Wildwood Still

Half of Wildwood Still’s walls are NanaWall doors that fold back flat, and the ceiling above them turns to glass for the other half, on the seventh floor of the Moxy hotel at 61 Biltmore Avenue. The room opened September 12, 2024, with 152 seats split between indoors and out and three gas fire pits, one of them inside. Chef Austin Tisdale has cooked in Asheville since 1996 — stints at The Grove Park Inn, Bouchon French Bistro and Lexington Avenue Brewery — after five summers guiding whitewater trips on the French Broad River. His robata grill now burns special charcoal hot enough to reach 1,000 degrees a few feet from that folding glass wall. McKibbon Hospitality manages the hotel and the kitchen; its VP of food and beverage, Kiel Lombardo, trained under chef Roy Yamaguchi. The list behind Tisdale tops 150 whiskeys, deep enough to carry North Carolina’s own Oak and Grist, Chemist Spirits and Two Trees Distilling alongside the national names. The cocktail list works a similar local-meets-far-flung angle. The Tokyo 50/50 pairs Olmeca Altos plata tequila with Soto sake, yuzu and wasabi syrup; the Plum Intended sets umeboshi-infused shochu against Ancho Reyes and gochujang-infused agave. The P B & C Tini turns Buffalo Trace bourbon and Skrewball peanut butter whiskey into something closer to dessert than a nightcap. That grill sits close enough to the folding glass wall to keep the patio warm well after the sun goes down. Monday nights add a $15 rotating Wagyu burger and a free glass of house wine or beer for the industry crowd. Sit near the folding wall: the grill is a few feet off, and it is the warmest seat on the seventh floor once the sun is down.