Tag Archives: Birmingham AL restaurants

Joyland

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I’ve been following Chef Sean Brock’s career for about a decade now. The Pound, Virginia, native first hit my radar because of his roles at Charleston restaurants Husk and McCrady’s and for his devotion to and preservation of Southern foodways and Appalachian cuisine. Brock has since moved his base of operations to Nashville where his restaurants, Audrey and June, and his “hi-fidelity vinyl bar and lounge,” Bar Continental, are drawing enthusiastic responses. Two of my favorite recent cookbooks are Brock’s Heritage (2014) and South (2019) in which he writes succulently and memorably about food and ingredients.

Sharing a laugh with Sean Brock in Florence

I have only had the opportunity to eat a complete Sean Brock dinner on one occasion. He helmed a Friends of the Café dinner in Florence, Alabama, at the Alabama Chanin design factory. From the tomato and okra stew with a grilled pig tail garnish to a shrimp and eggplant purloo, grilled steak with black truffle and sweet potato, and the panna cotta dessert, it was one of the finest of many fine meals I’ve had at that cherished spot.

I have been hoping he would get around to opening a restaurant in Birmingham, “the dinner table of the South” and home to a disproportionate share of James Beard Award winners, finalists, and nominees. My hope has finally come to fruition – although perhaps not quite in the way I expected.

Sean Brock has partnered with Nick Pihakis and the Pihakis Restaurant Group to open a location of Brock’s Joyland family restaurant in Birmingham’s Avondale neighborhood. The Pihakis restaurant portfolio is extensive and its various brands are ubiquitous in the Birmingham area and beyond. I must admit that I seem to be on a first-name basis with the staff at Rodney Scott’s BBQ’s Homewood location. Pihakis began with his father at Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q in Lakewood. From there, the Pihakis group has expanded to restaurants featuring Gulf seafood, Greek, Italian, Mexican, breakfast, donuts, Rodney Scott’s, and now, Joyland – essentially an elevated breakfast and burger joint.

Joyland’s signature Crustburger features a thin hamburger patty, cheese, and onion between a flattened potato bun, skillet-toasted to a crusty crunch and served with a side of joysauce. A more traditional hamburger, fried chicken, Chicago dogs, an impossible burger, and chicken on a stick are also available. Sides include fries and hashbrowns. A breakfast and biscuit menu has a nice selection of options and sides, including a shake menu. An apple hand pie was a joyful completion to the meal. A bar is available as are “boozy shakes.” Everything I tried was good.

But the real reason I want to talk about Joyland is how committed the place seems to be to its name. From the sunburst mural on the side of the building to the sparkling primary colors throughout the retro interior and spacious courtyard, there is a bright vibe to the place. A disco ball, probably left over from the Rodney Scott’s BBQ that was previously in that location (all of Rodney Scott’s restaurants have a disco ball), dots the entrance area with dancing light and the music kept me moving in my seat. The television screens show cartoons and several children were going between the courtyard and the dining room. The urge to stand up and dance when Talking Heads’ “And She Was” came on was strong.  The staff is friendly and even seemed happy to be there.

And the food is tasty and cleverly straightforward.

Joy. What a concept.

A Bright Star Celebration

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My mother shares a June birth date with her long-time friend Ruth in Tuscaloosa. In years past, when my parents were living in Tuscaloosa, Mom and Ruth would have a lunch to celebrate around birthday time. They renewed the tradition last year, with Ruth driving up from Tuscaloosa to meet Mother at Bessemer’s venerable Bright Star, a Birmingham-area institution since 1907 (History | Bright Star Restaurant (thebrightstar.com). They had to delay this year’s celebration, which was a landmark birthday for my mother, but they met at Bright Star not long ago.

It is my habit to drive Mother to the luncheon, send her and Ruth to a booth in the main dining room, and take a table away from them to have lunch on my own. I am not always the best company for my mother, I think, and she and Ruth always have a fine old time. So I stay away and let them celebrate as long as they like. As I sat in a small booth, enjoying one of Bright Star’s specialty seafood dishes, I was once again moved by the history and tradition of the place. Bessemer is a small city about fifteen minutes from downtown Birmingham and, when most of the heavy industrial plants, including a Pullman railroad car plant, left town, a good chunk of the economy left with it.

Through it all, the Bright Star has stayed strong since opening as a 12-seat bar in 1907. It is now a sprawling restaurant in the heart of downtown Bessemer which serves as a meat-and-three by day and shifts to a more fine-dining oriented menu in the evening. The Bright Star is the kind of place one goes to for special occasions – a birthday, before a wedding, after a funeral, an anniversary. It runs a brisk business before or after Alabama football games. Coach Bear Bryant’s favorite booth is in the back, close to the kitchen, and Coach Nick Saban’s booth in the 1907 Room has been added to the seating options. A friend and I were having dinner there on a Sunday night in the ’80s when it seemed like every priest in the metro was passing our table on the way to a private room in the back.  Jimmy  Koikos, one of the owners, on one of his passes,  said, “They come  most Sundays.”  Actor Sandra Bullock brought her dad, who had Alabama roots, there for Father’s Day one time. 

Members of the same Greek-American family have owned the Bright Star since the beginning. It was honored with a James Beard American Classics Award in 2010. In my years going there it has mostly been run by brothers Jimmy and Nick Koikos. “Mr. Jimmy,” who greeted guests and is featured in many of the photos that line the lobby, passed away a few years ago and now the restaurant is owned by Nick, his niece manager Stacey Craig, and cousin Executive Chef Andreas Anastassakis. The Greek heritage is reflected on the menu, as are Southern staples. They serve great steaks but I usually have a Greek-style seafood entrée.

In the main dining room, landscape murals line the upper walls above the wainscotting. These were painted by itinerant German painters in 1915. I have never heard names for these painters but I have always wanted to know more about their story. For most of my life, the murals were glazed a deep golden brown. The restaurant did a restoration of the murals in the early-2000s and the transformation was startling. The brown tint was the result of decades of tobacco smoke in the earlier days before smoking restrictions were in force. The subtle shades of the restored murals cast a much lighter ambiance to the room.

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Sitting separately from my mom and Ruth, old friends with many stories to share, I would occasionally hear the pleasant sound of laughter from the back of the room. I have never been one for chitchat and don’t seem to have the ability to make my mother laugh that much, so it was good to hear her celebrating her birthday with someone who can always make her laugh.

My mother’s favorite Bright Star dessert is their decadent lemon icebox pie. I had two slices sent back to the table to top off an extended and celebratory lunch date. While they were visiting, a thunderstorm and windswept rain had come and gone and the city streets were glistening wet in sunlight when we emerged.

The two friends looked out at the wet street in surprise. “It rained?” they asked. The Bright Star had worked its magic one more time.

Automatic Seafood and Oysters

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Some things are worth the wait. Three years ago, Chef Adam Evans presented a dinner for Alabama Chanin’s “Friends of the Café” series that still ranks among my favorites of over two dozen meals eaten at that venue. Evans had just completed a successful run at The Optimist and other Atlanta restaurants, and, since I’d rather have a colonoscopy than go to Atlanta, I had only admired him based on his press from afar. It was a pleasure to experience his menu and see that he lived up to his reputation. The course I most remember from that night was perhaps the simplest – a garden salad assembled with ingredients gathered from the chef’s grandfather’s garden that morning.

Evans is a Shoals native and the rumor in Florence that night was that he was working on a new restaurant concept for Birmingham. That rumor put Evans’s Birmingham restaurant on my radar and I began to do regular searches for “Chef Adam Evans Birmingham.”

My diligence did not yield much information until the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) Winter Symposium in Birmingham in February 2018. The opening night reception was held on the loading dock of an abandoned factory on 5th Avenue S. in the Lakeview District. Chef Evans had grills set up off the loading dock and picnic tables were arranged for seating. It was a delicious, charming, and bare bones affair.

The theme for that symposium was “Narratives that Transform” and John T. Edge, SFA Executive Director, announced that the space where we had gathered for our opening night reception was the future site of Adam Evans’s new restaurant, and that the narrative begun that night would conclude at the 2019 SFA Winter Symposium with an opening night reception in the finished restaurant on that very site.

Now that I had a location, I drove past that corner of 5th Avenue every weekend to check on the progress. There wasn’t much to see for several months, but then windows began to appear and a restaurant began to take shape at what used to be the Automatic Sprinkler Corporation factory. Still, by January 2019, I was skeptical that there would be a finished restaurant in time for the symposium in February.

The SFA Winter Symposium 2019 held its opening night reception at Good People Brewing.

Automatic Seafood and Oysters (www.automaticseafood.com) opened in April. I was anxious to eat there as soon as possible but a good opportunity did not present itself until August, when my friend Christina drove down from Huntsville to join me for dinner during Sidewalk weekend.

If you ask about my favorite types of restaurants, my answers will be all over the map. I like any place where one can eat authentic and well-prepared food, whatever the price point and style, and where the ambience is warm and friendly. But one of my very favorites is an urban seafood place with a comfortable vibe and delicious and imaginative food. Birmingham’s Ocean (www.birminghamocean.com) on 20th Street S. has been a long-time favorite. Non-residents don’t realize that Birmingham is only about four hours from the Gulf of Mexico and trucks with fresh catches come into the city daily. I still won’t eat seafood in land-locked states, but it is always fresh and available in Birmingham.

With all of those points in mind, Automatic Seafood and Oysters is a new favorite to add to my lists. The interior, designed by Suzanne Humphries Evans, combines an open layout with furnishings that seem upscale and special while also recalling a seafood shack on the Gulf. Large floor-to-ceiling windows on the north and east facades add to the open feel. The restaurant is located in a transitioning neighborhood that still has an industrial feel, so the decision to put the main entrance off the street on the north side allows entry onto a terraced green lawn, away from the bustle and traffic of the street-side.

Servers are friendly, knowledgeable, and attentive and the menu is full of seasonal options. Christina commented that she’d like to order a bite of everything. Instead, our meal started off with crab claws and freshly shucked oysters from the large and beautiful oyster bar located in a corner of the room. For contrast, I ordered Canadian oysters from Prince Edward Island and Murder Point oysters from Bayou La Batre, Alabama (www.murderpointoysters.com). The briny, buttery Murder Points were the best Gulf oysters I’ve ever had, and possibly the best oysters I’ve ever had, period.

My main course was a simply roasted grouper that was prepared, seasoned, and presented to perfection. Christina’s cobia dish was equally detailed. Conversation waned as we savored two beautifully prepared seafood dishes. Our generous shared side of basmati rice with smoked fish, curry, and peanuts was an ideal accompaniment to both dishes.

For dessert, there were several tempting choices but we chose brown sugar cake with peaches and cream. It was a perfect finale – a little decadent, but not too sweet.

Automatic Seafood and Oysters is a bright new jewel on an already vibrant Birmingham culinary landscape. After three years of waiting, I am happy to say my high expectations were met and exceeded. I look forward to my next of many visits to come.

New Orleans to Bessemer, 2019

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The Bright Star Restaurant’s “Night in New Orleans,” which had its thirtieth incarnation last week, has become a rite of passage for the month of August at the venerable 1907 restaurant in Bessemer, just down I-20/59 from Birmingham. Long billed as “Alabama’s Oldest Restaurant” and the winner of a 2010 James Beard Foundation Award as an “American Classic,” Bright Star has remained a popular dining destination even after the heavy industry that once defined Bessemer has slipped away (www.brightstar.com).

It was my father’s favorite restaurant; at his funeral, one of the ministers quipped in his eulogy that “Grover would sell his lawnmower to eat at the Bright Star.”

“Night in New Orleans” is a three-night event in which a New Orleans chef takes over the Bright Star kitchen and offers selections from a Crescent City restaurant. The late Jamie Shannon of Commander’s Palace and Tory McPhail, current executive chef of Commander’s, are among the notable past chefs who have presided over the event.

This year’s chef, Thomas Robey, recently took over executive chef duties at Tujague’s, the 163-year-old New Orleans staple on Decatur Street on the river side of the French Quarter. Tujague’s is probably most recognizable to New Orleans visitors for the iconic sign over America’s oldest stand-up bar on the corner of Decatur and Madison. The doors are always open and the bar is always crowded with locals and tourists alike (www.tujaguesrestaurant.com).

Chef Robey is no stranger to Birmingham or the Bright Star. He was on Jamie Shannon’s staff for previous “Night in New Orleans” events in the ‘90s and was executive chef of Birmingham’s Veranda on Highlands for several years. He left Veranda for another stint with McPhail at Commander’s before being named executive chef of Tujague’s in summer 2018.

Mother and I arrived on a Saturday evening about twenty minutes before the restaurant opened. A sizable crowd was already waiting in the Bright Star’s large lobby space – a crowd clearly made up mostly of the Bright Star’s dining room’s seasoned veterans. Some chose to sport Mardi Gras beads for the occasion and New Orleans jazz was just audible over the general din as Bright Star hosts began to quickly seat the crowd.

The menu for these events is split into two parts – one features dishes from Bright Star’s regular menu and the other is a sampling of the guest chef’s dishes from his home restaurant. Since my mother has dietary restrictions, the Bright Star part of the menu was her reliable go-to.

I was there, however, for the tastes of New Orleans and focused on the Tujague’s menu, choosing the cheesy char-broiled oysters as my first course. Other first course options were a shrimp and tasso bisque and a watermelon and tomato salad.

The main course offered a skin-on snapper over a corn maque choux, pan-roasted Maple Leaf duck breast, and a grilled pork loin with a mirliton dressing. I, of course, opted for the seafood and the snapper arrived atop a generous and complex maque choux, an elevated succotash-like preparation. Chef Robey’s iteration had a corn and tomato base with finely chopped peppers, green onions, peas, okra, and Creole spices. As I was trying to break down the maque choux ingredients for Mother, Chef Robey strolled past our tableside to explain that the name “maque choux” is probably a French derivation of a Native American name for the dish, which has become an amalgamation of indigenous and Creole techniques.

For the final taste of New Orleans, there was a creamy Grasshopper panna cotta – a nod to the minty signature cocktail invented at Tujague’s in 1918. Garnished with chocolate mints, it was a smooth capper to a rich New Orleans-inspired meal.

Leaving Bright Star’s “Night in New Orleans” in the sultry summer dusk, the urge is strong to take I-59 southbound and travel the quick five hours to experience another night in New Orleans for real.

“This makes me really happy …”

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… said chef Rick Bayless on Monday, May 7, as he announced Frank and Pardis Stitt’s Highlands Bar and Grill of Birmingham as the James Beard Foundation Award winner for Outstanding Restaurant in America. This came after the restaurant was a consistent semi-finalist for the award for the past decade. To sweeten the deal, Dolester Miles — Highlands’ long-time pastry chef — won the James Beard Award as Outstanding Pastry Chef earlier the same night.

Highlands has been a point of pride for Birmingham and the Southern culinary scene since it opened in 1982 and this honor further cements its place in America’s fine dining profile. Here is a 2015 essay I wrote about Highlands Bar and Grill.

My first extended post-Katrina visit to New Orleans in 2007 coincided with the New Orleans Wine and Food Experience. Held in May, that event showcases local restaurants and is a draw for food and wine aficionados from many places. I met a couple who were restaurateurs from Napa and the husband’s work required him to travel all over the world. When I mentioned that I was from Birmingham, he said, “You know, Birmingham is a great food city. Not many people know that.”

I already knew but it was nice to hear it from somebody from the west coast.

Growing up in Birmingham, there was good dining to be had with an abundance of Greek-owned eateries from hot dog stands to white tablecloth establishments. The place has long been a mecca for classic southern “meat and three” places and the quality and variety of barbecue and barbecue styles in the area is an embarrassment of riches.

But when Frank Stitt opened Highlands Bar and Grill (www.highlandsbarandgrill.com) in Five Points South in 1982, the bar for Birmingham dining was significantly raised. A few years later Stitt opened Bottega and Bottega Café (www.bottegarestaurant.com) a few blocks away on Highland Avenue and then Chez Fonfon (www.fonfonbham.com), a more casual bistro, next door to Highlands.

Add to that a preponderance of good eats from other chefs, many of whom worked for Stitt before striking out on their own. A new attitude and a new swagger is always creating a great and unpretentious urban destination for dining at every level and taste. In the Five Points South area near Highlands, I am partial to Ocean (www.oceanbirmingham.com) and Hot and Hot Fish Club (www.hotandhotfishclub.com) but every time I go to Birmingham lately it seems that a “must visit” new dining option has opened somewhere in the city. I am falling way behind on keeping up and checking them out.

Highlands, however, is still the flagship, setting the standard. It is pricey and elegant and provides an unmistakable sense of occasion as one enters the door. However, it is never snooty nor pretentious, it features the best locally grown and fresh ingredients with the menu changing daily, and a meal at Highlands is always an opportunity to relax and breathe. Frank Stitt and his wife, Pardis, create gracious and memorable dining experiences for their guests.

The wait staff is knowledgeable, efficient, and playful. I like to eat seafood from the Gulf when I am at Highlands; for my taste, Highlands prepares fish better than anybody. But everything on the menu pleases. We celebrated my mother’s milestone birthday at Highlands in summer 2014 and she declared her steak that night to be “the best steak I’ve ever eaten.” The menu is seasonal and changes often but Highlands baked grits, a signature dish, is always on the menu.

Two of my most often thumbed through cookbooks are by Frank Stitt. The first, an instant classic, is Frank Stitt’s Southern Table. It was followed by Frank Stitt’s Bottega Favorita. In each, the reader and cook find a delicious assortment of unique takes on food preparation and presentation culled from Stitt’s extensive experience. Stitt is a native of Cullman, Alabama, who attended college at Tufts and Berkeley, apprenticed and cooked in France and the Caribbean, and ultimately opened his restaurants less than an hour from where he was born.

Highlands Bar and Grill and Frank Stitt are on my mind this week as the James Beard Awards (JBAs) for restaurants and chefs is held in Chicago on Monday night. Highlands Bar and Grill is again one of the five finalists for Outstanding Restaurant.

I have been paying attention to the JBAs (www.jamesbeard.org) for many years and have paid particularly close attention since Stitt and Highlands have been regular contenders. Stitt was inducted into the JBA Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in 2011 and was named Best Chef – Southeast in 2001. I find that very often the winner for Outstanding Restaurant is a top five finalist several times before it wins so every year I tune in to see if this year is Highlands’ “turn.”

I want to be a witness when Highlands gets its much deserved honor. It will be an honor for the whole city. On the down side, it may make it even harder to get a reservation at Highlands Bar and Grill.

Mother and Truman at Highlands in June 2014

My mother, Jean Journey, and my nephew, Truman, at Highlands Bar and Grill (June 2014)