The 10 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Durham

Belted Galloway cows still graze the pastures of this converted dairy farm turned country inn, midway between Chapel Hill and nowhere in particular. The 32 rooms are individually designed, with fresh flowers cut from the grounds and a decanter of port left at your bedside each evening. Tennessee fainting goats add an absurdist footnote to the strolls. The restaurant leans European-Southern, and afternoon tea is a thing here, taken seriously.

Nineteenth-century portraits of the Duke family line the lobby of this upscale hotel, which sits on the edge of Duke University's campus and caters to visiting parents, conference crowds, and golfers who take their 18-hole championship course with GPS-guided carts. The 271 rooms lean toward traditional comfort, while the public spaces carry a philanthropist's-manor calm that makes the surrounding college-town bustle feel like someone else's problem.

A boutique hotel where the art collection is the point, not the lobby filler. The 21c chain built its name in cities you wouldn't expect, and the Durham outpost fits right into a downtown mid-reinvention. Rooms sit alongside rotating contemporary art, and the whole thing feels more like a stay inside a functioning museum than a polished-down corporate property. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.