Native Fine Diner — Restaurant in Greenville

I really wanted to love Native but I just liked it. The menu overall left little to be desired with the concise yet diverse range of options. The presentation of items seems the vary based on what days you go, but the flavors are consistent. While each dish hosts a depth of flavors, the kitchen leans on salt as an unnecessary crutch. Butter and salt are a chefs best friends but the cooks are a little too close for comfort with the duo. The Japanese pancakes are dressed slightly differently each time they’re served it would appear (compare my photo to those in other reviews and on instagram). My dish had too much charred spring onion and not enough creme fraiche to balance it out. The disco fries had a generous helping of salty pork skin bits that were indistinguishable from bacon bits and were very salty sitting on top of salty fries. For mains, I had the Joyce Farms Chicken. The pork fried rice is a stand out, and the blueberry hoisin was reminiscent of jerk chicken marinade, in a good way. This was by far the best dish of the night which was recommended by our waitress. We also had the burger which was the most disappointing. I am I firm believer in not sending food back to the kitchen, I think it’s rude and an insult to the chef unless there’s something egregious like raw food or another health hazard. The burger tasted like a microwave whitecastle burger but worst. It was so dry. The cheese was somehow worse than kraft? Everyone knows a good simple high quality burger is still best with processed cheese because it won’t split when melted. The worse part was ultimately the bun. Native Diner is using a biscuit recipe for their burger bun. Or rather, we got a bad batch and their lack of quality control allowed it to pass the prep line. The bun was thick, dense, and over all heavy. It crumbled like a buttermilk biscuit and you could hear a deep thud when tapping it with a knife. There was no air in the bun whatsoever. Every burger bun does not have to be brioche but the amount of force needed to pressed the bread between your fingers was similar to that of trying to squish a softened cube of cheddar cheese.

I need native to lighten up on the salt and I’ll come back in a few months. Greenville needs more restaurants like Native and I hope to see them grow and mature.

Atmosphere and drinks are 11/10.

Our waitress was perfect and friendly.

The burger was sent back and the new one we got was even worse. They took it off the tab and gave us a blueberry cheesecake on the house. I lied, the cheesecake was the best thing we ate last night.

I still topped +20% because our waitress didn’t cook the food and she was very...

I came here tonight on for a business dinner with 9 others. I would like to start by saying that the ambiance is very unique and I love how the repurposed the building that was clearly in a fire a long time ago! Our waitress did an amazing job for what she was in control of.

We started off with some beverages. They seemed to have come out in different stages. 6-7 of us got ours quickly while others were waiting for what seemed like a good 10+ minutes.

After drinks were served, we got 1x order of pickled things, 2 pork belly’s, and 2 croquettes. These came out very quickly and were all great! The croquettes were my favorite.

This next paragraph pulls them down from their true potential. I ordered a smash burger with no mayo. I was the first to order. Entrees came out in a very timely manner. My burger was smothered in mayo. I was kind and polite, I flagged the waitress and she apologized. She took the plate back.

In about 3 minutes another burger was in front of me. It looked great! I lifted the bun because I could tell one of the pickles still had mayo on it. I flagged the waitress over and she said she would get the chef.

Firstly, he’s an expediter, not a chef. He came over with an immediate attitude and when I told him there was still mayo, he said “no that’s new burger”. I lifted the bun and a pickle, swooped my finger and wouldn’t you know. There was Mayo on my finger.

He goes “they must have reused the pickles but that’s a new burger”. This guys copping an attitude with me when he should be copping the attitude to the chefs. I just want what I ordered. Not this subpar burger with a side of attitude.

To add to this, where are their beard nets?

The table did order dessert and that was the icing on the cake (no pun intended). 3 desserts took over 25 minutes to get served.

Safe to say, the management is poor and we will...

Bravo Chef Luke!

So we are passing through Greenville on our way to our annual family sojourn to the OBX. We do not usually stay in Greenville but so glad that we did.

This is a super casual atmosphere with exquisite cuisine. As depicted in my reviews, we are blessed to be able to travel to the most amazing venues worldwide-wide. This meal was fantastic. Thoughtful, beautiful, and so tasty.

I started with an old fashioned with Buffalo Trace, and my wife had the Prosecco. My libation was perfectly prepared. Amazing.

We shared the ‘Milk and Honey’ for a starter. The combination of the farmer’s cheese, honeycomb, hazelnuts, with grilled sourdough was just superb. Thoughtful, elegant, and delicious.

My wife had the ‘Daily Catch’ which happened to be tuna this evening. Tuna can be tricky in restaurants…not here. Cooked exactly as she requested with mint and pea purée served with fresh corn and mushroom salad topped with a jalapeño vinaigrette. As good as Michelin restaurants that I have previously reviewed.

I had the chicken snitzel served with Parmesan custard, Caesar greens, and shaved Parmesan. We lived in Europe for 15 years so can recognize a good snitzel. This one was outrageously good and different than any snitzel that we had in Europe. Chef Luke obviously placed his own fingerprints on this perennial German classic. Highly recommend it…perfect. With our main course, my wife had the Portuguese Rose (delicious), and I had the Paso Robles red (good).

Our server, ‘BA’ was good. She spaced the meal perfectly while keeping it all moving.

All in all a superb experience. The fine dining that we experienced was not what we were expecting from an establishment that calls themselves a diner.

If you are near Greenville, eat here.

I will end where I began,...