Mary Mac’s potato salad goes heavy on the mayonnaise

Mary Mac’s Tea Room

224 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta; 404-876-1800; marymacs.com.

I love everything about Mary Mac’s — the food, the service and atmosphere, the best fried chicken and fried green tomatoes. But the potato salad they make and serve is the best. The flavor and the dressing it’s in are so good. Do you have the recipe for Mary Mac’s potato salad? Thank you. — Rosemary Routman, Duluth

We didn’t have the recipe, but Matt Thompson, director of operations for Mary Mac’s Tea Room, was happy to supply it. They use Hellman’s Extra Heavy Mayonnaise, a food service product that has more egg yolks than the Hellman’s at the grocery store. If you want to precisely duplicate the Mary Mac’s dressing, Walmart and buying clubs like Costco and BJ’s appear to carry gallon jars of Hellman’s Extra Heavy Mayonnaise.

Cook your potatoes ahead of time and make sure they’re very cold when you make this salad. Then mix it up and chill until ready to serve. Enjoy it with your New Year’s ham. Is there a recipe from a metro Atlanta restaurant you’d like to make at home? Tell us and we’ll try to get it. We’ll also test it and adapt it for the home kitchen. Because of volume, we can’t answer all inquiries. Send your request, your address and phone number to fromthemenu@gmail.com and put “From the menu of ” and the name of restaurant in the subject line.