Tucked inside a glass cube at the southeast edge of Uptown Charlotte is a new, yet Old-World-feeling dining experience.
Much like iconic restaurants (Zurich’s art-plastered, wood-paneled Kronenhalle or New York’s teak ceiling and water-scaped Le Bernardin) where the dining room sets the scene, Joe and Katy Kindred’s newest addition, Albertine (525 South Tryon Street), feels immediately special and exclusive, as if you’ve entered a traditional European smoking room or an English members club.
Albertine is named for Queen Charlotte’s mother.
Blake Pope, Kindred Studio
Only this dining room serves an assortment of flavors imported from the east of the Mediterranean, combined with influences from the South.
The chef and design duo’s latest venture is also their first fine-dining, full-service restaurant in the heart of the city. It follows the successes of casual chain restaurant Milkbread, north Davidson’s upscale Kindred, and Lake Norman’s playful and colorful Hello, Sailor.
Once inside Albertine, patrons are greeted by an earth-toned bar flanked by two massive marble slabs. If you stare long enough, you might even be able to make out two snow-capped mountains. Bright front room seating offers wool-lined cafe chairs and banquette-style seating.
A smaller doorway then opens to a main dining room, which offers dim, intimate lighting, scalloped-edge dining tables, discrete semi-circle booths, dark, plush fabrics, and a single raised private dining area adorned with an antler-like light fixture also owned by the woo-woo queen herself, Gwyneth Paltrow.
“Being right in the heart of the downtown on Tryon [Street] with this jewel box, all glassed-in space, we felt a responsibility to the city to make the restaurant really special,” says Katy, “So we wanted to create something unique that was unlike anything that we’ve visited in any other city, let alone Charlotte. I wanted something that had a decidedly feminine lean to it, as a woman designer, business owner, and proprietor, but also, you know, it’s Charlotte, it’s the Queen City. So we named it after Queen Charlotte’s mother, Albertine.”
Share a platter of meze with friends.
Blake Pope, Kindred Studio
Reading the room, clientele may include anyone who aims to impress bosses, colleagues, out-of-town guests, famous folks, and special dates. Overhead conversations could likely include boisterous power deals and intimate tete-a-tetes.
Like typical Middle Eastern restaurants, meze is on the menu, with options like Carolina conch pea hummus, green schug, and zaalouk, served with warm, crispy, and melt-in-your-mouth pita.
Other bite-sized starters and small plates include razor clams escabeche and two flavorful highlights: a crispy, crunchy South Carolina quail and a date stuffed with a super savory chorizo in a peanut muhammara.
According to Joe, the quail dish epitomizes the South-meets-Mediterranean vision that the kitchen wants for Albertine. The quail is brined in pickle juice and buttermilk, seasoned with chermoula spices, submerged in Aleppo pepper oil, drizzled in hot honey, and placed over a swipe of labneh — a mixture of worlds and flavors.
Mains feature more familiar offerings like a bone-in ribeye at $98, a gamebird mixed grill with merguez sausage and potatoes at $54, and grilled short rib with peanut dukkah and fattoush for $44.
Finally, a sweet grilled Nutella babka resets the palate. Its ooey gooey consistency is that of a sticky toffee pudding mixed up with a chocolate Krispy Kreme. Signature cocktails don’t disappoint, as citrus fans may wish to try the Bohemian, which mixes vodka, elderflower, pink grapefruit, and Peychaud’s bitter. Smoky and amber fans may opt for the Bourbon Renewal, which combines lemon, creme de cassis, and Angostura bitters.
“I only know how to interpret this cuisine based on what I’ve seen, what I’ve read, and what I’ve experienced through my palate,” says Joe, “And then I can only do my best to try to honor these flavors. When you think about Katy in the dining room, she’s transporting you somewhere else, and my job as the chef is to try and let that transportation continue once the food hits your plate. I feel a certain level of responsibility to make sure that you understand that you’re still in the South, and you’re still in Charlotte. This is our interpretation and our vision. I think it’s going to be really neat, or at least, I really hope it is.”