I've spent my recent weekends trekking to the restaurants of some of the Southeast's finest practitioners of its native regional cuisines. Of course, that could include barbecue pit masters who cook out of remote rural shacks, or local speakeasies where the owner has been making biscuits by hand for 20 years.
But I took the high-end road.
I sought out pre-eminent chefs of the Southeast (excluding New Orleans, which is a subject unto itself) not just because I wanted to see if their food was worth the commotion — I pretty much trusted it was. I cast off for these dining destinations because I longed to taste the sense of place engendered in their food. While chefs in New York or Chicago may be celebrated for their sense of invention or outlandishness, most of the South prizes local cooks who honor their roots and do the region proud. Southerners — and we can be generous and include seasoned transplants in that group, particularly since I'm one of them — luxuriate in fried green tomatoes or mac-n-cheese treated with some well-earned respect.
Obviously, these chefs also take appreciated creative liberties. "It's good not to be strictly Southern," Ben Barker told me at his Durham, NC restaurant, Magnolia Grill. "Our guests enjoy the worldly sensibility." Surveying Barker's full dining room as I ate octopus salame with green olive guacamole alongside his deconstructed Brunswick stew, I could see he made a seductive argument.
Cosmopolitan embellishments aside, a pride and passion for indigenous ingredients and classic dishes provide the starch in the backbone that each of the chefs display in their compelling menus.
Ready for a road trip? I'd gladly take to the highways again to dine at the tables of these caretakers of Southern culinary traditions. Just help me keep an eye out for the boys in blue next time.
bill.addison@creativeloafing.com
more stories in The Food Issue
John Currence
City Grocery in Oxford, MS
by bill addison
John Currence looks like a man preparing for battle. He greets us in City Grocery's upstairs bar with a pink bandana wrapped around his head and a burning cigarette inhaled down to its nub in his left...
Frank Stitt
Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham, AL
The first bite delivers a gentle surge of corn, familiar yet ardent. I can pick up the barely perceptible trace of nutty parmesan in the second mouthful. The texture is stout but also silkier than expected. It...
Ben and Karen Barker
Magnolia Grill in Durham, NC
by bill addison
Magnolia Grill does not look the way I imagined it would. For a nationally recognized bastion of New Southern cuisine, the restaurant seems positively... spare. In fact, it more closely resembles an immaculate meat-n-three joint. (It was...
Michael and Laurence Gottlieb
Gottlieb's in Savannah, GA
by bill addison
Michael and Laurence Gottlieb both knew they wanted to be chefs when they grew up. After all, food has been the family business since 1884. Their great-grandfather, Isadore, founded Gottlieb's Bakery, a Savannah institution for more than...
Louis Osteen
Louis's at Pawleys on Pawley's Island, SC
by bill addison
Louis Osteen relaxes on the deck of his Fish Camp bar, his shaggy head bopping to the fiery blues playing overhead. He casually flips the pages of the New York Times spread out in front of him....
Top Toques
Charlotte's 10 best chefs
by tricia childress
Today's star chefs are part of American celebrity. Most of these chefs have a cadre of publicists, press agents and marketing directors. Names like Wolfgang Puck, Todd English, Toms Colicchio and Keller, and Charlies Trotter and Palmer...
The Next Generation
Keep an eye on these up-and-coming chefs
by santa claus
After graduating from culinary school, the most promising chefs spend several years gaining hands-on experience from the already established top chefs. Some Charlotteans were under the mistaken impression that the opening of Johnson & Wales University's culinary...
THIS WEEK IN
Female Aficionados
Wine List
Wine Classes for Women A series of... 
Declaration of Independence (Boulevard)
Exploring Charlotte's offbeat eateries
by timothy c. davis
This much is certain: There's a lot of great food to be found outside of the so-called Charlotte Center City. And while there are lots of intriguing, under-the-radar establishments all across our ever-expanding "New South" burg -...
Great Scott
A conversation with nationally renowned Southern chef Scott Peacock 
By Cliff Bostock
cliff bostock
I met Scott Peacock, executive chef of Watershed in Decatur, GA, and co-author with Edna Lewis of The Gift of Southern Cooking, around 1991, just after he was laid off from his job as chef at the...
Come Fry With Me
Tips to take the intimidation out of fried chicken
by kim o'donnel
As a kid from up North, I have long held a romantic notion that if you grew up in the South, you spent your summers sitting under a willowy tree with a glass of lemonade in one...
Women increasingly wow the wine world
by taylor eason
As a woman, I get especially proud when I meet a dynamic, talented female winemaker. You know... a chick with balls. She's not afraid of the good ol' boy wine industry, and arrives on the scene full...
Wine Classes The interactive classes will explore the essentials of wine and food pairing, tasting techniques and trends in winemaking. Wed., 7pm. $25. Maggiano's Little Italy, 4400 Sharon Rd. 704-916-2300.
Good Eats
Anntony’s Caribbean, 6434-F West Sugarcreek Rd., 704-598-6863; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$...
Our critics' guide to recommended restaurants in Charlotte
All Around Town
