by Kristen Wile

When guests step into Flight, a wine bar opening August 2 in Elizabeth, they’re greeted by the sight of an open kitchen built around a custom Italian wood-fired grill. The grill, imported from Italy and constructed on-site, is also visible to guests walking by the restaurant’s windows. Yet, while the oven is a focal point of the kitchen, it’s not the most important piece of inspiration for the menu. The tile on the outside of the oven reads “white wine” in Portuguese, a hint at the restaurant’s priority: while the kitchen is important, it also is meant to enhance the restaurant’s wine list, and vice versa.

Owners Dwight and Vicki Bailey created Flight by bringing together some of their most memorable experiences from traveling abroad. 

“We brought in different elements from various places around the world,” says Vicki Bailey. The dining room has an ambiance that unites comfort and luxury, with exposed concrete floors against jewel-toned fabrics and glistening chandeliers. Framed photos of the Baileys’ travels adorn the walls, and the wooden tables were handmade by Vicki Bailey’s father.

The Baileys have carefully selected the wine list, focusing on small-production wines that aren’t readily available in the Charlotte area. There will also be a full cocktail program and beers on tap for those who don’t prefer wine. The wine list was built around the food menu to ensure a cohesive culinary experience.
With backgrounds in medicine, the Baileys brought on chef Clayton Sanders to help lead the restaurant to opening.

Sanders, who won the 2023 Charlotte StrEATs Festival Neighborhood Cook-Off, is also a teacher with Chef Alyssa’s Kitchen. This is the fourth restaurant he’ll help open in his career, which includes experiences with a similar live-fire cooking style at Aria and Halcyon.

“I’ve been in the industry for 30 plus years, so I kind of see things in that mindset of, ‘What space can we use to utilize and maximize the most out of the kitchen?’” he says. “Because the end goal is to put out the best food we can for the customer’s sake. We’re very customer-obsessed, customer-forward, and we want that to come through in the food.”

On the menu will be a selection of pizzas — which can be cooked in just minutes, thanks to the 900-degree oven and made with focaccia dough —salads, and other shared plates, including a family recipe of meatballs, housemade ricotta, and fried olives. With the style of dining and wine lists, Flight looks to encourage diners to slow down and enjoy the moments they spend there, as both the Baileys and Sanders have done on their trips abroad. 

“It’s the wheelhouse of cooking that I like doing — the shareable plates, the community aspect,” Sanders says. “It’s such a different culinary and life culture.”

The wine list will feature 150 wines by the bottle and use a Coravin system to offer an extensive by-the-glass list. The restaurant will be open Tuesday-Sunday and seat about 70 guests inside and 25 outside. Seating will be a mix of reservations and walk-ins. The team eventually plans to host wine dinners once the staff gets used to regular service.

Over the past few weeks, the restaurant team has been working on details, knowing that in a competitive landscape, diners expect a solid experience right from the start — an experience they’re hoping to deliver, from ambiance to service and food and wine, and an experience that the team hopes sticks with guests as their visits to wine bars in other countries have stayed with them.

“We have a place that is building the ambiance of that kind of neighborhood, out-of-nowhere you pop into this beautiful aesthetic,” Sanders says. “You find that on every nook and cranny of a street in San Sebastian or a street in Lisbon or Porto or wherever. It’s that rustic simplicity with that elegance.”