Market Restaurant: Locally sourced, fresh dining

You’ve heard the saying before.  You are what you eat.  When you have the choice to eat locally sourced foods, do you?  If your answer is yes, then make your way to Market Restaurant on Blount Street in the Mordecai neighborhood.  Here, owner and head chef, Chad McIntyre, channels his awareness of his surroundings and his emphatic passion for preparing and serving local, fresh, unprocessed foods in his newly born establishment.

Chatting with McIntyre, it’s apparent that the direction of Market Restaurant is all about community.  Inside you’ll find a chalk board noting the day’s fresh catch, notes of thanks to the local farmers sourced for the various items on the menu and an occasional quote from the bestseller Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  The walls are dressed with rotating art by local artists, and even some of the fixtures and the kitchen doors are repurposed items found at Habitat for Humanity’s Restore.  McIntyre had his hands busy in everything from helping to build the framing, to laying the cork trim and painting the walls. 

His project, a year in the making, has resulted in a light-filled, airy dining space exuding a casual atmosphere ideal for enjoying a seasonal entrée like the Agave Crusted Fresh Catch (could be anything from amber jack, to pompano, to pink snapper, to butter fish) over cucumber noodles ($15-$17), or a refreshing salad like the Grilled Shrimp and Watermelon over mixed greens ($11) with a cool mint iced tea or freshly squeezed rosewater lemonade. 

Born and raised in Baton Rouge, McIntyre jokes that his real culinary schooling was growing up around the “Louisiana kitchen table.” He gained a true appreciation for flavor thanks to his aunt’s homegrown cooking skills, and the bug to go into the restaurant business bit him in college.  Involved in the corporate restaurant business for years, McIntyre honed his operational skills, but longed to learn the art of the “how” and the “why” of food preparation.  Upon leaving the corporate structure, he went into the kitchen under notable chefs on the Gulf Coast where he learned about selecting and preparing local foods found in the area’s backyard.

Since moving to Raleigh three years ago, McIntyre’s become a real advocate of North Carolina’s numerous local resources for seafood, meats, poultry, cheeses, vegetables, fruits and even chocolate.  He’ll be the first to tell you where the food you are consuming comes from, and furthermore, he encourages you to take a peek into the open kitchen area to see how your meal is taking shape. 

The menu is ever-changing, determined by the area’s seasonal variations.  But the one constant you can depend on is the simplicity of each dish, focused on making sure the natural flavors shine through with each bite. 

HelloRaleigh Tip:  The menu offers a variety of creative vegetarian and gluten-free options for diners with particular preferences. The Kale Chips ($6) are both vegetarian and gluten-free, and come highly recommended!   
 

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