During our stay in Asheville, we wandered out one morning to find a breakfast place that featured a good ol' Southern-style breakfast. We had passed a little breakfast/lunch restaurant a couple times in downtown Asheville that had piqued our interest and decided to give it a try - it was a fun and funky little farm-to-table place called Early Girl Eatery.
John and Julie Stehling met while they were both working at the Hominy Grill, a place that specializes in Lowcountry cuisine located in Charleston, SC where John's brother, Robert, was the chef/owner. The Stehling brothers both knew their way around a kitchen growing up on a North Carolina acreage where the family grew their own fresh vegetables and cooked fresh, natural foods in the kitchen.
John and Julie left Hominy Grill and began to travel across America, then their travels took them to Asia for a time. The two had talked about eventually settling down - probably in Asheville - and opening their own restaurant that would feel like walking into someone's grandmother's home and having a good ol' down-home Southern meal. The Stehling's found a spot in downtown Asheville and they opened Early Girl Eatery in October of 2001.
Pictured right - Julie and John Stehling. Photo courtesy Explore Asheville.com
The Stehling's have branched out with another restaurant that they opened in Asheville in 2014, a chicken-and-waffle place in West Asheville called King Daddy's that features five different types of waffles and nine different styles of fried chicken. Now, I like waffles and I like fried chicken, but I've never been able to grasp the concept of having waffles and chicken together for the same meal.
Early Girl Eatery is located along Wall Street, a small side street in downtown Asheville. (see map) It was around 8:30 when we got there and they had been open for about an hour. We entered the place to find a small area up front with a bustling kitchen area behind a counter. A young lady greeted us, grabbed a couple of menus and escorted us down a long hallway into the dining room.
The dining room reminded me of a small-town farm community cafe. Wooden tables and chairs lined the floor space in the brightly naturally lit room. We were greeted by our server, a nice young lady by the name of Lene who got coffee for my wife and fresh-squeezed orange juice for me to start out.
The menu at Early Girl Eatery features a number of Southern cuisine items with a healthy twist. Nearly all of the foods served at the restaurant are locally-grown and farm-fresh. There were some decadent things on the menu - the Porky Bowl featured barbecued pork and home fries with scrambled eggs and cheese topped with a bacon gravy. But they also had healthy items such as the Veggie Breakfast Bowl, Spinach potato pancakes, and a sweet potato egg scramble.
My wife wasn't certain what she wanted to get. She's been on an egg-whites only kick for sometime and she ended up ordering the "omelet of the day" made with egg-whites. It featured fresh mushrooms - a lot of mushrooms, local Heritage Homestead cheese, scallions and chopped bacon. A side of home fries came with the omelet and she ordered toasted fresh-baked rye bread to go along with her breakfast. She declared her omelet to be delicious. But she did say there were probably too many mushrooms in the omelet - she's been slowly ramping up to liking fresh mushrooms in some of her foods after a lifetime of completely hating mushrooms. She picked a few of the mushrooms out and put them on my plate to eat. They were earthy and flavorful liked they had just been picked, sautéed and served up.
I was in a bit of a quandary as to what to order. I thought about the multi-grain pancakes - for a moment. I saw something on their lunch menu - the hormone-free meat loaf - that got me thinking. But I ended up going with the Southern breakfast - farm-fresh eggs fried over-easy, with grits, bacon and toasted fresh-baked whole wheat bread. It was a basic breakfast, but the bacon was delicious. Early Girl Eatery gets their bacon from Benton's, a 70 year-old butcher shop located in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee. The bacon was lean and flavorful with a great smoked-meat taste.
The grits I had were also very good. My gold-standard for grits are the ones I had while we stayed at the Hilton DeSoto in Savannah, GA a number of years ago. These rivaled the taste of the grits served there. While I'm far from a connoisseur of grits, I know that I like them to be a little creamy, not too dry, but not too runny. The grits at Early Girl Eatery pressed all the right buttons and I was extremely happy to eat them.
One other thing I have to talk about is the grape jelly that they had in a squeeze bottle on the table. I don't know what it was about the grape jellies or jams that were served in Asheville, but they were some of the most delicious I've ever had. I couldn't get enough of the grape jelly that tasted like it was homemade and not commercially produced. I was kicking myself for not asking Lene if they got the jelly locally and if it were available for purchase.
We were more than happy with our breakfast at the Early Girl Eatery. It was a quaint little place that featured a nice comfy atmosphere along with farm-fresh food and very good service. It's not fancy at Early Girl Eatery and it really is like going to someone's home to have a good down-home cooked breakfast. It's sort of hidden in downtown Asheville, but it was worth the find.
what a cool place to have breakfast!! when we walked in, the vibe was super friendly, felt like going over to a friends house to eat.... my sister and i had stopped in because they were next door to the store we wanted to go to, the Brew served all day sign cracked me up!! beer w/breakfast?? WE had breakfast food, prices a little high, but hey, supply and demand.....the best part of our morning came when this nice young man decided he wanted to sit with us because we looked like FUN!! he was wonderful breakfast company, and turns out our breakfast companion (and thank you for paying!!) was one Abe Cunningham. (and he had beer with his omelette!!)...the drummer for the Hard Rock band, the Deftones!!! we had a bonafide rock star buy us breakfast!!
Posted by: Linda Conlon | December 15, 2018 at 04:34 PM