During a walkabout in downtown Asheville during our stay there, it was getting later in the day where we needed something for lunch, but we didn't want to have something that was heavy. My wife remembered seeing a Mediterranean restaurant that caught her fancy - Twisted Laurel. We decided to head over there for a light lunch before heading back to our hotel to rest and get cleaned up.
The Twisted Laurel in Asheville is one of three locations of the restaurant that was originally opened in March of 2014 by Angelo Karnezis. Karnezis is the owner of Bellagio Bistro (formerly one of the Apollo Flame Bistro restaurants around Asheville), a Greek/Mediterranean restaurant about halfway between Asheville and Weaverville to the north of the city. When the popular Arcade bar shut down in late 2013, Karnezis saw an opportunity to put in a new concept restaurant he had in mind and that was the first Twisted Laurel. In August of that year, Karnezis took over the former Jack of Hearts tap room in Weaverville for the second Twisted Laurel location. And not long after we were in Asheville, Karnezis opened a third location - Twisted Laurel at Grassy Creek - in Spruce Pine, a tourist destination in the Blue Ridge Mountains about an hours drive north of Asheville.
We had walked by Twisted Laurel a number of times on our way back to our hotel from Asheville's downtown. It's located at the corner of College and Spruce on the east side of the downtown. (see map) It was well after 2 p.m. when we went there. It was a warm day and we decided to eat inside instead of on the large patio they have in front of the place. The main dining room/bar features a decor of exposed bricks, steel beams across the ceiling and a concrete floor. A small bar area was toward the back of the restaurant.
We sat ourselves at a table near the bar and we were soon greeted by a server who dropped off a couple menus for us to look over. I noticed on their beer menu board that they had a locally brewed Kolsch on tap and I ordered that. I like a nice light Kolsch on a warm summer day, but I was soon informed by our server that they were out of the Kolsch. Slightly bummed, I resorted to a Green Man IPA - that pretty much became my local beer of choice after a few days in Asheville.
It's a limited menu during the daytime at Twisted Laurel. During the evening, they feature a number of pasta dishes, Greek specialties and pizza. It's mostly sandwiches and salads during the day. And that was fine with us, we didn't want a big lunch as we had dinner plans for the evening.
My wife ended up a sandwich/salad combo - the Super Sub with turkey and roast beef with a Greek salad. The sandwich was topped with fresh onions, chopped lettuce and tomatoes. The Greek salad featured the sliced onion and tomatoes, Kalamata olives and pepperoncinis. The bread was spongy and fresh, and my wife thought it was fine for what it was.
I got the gyro with a side of fries. The sliced gyro meat didn't seem like it had come directly off a spit, and the pita bread was a little dried out. It wasn't the greatest gyro I've had, but it was all right. Just all right. The fries were basically throw away - lukewarm and sort of limp. We just shrugged our shoulders and finished what we could - or what we wanted to finish.
While we liked the decor of the Twisted Laurel and the service was very good, we thought the lunch that we both had was pretty average, at best. I'm guessing their night time fare - which features a more extensive menu for lunch - is a step above the bland gyro and basic sub sandwich we got on our visit. We noticed that it was a popular place in the evenings when we would walk by going back to our hotel, so I'm guessing that the food is probably better in the evening. Still, it was pretty basic for lunch and even thought that was sort of all we needed that day, I wish it would have been a little better.
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