Regional pride: The South’s best new restaurants
Choosing the best new restaurants in the South is “no easy feat,” said Chelsea Brasted in Southern Living. As traditions change and great food keeps emerging, our top 10 are led by a pizza joint in Birmingham. Ala., (Pizza Grace) and include Lucian Books and Wine, a bookshop in Atlanta that serves dinner five nights a week. Below are three others that are laudable not just for their cooking but for the ways they treat staff, support community, and “make everyone feel welcome.”
Conifer Bentonville, Ark. Matthew Cooper was a James Beard–nominated chef before finally opening his own place last year, a handsome farm-to-table, gluten-free restaurant where the large kitchen is in full view. Highlights on the seasonal menu include a squash salad with miso vinaigrette and locally raised lamb spiced with vadouvan, a French-influenced curry blend.
Zitz Sum Coral Gables, Fla. “Few menus are as uniquely delicious and surprising” as the one chef Pablo Zitzmann has devised. Raised in Colombia and the son of German and Mexican immigrants, he adores Japanese, Chinese, and Italian cuisines and mixes influences freely. If the shrimp dumplings with Calabrian chile oil sell out, try the dumplings filled with chicken and foie gras set in a mushroom-Parmesan broth.
Lengua Madre New Orleans Chef Ana Castro will open a bigger place next year, but it’s not too late to enjoy the tasting menu she serves at this petite spot in the Lower Garden District. Your dinner, inspired by the Mexican food Castro ate in her grandmother’s kitchen, might feature tamales topped with grated truffles or crab-stuffed banana peppers. “The experience feels as though you’ve been let inside someone’s story.”