The owners of Peregrine share the family stories behind their signature dish and cocktail
BY KYLE MARIE McMAHON | PHOTOS COURTESY OF PATRICK SHANAHAN
At Peregrine, the acclaimed new restaurant in Raleigh, the menu tells stories. It’s a place where every bite and every sip is anchored in memory, and for co-owners Chef Saif Rahman and Patrick Shanahan, those memories begin with the women who shaped their early sense of hospitality: their grandmothers.
When the two first met, it wasn’t in the kitchen or over business plans—it was in conversation about their grandmothers. That shared connection quickly became the emotional foundation for Peregrine. “We talked for four months about our grandmothers,” says Rahman. “It was the first spark. We became brothers by heart.”
Their combined vision was to create something personal and powerful—a space defined by heritage and welcome, rooted in the natural beauty surrounding Raleigh’s burgeoning Exchange district. The result is Peregrine, a restaurant that invites diners to wander the world through flavor.
Chef Saif Rahman grew up in Sylhet, Bangladesh, a place of rivers, rice fields, and sun-drenched tropical fruit. “Bangladesh is my motherland,” he says. “North Carolina is the wife I fell in love with.” His menu blends both—nowhere more poignantly than in the dish Ode to Amina, named for his late grandmother.
“It’s a childhood memory I can’t go back to,” Rahman shares. The dish is built from a memory of fish she would cook in their village kitchen—wood-fired, surrounded by clay walls, with family gathered close. “She would make us sit around her and she would feed us,” he remembers. “The only way I can connect back to her is to try and create what she gave us.”
Ode to Amina features a seasonal fish—when we visited, it was fresh snapper from Beaufort—seasoned with panch phoron, a Bengali five-spice blend of mustard seed, fenugreek, nigella, cumin, and fennel. I recommend it with a side of the Pulao: North Carolina’s own Tidewater Carolina Gold rice, transformed into a rich, ghee-based pulao layered with fried onion, mint, rose, nuts, and sesame. Diners are invited to mix the dish at the table, letting the fragrant ghee at the bottom melt into each grain—a final flourish that feels almost ceremonial.
Where Rahman’s grandmother showed love through flavor, Shanahan’s Southern grandmother, from Wilson, taught him the art of hosting. “She knew how to throw a party,” he says. “It wasn’t just about the food—it was how you made people feel.”
That spirit lives on in the Mai-Tiger, Peregrine’s playful take on a tiki classic. Made with a proprietary blend of three rums, pistachio orgeat, dry Curaçao, and lime, it’s a bold and layered cocktail with global roots—a nod to Shanahan’s own artistic wanderlust and to his grandmother’s gift for bringing people together. “It’s like a vacation in a glass,” he says. “You travel the Caribbean in one sip.”
Finished with an orchid garnish, the drink isn’t just beautiful—it’s symbolic. “My grandmother embraced strangers and made them feel like family. That’s what this place is about, too.”
The menu at Peregrine is organized narratively, with the themes of migration, travel, and wanderings. “A diner can take mini-trips around the world with just one visit here. Different journeys with different meals,” Rahman says. Dishes often begin as stories—told around the kitchen by Rahman and then built with input from the restaurant’s trusted team. “We have an amazing group who all believe in this vision.”
That vision includes honoring the past while embracing change. Even the Ode to Amina will evolve with the seasons, as new fish and new stories come to the table. Rahman referred to the restaurant as “New American,” despite the obvious Bangladeshi slant. But that’s the beauty of the diversity in the Triangle. As Shanahan says, “The more we put labels on people, the more we divide. We can respect heritage but still come together.”
For more from Chef Saif Rahman, check out our previous article on holiday dinners, where he shares his recipe for a Bengali Holiday Turkey.
