Katharine Brasserie & Bar

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

A Brasserie Born from History and Place

The Katharine Brasserie & Bar occupies a singular address: the former RJ Reynolds Building in downtown Winston-Salem, now home to the Kimpton Cardinal Hotel. The space wears its art deco bones proudly — grand architecture, a marble bar, an energetic mezzanine — while projecting something unmistakably alive and current. The restaurant takes its name from Katharine Reynolds, the Reynolds family's matriarch and a figure whose forward-thinking spirit the team clearly considers a guiding principle.

The concept is straightforward and well-executed: French cuisine interpreted through the lens of the American South. Classic brasserie technique meets local farmers and Carolina ingredients, producing menus that move comfortably between buttery pastries at breakfast and robust multi-course dinners in the evening.

Chef Daniel Boling

The kitchen is led by Chef Daniel Boling, whose background spans an unusually wide geography. Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, he trained formally in Grand Rapids before spending a formative season cooking at Hotel Kafara in Sicily. He then spent more than a decade at the Lodge at Torrey Pines, the celebrated Southern California resort, and also cooked at Nike's global headquarters in Portland, Oregon. That breadth of experience — European technique, West Coast precision, time spent close to artisan producers — shapes a kitchen philosophy rooted in seasonal sourcing and genuine relationships with local farmers.

The Menu and the Bar

The Katharine's French cuisine doesn't treat Southern cooking as a footnote. The two traditions are genuinely integrated: fresh regional ingredients find their way into classically structured dishes, while the bar program holds its own with local beer selections, craft cocktails, and an extensive wine list that earned the restaurant Wine Spectator's Best of Award of Excellence in 2024 — recognition that reflects the seriousness with which the beverage program is curated.

Menus cover the full day: breakfast daily, weekend brunch, weekday lunch, and dinner every evening. The weekly calendar adds texture — a Thursday live jazz series paired with half-price oysters, Tuesday half-off appetizers at the bar, and occasional bourbon cocktail classes.

The Atmosphere

Whether the occasion is a celebratory dinner in a private dining room, an after-work drink at the marble bar, or a morning coffee on the patio, The Katharine is designed to accommodate all of it without feeling like it's trying to be everything. Its position just steps from Winston-Salem's arts district makes it a natural anchor for an evening in the city — the kind of place that works as well for locals as it does for guests staying upstairs in the hotel.