ingredients. Six kinds of house-made sausage encase meats and seasonings from around the world, from the far-flung merquez sausage’s morroccan-spiced lamb and the boerewors’s south african-herbed beef to the jambalaya’s local mélange of marinated pork, all-natural chicken, crawfish, and chow-chow. Served alongside rich breakfast and brunch dishes or a la carte on an organic bun during dinner, sausages don house-made condiments and compete with organic greens and all-natural Angus beef burgers and steaks for stomach real estate. The Asheville Public’s low-key interior fosters a homey vibe with wooden tabletops, chandeliers crafted from empty bottles, and armchairs wearing sweatpants.

The chefs at Rosettas Kitchen whip up delicious vegetarian and vegan dishes stuffed with local, seasonal produce. The eatery's menu combines various vegetarian cuisines, including korean barbecue tempeh and tofu-infused wraps. Slender tables set against a brick wall facilitate nighttime nourishment as late as 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. During its 10 years of life, a flurry of benefits, art shows, and musicians have filled Rosettas with spontaneous glee and more creative energy than a neutron with a liberal-arts degree.

At Bandido's Burritos, a chalkboard emblazoned with colorful script announces an ever-changing roster of burritos, tacos, and sandwiches, each forged with ingredients from the gardens of local organic farmers. Owner Justin Smudde, who flaunts nearly two decades of culinary experience and has never tangled his chef’s hat in low-hanging branches, keeps the menu flexible to incorporate seasonal ingredients and hormone-free meats from animals butchered on-site. The air fills with scents that hint at the culinary adventures underway in the kitchen, from jalapenos shedding their tough skin over flames before blending into crema for tacos to locally caught trout smoking slowly.

The cooks embrace a myriad of culinary restrictions, including vegan and gluten-free diets, beneath the eatery’s avocado-hued walls. Street carts rumble away from the shop, supplying pedestrians with tortilla chips made in-house each day in the shape of popular dirt-bike ramps.

The sandwich artisans at Frank's NY Deli cull inspiration from The Big Apple as they stack high-quality Boar's Head meats and cheeses between bread or toss them into fresh romaine lettuce alongside crisp veggies. Their hearty menu of Frank's favorite sandwiches includes hot pastrami and reubens, and diners can create their own sandwiches by pairing various ingredients. The staff precisely slices the same meats and cheeses at the deli counter so that patrons can recreate hearty handhelds or shrines to the first hoagie at home, and cater parties with platters overflowing with sandwiches, veggies, and cheeses.