Welcome back to Savannah Flavors, our weekly newsletter bringing you the latest delicious details from Savannah’s culinary scene every Thursday.

Here is what’s on the menu today:

• The Emporium Kitchen turns French Bistro 🇫🇷

• Craving a gyro? 🥙

• Try this homemade hushpuppy recipe with a glass of sweet tea

• Pacci’s new lunch menu 🥗

THE MAIN DISH

Executive Chef Daniel Herget takes The Emporium back to its French roots 🍷 

When Perry Lane Hotel first opened, its rez-de-chaussée restaurant was decidedly French. Every bespoke design element at The Emporium Kitchen & Wine Market said 8^e arrondissement brasserie: round-back wooden bistro chairs, cozy-tight seating, corner banquettes, and brass fixtures throughout. 

Par conséquent, the original menu was replete with de rigueur bistro fare: coquilles St. Jacques, salmon en papillote, rabbit ragout, a fruits de mer tower, and a proper omelette. 

Over the last half decade, as has been the case with many marquee hotel eateries in Savannah, The Emporium underwent leadership changes in the kitchen which begot culinary concept shifts, the most recent tacking toward this side of the Atlantic.

Come June, Executive Chef Daniel Herget will mark his second year helming all gastronomic operations at Perry Lane, and the timing seemed right to return The Emporium to its edible origins.

Ça a du sens as this pairs perfectly with Herget’s own culinary journey, and it is plain to see how excited he is to launch The Emporium’s new menu this month.

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

Shuk - Alexis Levin & Dylan Kennedy 🍔

Each week, I ask the folks behind the phenomenal food at our favorite places around Savannah these same simple questions:

When you are not in your restaurant kitchen, where do you go out to eat and what do you order?

This week’s Chefs’ Cravings come from Victorian East’s Mediterranean mecca Shuk and its owner, general manager, occasional server and line cook, and Jane-of-the-trades Alexis Levin and her kitchen leader Dylan Kennedy, who has been behind the scenes since Day One.

DK: I don’t get out much, and I don’t frequent a lot of spots. I always try something new, but I do really love Al Salaam. I feel like if there’s any place that I have repeated the most it’s Al Salaam. I get the lamb gyro 🥙 I’ve tried everything on their menu, but that’s the one I get all the time now.

AL: It’s classic street food. (to DK with a wry smile) You’re saying you don’t get sick of Mediterranean food?

DK: I used to live in one of the apartments right above it, so before this place opened, I would eat there maybe once a week. Still my favorite.

AL: I like to try new places as well. I feel like I end up at Starland Yard with something different all the time, and I can bring my dog there 🐶. The places that have opened in the last few weeks, I’ve already checked out: Uncle June’s and Nixtate. At Uncle June’s, I think I’ve ordered everything, but the buffalo cauliflower salad was really good. It was nice to have something fresh at Starland Yard. Sometimes, it’s a lot of fried food. At Nixtate, I got one of each of the flautas, fun snack food, for sure. My typical go-to is Green Truck to sit at the bar. I eat meat, but I like their veggie burger. It’s a black bean burger 🍔

DK: I don’t think I’ve tried that one, though I’ve tried most of their burgers. I like The Whole Farm. It has everything on it, bacon, egg.

And for a special occasion?

AL: I’d say, pretty steadily, I want the peanut butter pie at Cotton & Rye. Just sit at the bar there. That peanut butter pie 🥜… (turns to DK) Have you had that? Oh, it’s so good.

DK: I don’t have a go-to. The amount that I get out, there’s always a new restaurant. I did just try Common Thread for the first time, and it was so good. I had the okonomiyaki. It was fantastic.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Hush puppies 🌤🍹

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

For nearly a decade now, I have come to gastronomical grips with the fact that I was born in the wrong culinary zip code. Happily and hungrily, I am an adopted son of the south if only by way of what I want to eat.

As I have alluded to before, Western New York was not an alimentary wasteland, though it knew its niche of pizza and wings, big-and-floppy burgers, charbroiled white hots, and a Friday fish fry.

With the utmost respect to my mom and all of her Marsh family aunts and their crackerjack cooking skills, none of them was Miss Geneva or Erica Wade, so none of us grew up gobbling up fried green tomatoes, pimiento cheese, red rice, proper grits, or bona fide barbecue.

High among the southern standards in my palatable playbook are hush puppies. No matter where we eat out, if these spherical corn fritters are on the menu, they are soon-to-be in my mouth, and I am a.o.k. that no two recipes are identical in taste and texture.

While I am sure that bad hush puppies are out there somewhere in Savannah, I have partaken of plenty that are great. Let the laudations commence for which resto makes the best in town. 

Though heating up a saucepan half-full of oil is not part of my normal kitchen routine, the smelly step is well worth it whenever I fry up my own fritters, and my go-to base rendition comes from Whitney Otawka, Top Chef alum and onetime executive chef and culinary director at Greyfield Inn on Cumberland Island. Her cookbook, The Saltwater Table, contains a Triple T recipe that does not need any tinkering at all.

The batter comes together in a trice, so put a few cups of canola oil on medium-high heat before you start measuring and mixing. Here and there, test the temperature until it hits 350°. 

In a larger bowl, weigh out a little over a cup of cornmeal, about 150 grams, and under a half-cup of APF, about 50 grams. Otawka calls for spot-on volumes of the dry goods, but 200 grams is a nice even number to remember, and the 3:1 cornmeal-to-flour ratio is a gold standard. For the former, use Dixie Lily Stone Ground, which is a lighter variety that mixes nicely with the flour.

Into that same bowl, whisk in a teaspoon of kosher salt, two teaspoons of baking powder that does not contain sodium aluminum sulfate (Rumford, Trader Joe’s, or 365), and one teaspoon of Old Bay, roughly a third of the original recipe’s recommendation.

Sticking with that same neat number, pour 200 mil of buttermilk into a large measuring cup and whisk in a large egg and up to two tablespoons of honey.

Mince two tablespoons each of fresh chives and fresh Italian parsley with half of a sweet onion 🧅, and slide these aromatics into the wet goods.

Because the batter has baking powder, do not fold the wet and dry together until the oil is ready to go, lest the mixture puffs up too much on its own pre-frying. You can use a whisk for this step, but a rubber spatula will do the job just as well.

If you have room on your stovetop, set the batter bowl and an empty bowl lined with a few paper towels nearish the oil.

The batter has enough heft that it scoops up neatly into a flatware tablespoon. I am not suggesting you go full-quenelle, but using two spoons is the easiest and safest way to plop each dollop into the hot oil.

In my Calpahlon X.X-quart saucepan, I can fry six fritters at a time, which works fine for me and means that I am using far less oil. The little fellas may flip on their own as both ‘sides’ brown, but never walk away now that batter is in hot oil. About five minutes total is all it takes.

Use a slotted spoon to scoop the hush puppies into the bowl lined with paper towels, repeat, and eat.

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 150 grams (just over 1 cup) cornmeal (Dixie Lily Stone Ground)

• 50 grams (under ½ cup) APF 

• 1 t. kosher salt 🧂

• 2 t. baking powder (sodium aluminum sulfate-free)

• 1 t. Old Bay

• ½ of a small sweet onion, diced 🧅 

• 2 T. fresh chives, minced

• 2 T. fresh parsley, minced 🌱

WET GOODS

• 4-6 cups canola oil

• 1 large egg 🥚

• 1 ½ T. honey 🍯

• 200 ml (about ⅘ cup) buttermilk 🐄 

DO THIS

1. Pour the oil into a medium saucepan on medium-high heat

   • Have a thermometer ready

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, and Old Bay 🥣

3. Pour the buttermilk into a large measuring cup and whisk in the egg and the honey

4. On the same cutting board, mince the onion, chives, and parsley

5. Add the onion, chives, and parsley to the wet goods

6. Whisk or fold the wet goods into the dry goods, making sure that all of the dry is incorporated

7. Make sure that the oil has reached 350°

8. With two flatware tablespoons, scoop about that much batter into one and use the other to slide the batter gently into the oil

   • Repeat this step to accommodate the size of your frying vessel an the amount of oil

9. Allow the fritters to fry for about five minutes in total, flipping once if they do not do so on their own

10. Repeat these final steps until the batter bowl is empty

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Pacci’s New Lunch Menu 🥪 

That Saturday morning, spring had delightfully sprung, so a flunch downtown sounded perfect. My wife and I had just returned from a one-night trip up to D.C. for a concert, and we were thrilled to be back in Savannah and not to be bundled up in scarves and gloves. 

As the summer of 2023 began, The Kimpton Brice had finished the final stages of a full-property renovation, including a spruce-up of Pacci Italian Kitchen + Bar, all of which just a few months after Executive Chef John Angelo Cole came onboard. 

In February, Pacci launched lunch, if you will, with a brand-new menu of midday fare designed for the boutique hotel’s guests, walkers-by walk-ins, and nearby workaday luncheoners alike. 

“It’s not something that Pacci has offered before,” said Chris Figiel, director of food and beverage at The Kimpton Brice. “It was always breakfast, and then we’d reopen for dinner.”

“We want to offer something so that local businesses can come in on their lunch break, something that’s still in the Italian wheelhouse but also that quick-service-sandwich side of things,” he added, “and everything on the menu is fifteen dollars or less.”

Another noontime Pacci perk is complimentary hour-long parking: just pull up to the resto’s front doors on Houston and tell the valet you are there for lunch. Figiel mentioned that future plans include mobile ordering for curbside pickup at that same spot.

The concise lunch carte comprises two salads ($13), three flatbreads ($15), and seven sandwiches ($15), the majority of which are served on breads furnished by Sweet Patricia’s Bakery and, in keeping with the marquee moniker, are Italian-themed.

Sì: Pacci’s signature meatballs star in its own sub, but we had not budgeted for a nap that afternoon.

My wife and I had hoped to share one of the flatbreads and a sandwich until our lovely server informed us that they were “out of all flatbreads,” which was a bummer. 

In the place of the Mediterranean flatbread, topped with sun-dried tomatoes🍅, shaved onions, olives, feta, pesto, and arugula, we split a Caesar salad, a proper rendition with a dressing that was oily in the right way and not at all clumpy or cloying. The herb focaccia crostini croutons were garlicky and lived up to their name, so crunchy that my wife and I could not hear each other, and the anchovies and Parmesan shavings were equally ample.

Because I was roasting a spatchcock chicken that night, we opted for the salmon salad sandwich, served simply with a slice of lettuce on a buttery grilled croissant. Few places offer this silky seafood spread which was a nice departure, though the descriptors “blackened” and “fresh dill” were not noticeable in the very lemony and creamy fish.

Noting Pacci’s quality and The Kimpton Brice’s brand, house-made chips would be a nice touch.

Post-makeover, Pacci’s airy dining room remains a most pleasant place to eat. Both in black, round wooden cushioned chairs and square tables stand atop those incredible hand-painted floor tiles. Whitewashed horizontal board-and-batten panels wrap the walls above old gold leather banquettes, and the picture windows afford light and life to stream in from Houston Street. 

Like so many ‘hotel restaurants’ in town, Pacci is plenty good, buoyed by its coastal-chic ambience, all-smiles service, and situation next to one of the city’s sweetest squares, and in this land of the $15 sandwich, another entrant has emerged.

-Neil Gabbey