Carolina Crossroads, Chapel Hill

With a Southern-tinged contemporary menu that's garnered ample praise—including 13 consecutive years as a Forbes Four-Star, and also a AAA Four Diamond rating from 2001 to 2014—Carolina Crossroads Restaurant contributes gourmet aromas to the historic Carolina Inn. Executive chef James Clark uses locally sourced ingredients to create innovative southern dishes for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. Beneath grand curtains and shimmering chandeliers, the restaurant's bold blue floral-patterned chairs and banquettes flank white-linen-topped tables, which support succulent seafood, juicy cuts of steak, and the occasional miscreant elbow.

Plush leather chairs and HD flat-screen TVs set the mood in the Carolina Crossroads Bar, where bartenders serve craft beer and mix signature cocktails. A stripped-down lounge menu sticks to simple Southern pleasures and classic bar bites, executed with elegance: think house-made barbecue pork rinds, burgers made from house-ground chuck on brioche buns, and fried green tomatoes with blue cheese. The front porch beckons on warm evenings, and a covered terrace stays open year round, making an ideal place to sip selections from the bar's international wine list.