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:

• A new throwback breakfast-and-lunch diner! 📺

• Sea Wolf owners dish best places to eat on Tybee Island 🏝

• Homemade Brioche Burger buns perfect for sliders

• The only acceptable fast food 🥤🍟

THE MAIN DISH

Bull Street Taco brain trust opens throwback breakfast-and-lunch diner ☕️ 🥓 🥞  

Any origin story that starts with a fried chicken sandwich is bound to become the stuff of legend.

“I’ve always wanted to do a really good fried chicken sandwich,” said Jon Massey whose new restaurant, Goody’s, is a literal scone’s throw across East 32nd from his wildly popular Bull Street Taco. “I thought people would line up, out the door and around the block.”

Since that initial intention, though, a few fantastic edible fowls had entered the nearby dining marketspace, so Massey did not “want to go straight fried chicken” in his and his wife’s new eatery.

As a result, the bird is just part of the word at Goody’s, the present and future’s play on a retro corner daytime diner that “very quietly” opened on March 28.

“I want you to come every day,” said Massey, and the finite but fetching menu makes that a definite possibility.

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

Lone Wolf Lounge and Sea Wolf Tybee - Andrew Jay Ripley & Tom Worley 🦐 🍋

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 local libation legends Andrew Jay Ripley and Tom Worley, the co-owner pair of Lone Wolf Lounge and Sea Wolf Tybee who promise to throw a party every night 🐺

AJR: It’s pretty cool how so much stuff has happened recently. It’s been a real explosion. There was a time period when my favorite restaurant in town would close every year or would go out of business because people didn’t get it or whatever. It’s been going pretty well lately. Out on Tybee, Bubba Gumbo’s is my favorite place to go, outside of Sea Wolf. I usually get the shrimp that’s right there, but they always have some great seafood special.

TW: Raw Sushi is really great on Tybee, too. There’s an Old Bay roll. I like that one a lot 🍣

AJR: Raw is super-bad-ass. Myles (Stevens) is a cool guy.

TW: He does a cool job, kind of a California-style sushi versus the more traditional. That’s our favorite sushi spot in town, and it’s on Tybee.

AJR: Over here close to Lone Wolf, we’ve got some cool spots, obviously. Common Thread and Brochu’s and Cotton & Rye get a ton of headlines because they’re three of the best spots in the whole town. I think the best burger in town is right here at Over Yonder. They’ve got cool specials, but it’s hard to skip the burger. They’re open for lunch now, and that burrito is awesome.

TW: The chicken wings, too, because I need a wing fix and it’s thirty seconds from Lone Wolf’s door. It’s not open yet, but Sixby is opening up next to us 🥐 Natasha (Gaskill) and Matt (Palmerlee) are so great. They’ve done all the Hotel Lugash pop-ups.

AJR: Of all the spots in town, I end up at Colleagues & Lovers most of the time. It’s a really cool menu. The flatbreads. The Mexican and Italian hybrid, like a tomatillo green sauce with mushrooms is awesome. All of their breads they do in-house, so anything with bread is great.

TW: The scallop pasta was really nice a couple weeks ago 🍝 It rotates, so it’s hard to say. People nowadays are rotating a good menu, so it’s hard to have a favorite sometimes. At Uncle June’s, I had the pork belly BLT, thick-sliced pork belly, and the burger was good, too.

And for a special occasion?

AJR: Elizabeth on 37th has been here forever. They have a prix fixe now.

TW: That’s a great meal.

AJR: They have a great wine list 🍷 Cotton & Rye is awesome.

TW: Common Thread. I mean, these are places you can go either or. You can pick and choose, too. You don’t have to bust the bank.

AJR: You can grab a plate. You don’t have to do a six-course meal.

TW: Late Air has some really fun seasonal stuff, and it’s always pretty inventive. It’s not quite tapas, but it is enough to go with wine if you want a small bite. Their happy hour is really my favorite thing I’ve done recently there. A nice aperitivo, spritzes, or wine and maybe some anchovies, toast, just enough to get you going.

AJR: I love to eat that way. 

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Brioche burger buns

 THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

Even though the always winning Manning brothers are now hawking King’s Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, it has been decades since I bought a burger bun of any kind. The few times a year that I make burgers at our house, I bake my own buns.

Long ago eschewing King Arthur’s ‘Beautiful Burger Bun’ recipe, which had a tendency to be too dense or too dry, the two online renditions that have been most reliable come from The Clever Carrot and Love & Lemons, both of which are brioches.

On occasion, I will make full-sized buns to bookend big-and-floppy burgers, but more often than not, I make little slider guys.

I suppose there are those who blanche at the term ‘brioche’, intimidated by the French that piles onto any diffidence they have with baking to begin with. 

Courage, mes amis. This slightly sweet enriched bread, almost the midpoint between plain white and a croissant, is triply fat-fortified with butter, egg, and milk and has a light but sturdy structure. If anything, the fats make the dough more forgiving to work with.

Most brioche burger bun recipes call for a majority, if not entirety, of bread flour, but it is expensive. Plus, APF is what it is for a reason. I split the difference, but you certainly can use all of one or the other producing results that only Paul Hollywood would criticize.

As I do with all yeasted doughs, I lightly whisk the dry ingredients in a large bowl before pouring in the liquids, and if you are using Saf-instant yeast, and you should be, the blooming step is altogether unnecessary. I hold off on adding any salt until the yeast has had a chance to chomp on some sugar molecules, about thirty minutes.

My other main modification to the largely similar recipes from The Clever Carrot and Love & Lemons is to round up the amounts of the majority of the ingredients. No one wants to work in half-tablespoons and thirds of cups.

Otherwise, this is a straight shot. In a low microwave, warm up the water and milk into which you will dissolve a tablespoon of honey. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and electric-mix with dough hooks until most of it has balled up. Because the egg and softened butter have yet to join the party, some floury flecks will remain at the bottom of the bowl for now.

Lightly beat the egg in a small bowl and pour it and the softened butter onto the dough. Resume electric mixing, and in just a few minutes, you will have a slightly tacky uniform mass. If it is too shaggy, dust a little more flour on the surface and mix, but be okay with a little stickiness.

After the faux autolyse rest, add the salt and electric-mix for another two minutes. At this point, the dough ball needs a nap. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a tea towel and leave it at room temperature for at least an hour and up to two.

Using a digital kitchen scale and a bench scraper, portion out the dough balls: 50 grams for about 16 slider-sized buns and 100 grams for 8 full-sized rolls. One by one, flatten each ball on a lightly floured surface and pull the edges into the center in subsequently overlapping pleats. Yeah, this takes some practice. Shape the surface with the palm of one hand while rotating it, pinching the pleats on the underside to create a seal.

Quickly roll the dough ball, seam side down, a few times and set aside on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover with a tea towel for Proof #2, not even an hour this time, while the oven heats up. You can knock yourself out with the pan of water placed at the base of the oven for the steam effect, but because a brioche is not supposed to have a crisp crust, skip it.

Whisk an egg with a tablespoon of cold water and brush the wash over and around each risen bun and sprinkle with sesame seeds or sea salt. Sixteen minutes later, you will have a bunch of the best burger buns.

If you have any leftovers, make bread pudding: a Triple T for another week.

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 440-450 grams of flour (split 50-50 between bread flour and APF)

• 2 T. granulated (white) sugar 

• 2 t. instant yeast (Saf Red)

• 2 t. kosher salt 🧂

• 1 T. sesame seeds or sea salt flakes (optional)

WET GOODS

• 1 T. honey 🍯

• ¼ c. whole milk 🐄 

• 1 c. (scant) water

• 2 eggs (used separately) 🥚

• 3 T. unsalted butter, softened 🧈

DO THIS

1. In a large mixing bowl, weigh out the flour(s), sugar, and yeast and gently whisk

2. In a small bowl or spouted measuring cup, warm the water, milk, and honey in the microwave

3. Pour the wet into the dry and electric-mix using dough hooks until the mass is nearly incorporated

4. Lightly whisk one egg and pour it and the softened butter onto the dough

5. Resume electric mixing until the dough is a uniform tacky ball

6. Cover the bowl with a tea towel, plate, or plastic wrap and let rest for about 30 minutes ⏰ 

7. Add the salt and electric-mix for another two minutes

8. Cover the bowl with a tea towel, plate, or plastic wrap and let rest for at least an hour and up to two

9. Using a bench scraper or floured hands, portion the dough into balls: 50 grams for slider-sized buns and 100 grams for full-sized buns

10. Flatten each piece of dough and then fold, pinch, and roll to create an underside seam

11. Set each dough ball on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and cover with a tea towel

12. Preheat an oven to 400°

13. Let the dough rest for not quite another hour

14. Whisk the remaining egg with a tablespoon of cold water

15. Brush the egg wash over and around each proofed bun and sprinkle with sesame seeds or sea salt flakes (optional)

16. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until risen and nicely browned

17. Let rest for 20 minutes before cutting and serving

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Culver's🥤🧢

As a rule, I do not write about chain restaurants, but you know what they say about rules. Plus, Culver’s has frozen custard.

When Judy and Terry Smith opened Culver’s store #678 on West Montgomery Cross Road in the fall of 2018, I might have been the giddiest guy in town. Growing up in the suburbs of Rochester, NY, I was weaned on Bill Gray’s big-and-floppy burgers and Abbott’s frozen custard. The former is a local chain founded in the 1930s that still has a dozen locations, and the latter has been around for roughly the same number of years, with more than two dozen franchises in and around Rochester and nearly twenty more flung as far as Winter Garden, Florida.

In the last twenty years, many Bill Gray’s burgeries have subsumed Abbott’s stands under the same roof: two great tastes that taste great together - or at least one after the other.

Few gastronomes, if any, have ever extolled the alimentary merits of Western New York ‘cuisine’, though to be fair, I have nothing but fond food memories growing up with chicken wings, Calabrese’s Bakery, Pontillo’s pizza, Zweigle’s white hots, Bill Gray’s burgers, and Abbott’s custard.

That culinary DNA runs deep: my best friend and I were the first employees at an Abbott’s branch that opened a short bike ride from our neighborhood during my junior year of high school.

Those who know frozen custard need no convincing to go to Culver’s and already know what I am writing about, but more than four years after the Smiths brought the brand to Savannah, my wife and I remain surprised that so many friends and food acquaintances have not yet been. 

For the uninitiated, this signature dessert is not soft serve or frozen yogurt. Frozen custard contains pasteurized egg yolks, which accounts for its creamier, denser texture and richer taste, and a specialized machine equipped with a heavy steel auger churns the liquid mix at a slow speed and does not whip in any air. 

When done right, it even beats the best ice cream and gelato 🍦

Because the Wisconsin-based brand now numbers nearly a thousand restaurants around the U.S., it figures that the food served at each Culver’s is largely frozen-to-fryer fare. That fact alone would normally be enough to make me drive on by, but more than nostalgia makes this a tasty burger and the frozen custard is fresh-made in-house each day.

A few years after Quanita Brown, Jeff Meyer, and Neil Miller opened a Culver’s franchise in Pooler, they bought the Smiths’ branch, and my wife and I visit every couple months for a meal that reminds us of home. We usually sit on the side patio underneath the stateliest of live oak trees, but a few weeks back, the sun had not come out by noontime, which moved us inside with the kiddies.

Speaking of, the tally for a family of four can be expensive for what is fastish food, but kids are clearly happy here, probably due to the promise of dessert. One little shaver jogged whooping through the dining room, hands in the air waving them like you know what.

This Culver’s location is almost always packed, particularly post-sports practice, post-church service, and post-duty across the Cross Road at Hunter A.A.

I went big, ordering a Double ButterBurger® with American cheese and KMOL and a medium order of onion rings. A side of crinkle cut fries was enough for my wife, with a couple bites of my burger and a few rings tossed in.

While this is not as delicious as an Over Yonder Doublestack, it is somewhat similar to a Crispi Smash Burger, though far less scratch-made. Culver’s trademarked patties are thin and charred all around, and the cheese melts on their residual heat to make a really good burger.

The onion rings are wholly reminiscent of Bill Gray’s, and prior years of practice made me pretty talented at eating them, nimbly incisoring the onion on impact so that it never slips out of the battered casing.

We washed it all down with the real reason to eat at this restaurant: fresh frozen custard. My wife and I are such fans that we long ago signed up for the monthly email that announces each Flavor of the Day. Priorities, folks, priorities.

Sadly, no Midnight Toffee or Turtle or Salted Caramel Pecan Pie was on offer, so we went with our standbys: a hot fudge sundae for my wife and a mini Concrete Mixer® for me with Heath Bar chunks swirled into vanilla 🍨

If you are heading to Culver’s for your maiden meal, play it right and order twice. Eat your burger, fries, and rings, and then queue up again afterward to order your custard so that it has no chance to melt.

You will thank me later.

-Neil Gabbey