Rosman Highway carries nearly every restaurant Lake Toxaway has. Moondance Wine Bar sits at 13481. Sweetwater Perk is up the road at 15886. Villa Amato is next door at 15887. Panthertown Cafe is a few doors past that at 16614. You could eat your way through most of the town's dining options without ever turning off this stretch of road, and until recently, that was the whole story: a handful of casual spots on the highway, a marina, and one serious kitchen up at The Greystone Inn for special occasions.
That changed over the past year, and not in the way small towns usually change. Lake Toxaway didn't get bigger. It got two chefs with resumes that don't typically land in towns this size, both arriving within months of each other, both choosing to build here instead of somewhere with more foot traffic.
The two arrivals nobody had to make
In February 2026, The Greystone Inn named Donnie Simmons its new Executive Chef. Simmons spent two decades building a career in Charlotte, working every station from dishwasher up through prep, fry, grill, and expo before an internship at Atlanta's La Grotta and a stretch studying the business side under restaurateur Stuart Sloane. He cooked privately for musicians and large events, ran a restaurant venture in Savannah, held two stints as Culinary Director at Burntshirt Vineyards in Hendersonville, and served as Executive Chef at The Mandrake in Charlotte. He's a three-time Best Chef Charlotte recipient with Food Network appearances and James Beard recognition to his name. That's the kind of career that usually stays in a metro market. Instead, it landed on the shore of a private lake with a year-round population you could probably fit in a Charlotte parking deck.
What Simmons is cooking reflects where he came from more than where he landed. His menu leans Southern and personal: dishes built around Benton's country ham, Hickory Nut Gap pork, Joyce Farms chicken, and Ashe County cheeses, with a cornmeal crème brûlée that traces back to his grandmother's cast-iron kitchen in Mint Hill. It's not resort food dressed up for a view. It's a chef cooking the food he grew up on, for a dining room that happens to overlook Lake Toxaway.
Andrea Schmitt's story runs the other direction. She's been part of the region's food scene since 1991, when she started Wild Thyme Gourmet on 5th Street in Highlands as a catering kitchen and small food shop. In 2015 she opened Meritage Bistro at the corner of Carolina Way and 5th, a Mediterranean-leaning fine dining spot whose wine list earned Wine Spectator recognition for several years running. Schmitt thought she was done running restaurants. Then she opened Moondance Wine Bar in Lake Toxaway in the summer of 2025, in a former office building on Rosman Highway that she and her architect husband, Paul, converted into a European-style small plates and wine bar. She reunited with Justin Burns, her chef from the Meritage days, who first came into her orbit as a wine sales specialist working the Highlands, Cashiers, and Brevard circuit.
Here's what makes that choice worth noticing. Schmitt had every reason to reopen in Highlands, where she'd already built two successful concepts and a loyal following over three decades. She didn't. She built her comeback four miles from a waterfall instead.
Why this doesn't usually happen
Serious restaurant talent on this plateau has historically clustered where the walkable village is bigger: Highlands and Cashiers, both of which support dozens of restaurants and the tourist traffic to sustain them. Lake Toxaway's entire year-round dining scene, by contrast, currently runs to about seven places:
- The Restaurant at The Greystone Inn (220 Greystone Lane) — lakeside fine dining, breakfast through dinner, now under Chef Simmons
- Moondance Wine Bar (13481 Rosman Highway) — small plates, paninis, and a curated wine list from Schmitt and Burns
- Grand Olde Station (502 Blue Ridge Road) — American dining in a historic setting with lake views, open year-round
- Villa Amato (15887 Rosman Highway) — Italian pizza and pasta
- Sweetwater Perk (15886 Rosman Highway) — coffee and baked goods
- Panthertown Cafe (16614 Rosman Highway) — breakfast and lunch, dog-friendly patio
- Los Vaqueros Mexican Restaurant (9 Toxaway Falls Drive) — Mexican fare near Toxaway Falls
That's the entire list. No town this size usually pulls in a three-time Best Chef Charlotte winner and a 30-year Highlands restaurant veteran within the same twelve months. It's a level of talent that would normally require a bigger dining room count to justify the move. Lake Toxaway got it anyway, which says something about what these two saw here that a spreadsheet of restaurant counts wouldn't show.
What actually changed on the plate and in the glass
The Greystone Inn's restaurant has carried Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence continuously since 2018, so the wine program wasn't new this year. What's new is the kitchen behind it, and early word from local coverage suggests Simmons is using that continuity as a foundation rather than starting over.
At Moondance, this year brought a new Wine Club offering members selections from boutique and small family producers, plus weekday tastings by reservation with visiting winemakers from Europe and California, each paired with small plates off the evening menu. The lobster rolls, stuffed with Maine lobster, have become something of a local talking point precisely because nobody expected a mountain wine bar to compete with a coastal seafood shack on that front. The menu keeps expanding as Schmitt and Burns settle into their second act together.
The week this actually builds
For someone who already lives here, this shakes out less like a headline and more like a shift in weekly options. Breakfast at Panthertown Cafe before a morning in Pisgah National Forest, dog on the patio, is still the move it always was. Villa Amato still covers pizza night. Sweetwater Perk still handles the coffee run. Los Vaqueros by the falls is still the answer on a night nobody wants to cook.
What's different is what happens when you want an actual night out without driving to Highlands or Cashiers. A year ago that meant Greystone or nothing. Now it means Greystone with a chef whose food has a point of view, or Moondance for wine and small plates in a room built specifically for lingering. Grand Olde Station still holds down the historic-dinner slot it always has. The rotation didn't get longer. It got sharper.
A small town, quietly upgraded
None of this happened because Lake Toxaway suddenly became a bigger market. The lake is the same size it was last year. The highway is still four miles of it. What changed is that two people with real career capital, one built in Charlotte's fine dining scene and one built over three decades in Highlands, decided this particular stretch of road was worth the bet. That's not a coincidence worth shrugging off. It's a signal about what this place has been quietly building toward, even if the restaurant count never grows past single digits.
If you're already here, you've probably noticed the shift without naming it. If you're the kind of person who tracks these things because you're thinking about what life on this lake actually looks like day to day, that's exactly the kind of detail a listing sheet won't tell you.
If Lake Toxaway is on your radar for more than dinner, Collin Taylor has spent years watching this plateau change one season at a time. Schedule Your Highlands Consultation whenever you're ready to talk about what living here actually looks like.
