Major chef news at two Raleigh restaurants — one comes with Michelin-star pedigree
Two Raleigh restaurants announced major chef hires this week, one a longtime downtown favorite and the other moving to town with a Michelin-starred pedigree.
Following the closing of the beloved Raleigh restaurant Humble Pie, we now know the next move of veteran chef Joshua Young.
That next move won’t be too far, as Young has joined the kitchen as the new executive chef at Heirloom, the lovely jewel box tea house in The Dillon building.
Young will debut a new dinner menu in mid-November, building on Heirloom’s concept of Laotian, Taiwanese and Japanese flavors. Heirloom is best known for its daytime beverage program, a spectrum of coffee and tea experiences in one of Raleigh’s most picturesque dining rooms.
“The vision of Heirloom was always to be a full-service dining experience alongside an elevated service-level of grab-and-go café,” said Thai Phommavong, general manager for Heirloom in a press release. “We love seeing people connect through our current café program and want to extend the ability for people to connect during dinner. Our goal is to provide simple dishes with enhanced flavoring and Chef Joshua Young is the perfect person to understand the flavor profiles and complexity in Asian cooking.”
Acclaimed Indian chef comes to Raleigh
The owners of the upcoming Indian restaurant Tamasha in North Hills announced this week that it had found the chef to lead its new fine dining kitchen.
Hailing from the western India city of Udaipur and most recently cooking in Chicago, Bhavin Chhatwani has been named the opening executive chef of Tamasha.
Chhatwani has worked in the kitchen of some of the world’s finest and most acclaimed Indian restaurants, including the two Michelin-star San Francisco restaurant Taj Campton Place and the resort hotel Taj Falaknuma Palace in India.
Owned by Research Triangle Park executives Mike Kathrani and Tina Vora, Tamasha joins a restaurant slate in North Hills with a fresh and fine dining approach to Indian dishes. The owners recruited Chhatwani to Raleigh for Tamasha.
“We have long wanted to celebrate the richness of regional Indian cuisine and introduce a world-class Indian restaurant to our community,” Kathrani said in a release.
Tamasha is expected to open in late 2023 or early 2024 in the Park District area of North Hills.
This story was originally published November 8, 2023 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Major chef news at two Raleigh restaurants — one comes with Michelin-star pedigree."
