The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The fine art of the pop-up
Turn your home into a hip eatery with recipes, pro tips.
Jarrett Stieber helped pioneer the pop-up in Atlanta when he launched Eat Me Speak Me at Gato in Candler Park in 2014.
Since 2017, he’s continued to hone his crafty cooking at SOS in Decatur, offering an array of dishes with what former Atlanta Journal-Constitution dining John Kessler once described as “wit and smarts to spare.”
Stieber got his start working in fine-dining restaurants such as Abattoir and Empire State South. But he’s always combined a playful and sometimes irreverent attitude with a penchant for serving valuepriced food made with high quality local ingredients.
“I never set out to do a pop-up, it just kind of happened,” Stieber says.
“But with Eat Me Speak and a few others, we were some of the first people to do it on a regular basis in Atlanta. It will be five years in June and I think what we do still mystifies people in some ways.”
Demystifying his approach, Stieber explains it as both a reaction to his fine-dining background and way to keep himself and others entertained.
“The biggest thing for me is trying to break down the traditional barriers associated with fine dining. It’s a style of food that I grew up cooking.
But it’s such a small number of people that understand the terminology and the ingredients, and can Chef Jarrett Stieber’s Fry Bread with Braised Meat, Winter Vegetables with Rice Porridge, and Chocolate Torte.
handle the price tag, which is the biggest thing.”
“We’re trying to control overhead, source cheaper cuts of meat, and be more vegetable-focused, so we can keep our food costs low to keep our prices low. We want to make the little satirical kind of menu that hopefully puts people in a fun spirit when they come in. You don’t feel like you’re in a stuffy fine-dining place, but you can still get food with that attention to detail.”
Given all that, we wondered if home cooks could learn a thing or two from Stieber, and maybe even try doing a pop-up themselves as an alternative to the same old dinner party.
Thankfully, his answer was an enthusiastic yes. And he even offered up a three-course menu with recipes straight out of the SOS playbook.
“We did a yakitori supper club about once a month that a friend hosted at his house,” Stieber remembers.
“People loved that atmosphere. It’s so fun to redecorate your apartment or your house for a night.
“Put a little extra effort into tidying up and curating an atmosphere, whether it’s with some string lights or candles or what ever you like. Get a group of people over, and treat it more like a restaurant service.”
Among the three dishes Stieber shared, the recipe for Brussels sprouts with rice porridge, scallion, peanut and Korean chile flakes can work as a starter or a familystyle side.
“It’s something we do during the fall and winter, because it is such a hearty dish,” he says.
“But it will work with other kinds of vegetables and even in the summer, because it’s not as heavy as you think it would be.
“We use rice middlins, which are like rice grits in consistency, and that just becomes a very nice vehicle to flavor and put all kinds of different toppings on it. It can also be a hearty option for vegans or vegetarians.”
For the main dish, Stieber gave us a rather unusual favorite, fry bread with braised meat, peas and shaved root vegetables.
“It was inspired by Navajo fry bread,” he says. “But they also call it fry bake in the Caribbean. Almost every culture has a simple fried dough. It’s such a great dish to be just flour, water and salt.
“From there, like the rice porridge, it’s a blank canvas for the toppings. We’ve done Southwestern, North African, and Southeast Asian flavors with it. And it would do well with Italian flavors, too.”
For dessert, Stieber’s Choco Torte is an easy-bake, flourless creation he describes as a “chocolate dream.”
“We always have two desserts on the menu, and this is one of the favorites,” he says. “It does well on its own or with just a few toppings, like a plop of fresh whipped cream and a little sea salt.”