The Mint

High quality food and service but tacky as hell.

By David 10/27/10

The Mint may cost a mint, but I’d pay it anyday!!! Great experience, great waitstaff, great food, awesome and creative drinks.  Our tire went flat during dinner and the valet changed it for us.  They decanted my wine for me.  Wonderful, Wonderful experience.  Our favorite restaurant in Raleigh.  This is a dining experience, not O’Charley’s or Ruth’s Chris or whatever chain is on the next corner.  You come to the restaurant to dine, to slow down and breathe, to enjoy food that stimulates your palate.

By {screen_name} 09/16/10

I got engaged at The Mint. The service was wonderful (their presentation was perfect). The food was incredible and locally grown. The decor was very posh. I highly recommend this restaurant for a special occasion.

By katdesign83 01/22/10

The Mint always gets a bad rap, and it sounds like niblosis had a pretty horrible experience, but the one time I went I thought it was fantastic. i took my parents out a month or so ago for the $18 three course lunch - the food was amazing and worth every penny. The mac and cheese was the best I’ve ever had (even though I could feel my arteries clogging), and the scallops were perfectly cooked and meaty. Really high quality ingredients here. Some of the desserts are baked to order (lava cake) and they were all delicious. Only flaw was I thought the fries with the tuna burger were a bit on the soggy side. But the service was great and friendly and I loved the atmosphere. Then again, this might change during dinner hours, who knows. Not the type of place you can go to often, but for a special occasion-type place you can’t really do better.

By neal2zod 05/16/09

The moment we walked in and were greeted by the friendly accommodating hostesses, I hoped we were in for a memorable meal.  Oh boy, were we.  The dining room was full and we were a walk in, so we went upstairs to find a table in the lounge.  There was a 6 top having cocktails, a two top ordering dinner and maybe 1 more deuce besides us. We were hoping to order the restaurant week menu and didn’t want to make a long night of it, so when we were greeted we ordered our entire meal immediately, which we learned was a good idea, when our server, chewing gum like it was cud, informed us that the kitchen was backed up so he was going to get the order in right away.  My dining companion wasn’t impressed with the décor or music, feeling they were trying too hard to be hip, but I didn’t have a problem with it.  The place soon started filling up and the music was turned up and it felt like a Night at the Roxy.  The time for the food to arrive was long.  For some courses, excruciatingly long.  Food runners were constantly trying to deliver to the wrong tables or were auctioning off food.  All around us people were sitting with empty glasses or nothing to drink at all.  We noticed the two top who was ordering as we arrived, never got their food.  I could feel their frustration from where I was sitting and noticed they were pulling out money to pay for their drinks and leave when the first course finally came.  Then they had to wait for someone to bring them silverware.  It felt like complete chaos.  We had long times between courses, too, but were pretty patient.  About 20 minutes after we’d finished our entrées we finally saw our dessert being delivered to the wrong table.  The food runner eventually figured this out, picked up one of the dessert plates off the neighboring table and tried to deliver it to me!  No thanks!  After yet *another* 15 minutes of still no dessert, our patience wore out and I got up to pay and leave.  One of the owners stopped me and assured us the dessert would be out soon and offered to take care of it for us.  I took that to mean he’d comp the desserts (which didn’t make sense to me as it was a pri-fixe), my companion took that to mean he’d comp the entire meal.  Turned out we were both wrong because the check was delivered in its entirety making us feel even *more* crappy because who wants to bring that up???  Other things like almost an hour with an empty water glass, only partial silverware given for the dessert course added to the overall chaotic feeling.  HOWEVER:  the food was really good.  The apps were yummy and the entrées were fantastic.  I didn’t eat the dessert because at that point my stomach was in knots from the entire experience, but my dining companion ate them both and loved them.  Was the food good enough for me to go back?  Sadly no, but maybe someone else will have better luck.  Oh, and the two top that was ordering as we arrived?  They gave up and ended up leaving to go to the Raleigh Times for a burger.  We saw them later.  They said it was the best burger they’d ever had.

By niblosis 05/15/09