The story below is from our May/June 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
The Maridor’s restaurant serves fusion fare and sushi in a historic Grandin Village mansion.
Courtesy of The Maridor
Seth Brubaker describes the signature Dragon Balls as Japanese arancini
In modern restaurant parlance, the hidden gem label is often applied to an off-the-beaten path eatery or a no-frills joint tucked into a strip mall. Although The Maridor restaurant is housed in a historic mansion on a well-trafficked street in Grandin Village, it embodies yet another facet of the hidden gem.
You’ve likely walked or driven by the stately home, perhaps admiring the expansive, manicured lawns beyond the boxwood hedge, or maybe you know it as a sought-after wedding venue. What you might not realize, even if the open sign is glowing in the window, is that the house’s ground floor is home to an intimate restaurant and bar with an eclectic menu, where sushi rolls share top billing with fusion snacks like naan-chos and Korean ramen deviled eggs. How exactly to define this hidden gem? “Southern comfort with a global twist,” says Seth Brubaker, The Maridor’s director of operations and chef.
The Maridor was built in 1916 and was once home to Marion Augustus Smyth, president of National Business College, who named the home “Maridor” after his daughters Marion and Dorothy. For over 30 years, The Maridor has been a wedding and events venue with a ballroom that seats up to 120 guests and a charming courtyard that’s the stuff of wedding photo backdrop dreams. Brubaker, who has been with The Maridor for about two years, spent the first year streamlining the catering operation before turning his attention to the restaurant, which opened on February 14, 2024.
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Courtesy of The Maridor
The Maridor restaurant is located on the ground floor of this historic mansion
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Courtesy of The Maridor
An assortment of fresh sushi
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Courtesy of The Maridor
Crispy beef can be ordered in the Crispy Beef Bowl or Korean Street Tacos
Brubaker shares that one of the reasons for opening the restaurant was to allow the public to enjoy the historic home during more regular hours (typically Tuesday through Friday, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.) and to bring a new option to Grandin Village’s already diverse restaurant landscape. Initially, The Maridor’s menu was split more evenly between Southern and Japanese- and Korean-influence, but Brubaker said that diners responded more to the fusion fare.
Brubaker, a born-and-raised Roanoker, drew from 25 years of hospitality industry experience to inform the menu’s line-up of eclectic, globally-inspired dishes. Brubaker worked a variety of positions in the front and back of house at several local establishments, including a formative stint at Metro, where he developed a passion for fusion cuisine working under chef-owner Andy Schlosser, as well as 202 Social House, The Quarter, Ben Gui Sushi, and Hidden Valley Country Club, where he developed his own unique sushi style that led to operating his own food truck, where he gained a following for his creative rolls.
Courtesy of The Maridor
The Dynamite Roll special featured spicy mixed fish atop a pickled Jalapeno and cream cheese roll.
Many of those rolls earned a spot on The Maridor’s opening menu, including fan-favorites like the Jedi, featuring spicy tuna topped with avocado, jalapeno and tobiko. Another popular spicy tuna roll riff is the Sea Dragon, capped with seaweed salad, crispy shallots and spicy mayo; it can also be made vegetarian by swapping the fish for house made pickled veggies. If you can’t make up your mind or want Brubaker to take the reins, ask for the off-menu sushi treatment. “If I’m here and somebody’s like ‘Make me a sushi plate,’ it’s my favorite,” he says. “When I was a sushi chef, my favorite thing was for people to just sit down and be like ‘Feed me. Feed me your good stuff.’”
Among the fusion fare, Brubaker calls out the dragon balls, a dish that followed Brubaker from his food truck days, which he describes as Japanese arancini. A ball of sushi rice is stuffed with a choice of filling — spicy tuna, crispy beef or smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese — then fried until the rice is caramelized and crisp. Other popular picks include Korean deviled ramen eggs, where marinated ramen eggs are piped with a yolk filling spiked with Korean and ramen seasoning and crowned with tobiko, and ramen carbonara, in which ramen noodles are cloaked in a creamy sauce and scattered with smoked bacon.
Although the Japanese- and Korean-leaning dishes have proved among the most popular menu items, some of The Maridor’s more staunchly Southern dishes vie for signature status too, including Dr Pepper-braised short ribs plated with truffle mashed potatoes, and a Southern cheese board with pimento cheese, bacon jam and house made baguette and crackers.
Even with the array of eats on offer, Brubaker is adamant about accepting substitutions and catering to all palates and preferences. He takes care to sub in tamari for soy sauce when possible to make sushi rolls gluten-free, ensures there is a good mix of vegetarian dishes and has been known to prepare chicken nuggets or buttered noodles upon kids’ requests. The restaurant’s layout takes a flexible approach too; depending on the reservations for the night, Brubaker and his team can add more high-top tables, pull in more safari-style chairs from the ballroom or move the couch in front of the fireplace.
Courtesy of The Maridor
A ramen special garnished with enoki mushrooms, bok choy and a ramen egg.
The Maridor also renovated the ground floor space to include a beautiful dedicated bar where you’ll find wines by the glass and bottle, domestic and local suds from Parkway Brewing and Devils Backbone, sake, including a full-bodied, premium Tokubetsu Junami sake and cocktails. Brubaker parlays 20 years of bartending knowledge into creative seasonal and signature libations crafted with scratch-made ingredients like bitters, syrups and infusions. Seek out staples like In Maridor Fashion, a play on an Old Fashioned with pecan bitters and maple syrup, or signatures like the Maridor Monroe Martini, a Cosmo riff with a sparkling wine float.
Come summer, the outdoor patio will be open for al fresco dining (it’s dog-friendly too!), ideal for taking advantage of Tuesday night sake and sushi specials or seasonal sippers. Reach for the Spring Spritz, where gin mingles with pomegranate juice, fresh lemon juice, elderflower liqueur and sparkling rosé to fizzy, refreshing effect, then order a round of shareable snacks, like naan-chos, featuring mini naans topped with crispy beef, roasted corn and raita or sesame miso hummus with fresh vegetables.
The summer-ready scene evokes the kind of elevated yet laid-back, fun vibes that Brubaker hopes The Maridor’s restaurant will be known for. “We like being the neighborhood spot. It’s a little nicer scale. We try to keep the pricing down, but the scale of service and food to be a little higher,” he says. Sometimes, the mansion setting throws people for a loop when they book a reservation, prompting diners to call to ask about the dress code. Brubaker’s advice? “Just don’t wear anything you wouldn’t wear to your grandma’s house.”
The story above is from our May/June 2025 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!