Sweet and Savory Restaurant | Wrightsville Beach

Good Eats in Wilmington

So I've been looking for a car. To be more precise, either a Geo Metro, a Ford Aspire or something small, gas efficient, and most of all affordable. I thought I had found one down in Wilmington: an Aspire with 50,000 miles on it posted on Craigslist. (That's my first mistake, almost anyone who uses Craigslist is criminally insane, I've discovered.) So we drove down to buy it, and when we got there we found a shaking, backwoods man trying to pass off a high mileage car with a altered speedometer. Quickly we walked away, a bit dismayed, but somewhat relieved we weren't taken advantage of. So we drove down to Wrightsville beach, and since Shan had to go pee, but the city decided to lock all the public toilets, she found a wonderful outdoor changing room to alleviate the issues of the crashing waves within her body. Once free of the eroding tides within, we made our way to the beach and walked along the strand. Shan poked a few dead jelly fish, and collected something she referred to as a "brain", before we finally headed off to Sweet and Savory Cafe and Bakery.

Here's the thing, we didn't know where the best place to eat was, so we Googled it, and sure enough Sweet and Savory was the one listing on Trip Adviser that everyone was recommending. The name didn't sound all that interesting, but when we got there, the parking lot was packed. Even more interesting is that the facade of the "steak-house" styling of the building doesn't match the light and carefree bohemian attitude of the restaurant within its walls. Then there's the name: Sweet N Savory? Why not "Pasty and Gooey?" The truth is, I even joked, "they didn't put much effort into the name did they?" Yet I was wrong. It fits it perfect once you taste the purposed sweet, and savory foods. It's a genre they serve up so well, your pre-emptive name calling serves as the sweet irony of hypocrisy as you realize exactly how good the Sweet and Savory restaurant is at what they do: blending flavors. It's like laughing at the fat kid in elementary school only to realize he can run a mile in six minutes, slam dunk a basketball, and already has a book deal at age 12. Sweet and savory, is more than food, it's revenge on the mediocrity of your typical beach dining.

The Ultimate Grilled Cheese is to die for.

More to the point, the food was amazing. In fact this restaurant, this hybrid Euro-American cafe, is definitely within my top five North Carolina restaurants. That in itself should tell you how good this place is. It's up there with La Farm, in Cary or even Johnson's in Siler City. The food is absolutely Amazing.

My favorite dish, the one you have to get when you go to Sweet and Savory is their Ultimate Grilled Cheese. I've had, and made many grilled cheeses, but this one took the cake. The UGC is made on their own fresh baked grilled white bread, they put cheddar, Havarti, bacon and tomato with a side of home-made potato chips, and  a side of ranch to dip. This is heaven.

But don't stop there, split one of those with your date and then divide up a Scrumdelicious Brisket. It's a gorgeous petite baguette filled with slow braised beef brisket, cheddar cheese, bacon, fried onions, and special sauce. I've never had anything quite like it, and it was amazing.

There are restaurants that are good, some that are great, and then there are a few that just get every nuance right, and Sweet and Savory restaurant in Wrightsville Beach is one them that is dead on. It's a tad French, a bit southern, yet it's cheap, affordable, and you'll want to go back next time your at the beach. To be bluntly honest, I've got a completely new reason to car shop on the coast.