Greensboro's restaurant scene is heavier than its profile would suggest. Downtown and the State Street and Lawndale corridors are where most of the better restaurants cluster. North Carolina barbecue is reliably good, as is Southern comfort food — pimento cheese and shrimp and grits are everywhere — and the city's universities have given rise to a steady stream of more ambitious chefs in the last decade.
Vegetarian options have improved sharply; check menus rather than walking in cold to old-school steakhouses.