buku | Global Street Food

The name “bu•ku” comes from an international slang twist on the phrase, “Merci, beaucoup”  meaning, “Thank you, very much.”

Located at the corner of Wilmington and Davie Street, in the center of the quickly emerging food conscious Wilmington Street, bu•ku: Global Street Food is a local restaurant telling a global story.

Inspired by food from the pushcarts of vendors in cities across the globe, bu•ku serves an array of street foods from around the world. The common link: these are foods that people love. Working within different regional traditions, our menu brings together complex and flavorful dishes and that have been honed over generations.  Foods like Polish pierogis, Colombian arepas, and Thai papaya salad served in a banana leaf can be found on the street corners of Warsaw, Bogota, and Bangkok. Their predecessors, prepared in kitchens and over outdoor cook-fires for hundreds of years, are popular favorites that have morphed into street foods to meet the demands of changing times. We strive to convey the immediate thrill a traveler feels eating foods like these as they first cross over the cart and exchange hands into the urban setting.

We are a locally owned and operated restaurant. Watching the influx of people from around the world moving to the Triangle, we decided to open a place where people with different nationalities could eat something familiar or try something they’d never had before. Our Global Street Food menu is a new type of dining, designed for mix and match tasting and plate sharing that starts conversations. If you prefer a more traditional menu, our large “In off the Street” section provides familiar entrées, and our varied vegetarian selection will continue to grow. Our casual fine dining atmosphere and large private banquet room make us well suited for romancing a significant other, meeting up with friends, or holding an event celebration. Our menu represents our commitment to serve high quality produce, hormone-free farm-raised beef and sustainable market seafood.

Global Street Food naturally lends itself to a fresh, fast, affordable downtown lunch with healthy options, the bu•ku BAR offers a culinary-inspired approach to hand-crafted beer, wine, and cocktails, and our Sunday World Tour Buffet Brunch is Downtown Raleigh’s best. We hope that you are able to come down, visit with us, and enjoy all that we have to offer. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Merci, bu•ku