Vidalia Restaurant & Wine Bar

My daughter, grandson and I wanted to have dinner at a nice place. So, as usual I went to Yelp to look for places to go since we are not from this area. Well, Yelp did not steer us wrong - dinner was fantastic. We arrived without a reservation, and my grandson is three. They could have just said "oops, too bad", but they didn't. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome. I had the trout, my daughter had the chicken and waffles, and my grandson had the mac and cheese. Starters were onion rings and bibb salads. Everything was tasty, perfectly cooked, generously portioned. Our server was very friendly and professional. And just when you couldn't think it could get any better, we decided to order the ice cream sampler. Yummo!! The ice cream was creamy rich, fresh - wonderful! This was the best dining experience I have had in a long while.

We were very pleased with our dinner here a couple evenings ago.The chef is creative & all of our dishes were quite tasty; there's hardcore use of fresh local ingredients. We weren't blown away, and didn't expect to be; but there certainly is talented thinking & execution in the kitchen.

The place was packed & the service was slow. Our waitress (a co-owner, with her husband) compensated for this (without us issuing any complaints) by dropping our drinks from the tab. The bathroom facilities could withstand an upgrade.

If we lived in the area, we'd be regular visitors.

My girlfriend and I stopped in Boone after a day driving the Blue Ridge Pkwy.  We had no reservation, but a couple of spots were available at the bar, which really does look straight into the kitchen area.  We got to watch people slicing strawberries for salads and such right in front of us.  The chef was a bit of a character, with his jammy bottoms and apron.

We ordered a Blind Squirrel beer that they recommended - a quad, I think (my GF is the beer connoisseur/snob).  It was OK, but not head-turning.   And we got the onion rings as an appetizer, which were very good and more than we could finish.  I ordered a rabbit special, and she had the meatloaf.  So far so good.  And then eventually the food arrived...

It was OK.  And *just* OK.  The rabbit was a bit dry and tough.  It came with a couple of dumplings that we agreed had lots of flavors rolling around, but was missing something - sort of like music with lots of treble notes that needs some bass to hold it down.  (If I knew what it needed I would probably be a chef, or at least a decent cook...)  The sauces for both dishes were very sweet, to the point of being overwhelming.  This was particularly true of the meatloaf, which I thought was a bit bland, but more than a tiny touch of the dried bing cherry "catsup" completely covered what flavor there was.   The Mac&cheese that came with the meatloaf was very tasty.

Overall: meh.  We'd give it about 2.5-3 stars based on lack of "wow" in the entrees.  The next time we're in town we'll try something else.