Caviar, potato chips, and a killer natural wine list? What more do you need? Bar à Vins is the hip new NoDa wine bar from sommelier Jeff Kellogg with a little help from Katy Kindred (of Davidson’s Kindred) who designed the interiors. All the cool kids in Charlotte will be there.

Ever Andalo is pleasing palates with Italian comfort. Owners Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown have spent extensive amounts of time in Italian and wanted to share those experiences with Charlotte. They import many of the ingredients to offer items like Calabrian chilie parpadelle, fresh focaccia, and fettuccine all’Amatriciana.

Popular Korean-meets-Southern barbecue spot Seoul Food Meat Company opened a second location in the Optimist Park neighborhood. Like the original, expect menu mashups like pimento corn cheese, green tea cornbread, soy-pickled deviled eggs, and plenty of smoky meats.

Chef Sam Hart and his team at Counter have a shiny new culinary playground in Wesley Heights. The original Thrift Road location of Counter won acclaim for its ever-changing tasting menu themes and unique music pairings (think MF Doom and the Pixies on the same soundtrack). With the updated address, the group plans to be more ambitious with its offerings. Customers are basically sitting in the kitchen as the plates, like expertly cooked duck with pungent truffles, are prepared in front of them. At only 16 seats, it’s an exclusive and immersive experience.

Biblio is the sister wine bar to tasting menu restaurant Counter. It has the same eccentric expertise as its sibling but is more accessible to those who couldn’t score a reservation next door. Biblio boasts a catalog of over 500 wines, and each is priced to include small plates created to pair with the wine and the customer. A recent Instagram caption read, “We don’t serve cheap wine, we don’t cook shit food,” so it’s a bit of a different attitude for an upscale wine bar.

Vinyl (as in record; there’s an entire wall of them behind the bar) embodies the notion that music brings the people all together. To be sure, it is the rare bar in South End that attracts more than just the recent college graduate crowd that has come to define the neighborhood, and it has been standing-room only nearly from the moment it opened for business. One might chalk that up to Vinyl’s prime location, nestled between Vana and Wooden Robot Brewery on the corner of Tryon and Summit, but to do so would be to discount entirely the assured hands of the industry veterans who have converged to create something so thoroughly of the moment that connects almost immediately with anyone who visits. (In point of fact, when have banker bros, Tinder dates, influencers, and LGBTQ friends of a certain age ever been able to sit down, have a drink, and acknowledge that they have so much in common?) On the food menu, the garlic fries in particular are delicious, even startlingly so, and no that’s not the “You Only Get One Shot” talking. Served straight from the tap, that drink is Frenet Branca infused with coffee from local favorite Pepperbox Doughnuts, and despite the name, it is perfectly OK to have two.  — Timothy DePeugh

Buzzy new restaurant Para sits in the South End neighborhood with a hip dining room and a small plate menu leaning heavily on seafood and Asian influences. Chef Alex Verica, formerly of Dot Dot Dot and the Stanley, says that he wanted the menu to incorporate as many local farmers as possible, while focusing on “a more global approach to the overall menu.” Items range from lobster toast with caviar to wagyu beef tartare with caviar to milk bread with foie gras, peanut butter, and jam. It’s an indulgent menu that’s sure to make a few rounds with the flashy Instagram crowds and folks looking to make it rain for a lobster shooter.

Yunta offers Nikkei cuisine in a hip, modern setting. Nikkei food is Peruvian ingredients — tropical fish, quinoa, aji amarillo peppers — molded by Japanese techniques. Multiple chefs cite the modern preparation for ceviche as particularly indicative of the Nikkei style. And Yunta offers plenty of ceviche, along with pisco sours, shrimp croquettes, tostones, and more.