The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bringing a thoughtful approach to the menu
Brian So, the 29-year-old chef at Spring in Marietta, is quiet and understated, both in the way he talks and cooks. But if you want to see him get riled up, just mistreat one of his strawberries.
“It really makes me mad when we get in these beautiful strawberries or beautiful anything, especially things that are fragile, things we pay good money for and that have been grown with such care by our farmers,” he says. “To see one of my cooks just plop it into a container and throw it in the fridge, it kind of rubs me the wrong way.”
That kind of respect for ingredients and attention to detail is obvious in the thoughtfully curated food he serves at Spring, be it chilled corn soup or watermelon salad, steak tartare or his famous chicken-liver pate on housemade brioche. Not long after So and his wife, Kerry Han, opened Spring last May, the restaurant caught the attention of critics. Earlier this year, the Kennesaw native and son of Korean-born parents was a semifinalist in the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year category.
He began his culinary journey as a high-school teen, working as a dishwasher at a Japanese restaurant in Marietta. He tried college but realized he was more interested in cooking than classroom studies.
So he took off for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. After graduating, he worked at the Breakers Palm Beach, put in some time with chef Daniel Patterson at Coi in San Francisco, then returned to Atlanta, where he cooked with Robert Phalen at One Eared Stag and helped open the kitchen at the late Sobban.
The chef says the positive response to his first restaurant has been both unexpected, and deeply gratifying. And while he has plans to expand (patio seating, Sunday brunch, a cocktail program), he’ll never waver from his purist approach.
Every day, he writes a simple menu based on whatever fresh product is on hand. He makes sourdough bread and churns the butter to go with it.
He grew up eating Korean, but Southern food speaks to him just as much. Recently, he had a cold, and his mom brought him some of her napa cabbage soup, which made him realize he was craving Southern-style greens. Soon, he put braised collards on the menu, alongside quail and grits. His philosophy in a few words: “A lot of times, it’s really what I want to be eating and what is around for me to eat.”
Spring, 90 Marietta Station Walk, Marietta. 678-540-2777, springmarietta.com.