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:

• Chef Juan Stevenson brings Juju’s Street Eats to Savannah 🐔🍋

• Goody's Team Picks Their Favorite Gems for Dining in Town 🌮🍻

• Learn how to spice up a can of tuna with this recipe 🐟

• Best Spot for Morning Tea and Freshly Baked Goods 🍵🌞

APPETITE AWAITS

Chef Juan Stevenson stays in Savannah to continue the evolution of Juju’s Street Eats 🍋🌿

In April, Juan Stevenson officially stepped aside as executive chef at Late Air, a position he had held since the Ardsley Park sit-and-sip opened late in 2022. Life changes led him to pursue a major move, and with the help of friends and fellow chefs Brandon Carter and Opie Crooks (FARM Hospitality Group), Stevenson landed a savory executive sous chef spot at Keswick Hall in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Stevenson flew up for a three-day interview and stay at the five-star resort and came back to Savannah all but assured of jumping at the chance. He had not yet accepted what he called “a high-end fine-dining corporate position” but was literally hours away from making that call.

Under the eponymous Juju’s Street Eats moniker, he cheffed two pop-ups—at Strange Bird on March 12 and at Sobremesa on April 22—and consciously said ‘so long’ to Savannah, his home since 2013 when he came to town to study sound design at SCAD. 

“I called it my last ditch effort of self-expression,” Stevenson said self-effacingly. “It was supposed to be my goodbye tour. At that point, I thought I was going to leave Savannah.”

His knives and spatulas packed and his thumb about to dial Keswick Hall, he was behind the bar in his penultimate week at Late Air when Carter and Crooks walked in 🍷

Carter said to Stevenson, “You shouldn’t leave.”

The FARM founder told him that Savannah likes him and his food and that he has set down roots here, and Carter and Crooks offered their assistance in developing Juju’s Street Eats into much more than an ephemeral edible enterprise.

“I’m like, ‘Don’t tease me,’” Stevenson recalled saying to them. “You do realize that I’m leaving two weeks from today.”

Carter and Crooks did not yet know that Stevenson was going to take the job they had helped him land, but their offer stood.

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

Goody's - Ryan Calascione, Philly Cummings, & Joe Romano 🌭🌺🍹

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?

In no time, Goody’s, Jon Massey’s retro corner daytime diner just across East 32nd Street from his first resto, Bull Street Taco, lived up to its marquee moniker and more. Preparing and serving Goody’s fantastic comfort food are general manager Ryan Calascione and do-everythings Philly Cummings and Joe Romano, who salivate over their collective favorites in this week’s Chefs’ Cravings.

RC: It’s always such a hard question. Definitely, one of my favorites spots, though, is Al Salaam and the lamb gyro 🥙 That is just tried and true. It’s good every single time I get it. I love Waters Cafe, as well. It’s a great little spot, and I just moved down the street. The Italian sandwich, the Callahan.

JR: I’ve got to shout out The Cuban Window. I feel like every Sunday morning for the past three weeks, my girlfriend and I have gone. They have all-day breakfast, and she gets the bacon, egg, and cheese on Cuban toast and I’ll get the media noche, which is the Cuban sandwich with sweet bread instead of the regular Cuban bread 🥪 We’ll get a pastelito and some fried yuca, and it’s a great time, a great meal. The people there are super-nice, super-friendly. It’s just a good place to be, to support those local guys. They’re doing a great job.

PC: (who also works at Sly’s Sliders and Fries, laughs) I do actually go to Sly’s a lot. There’s a couple things that I like. The Nacho Dog but with the vegan dog, and I take the sour cream off 🌭 I’ll get that, or I’ll get the Tobacco Road, the chili dog with slaw, with extra mustard because there’s never enough mustard. If I don’t go to Sly’s, I’ll go to Spudnik. I love Andrew [Wanamaker, owner]. I get the rustic, the plain potato with herbs and lemon and black beans. Pretty Plain Jane but that’s me.

JR: I still need to experience the baked potato.

RC: Chicken burrito at Bull Street Taco 🌯 I got to shout out our sister restaurant.

PC: Yeah, carnitas.

RC: Throw a little basil crema on that chicken burrito, and you’re going to have a good night.

PC: I like Sea Wolf on Tybee. They have a rotating menu, and that’s awesome, but I want them to bring back this mushroom hot dog that they had. That was the first time that I went there. It was this vegan dog with mushrooms and stuff, and I wanted to go back there and get it, but…no! 🍟

JR: I’ll shout out Ukiyo, down on Bull Street.

PC: I haven’t eaten there yet.

JR: It’s my favorite Asian restaurant in Savannah right now. Just the vibe of the interior. It’s modern, it’s clean, the open kitchen. It’s everything I wanted in a more upscale restaurant.

RC: That’s a beautiful restaurant 🍜

JR: I get the spicy [hamachi] kamikaze roll.

RC: Do they still have the duck ramen? The one time I went there, the duck ramen was, oh man.

JR: Yeah, the pork belly ramen was really good, too, and all their specialty cocktails are phenomenal.

And for a special occasion?

PC: I haven’t been to these two places yet, but I know they’re kind of fancier. I’d love to visit 17Hundred90 and The Pink House. I have been to The Pirates’ House, and I love going there for shrimp and grits. I go there with my mom when she’s in town 🍹

JR: Money’s no object? Upscale fancy?

RC: I’ve got to say Cotton & Rye or Brochu’s. Can’t go wrong. That chicken platter and the, what is it called, the puffy bread with the cheesy rillette. That is amazing. And those chicken wings at Cotton & Rye are a treat. My girlfriend and I will sit at the bar and order some wings and a couple beers, maybe some mac and cheese.

JR: Can I say Starland Yard? I mean, ordering from two different food trucks and grabbing some drinks, it can get up there, for sure. If money’s no object, I’m trying something from every food truck, and I’m getting a bucket of beer with my fries 🍻

RC: Or order a hundred chicken wings from 520.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Pan Bagnat 🍞🥬🍅

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

Who knew a common can of tuna could be so delicious?

In previous Triple Ts, I have happily referenced recipes from The Eating Well Rush Hour Cookbook, published in 1995 right before my wife and I moved back to the states and into our first house. At the time, I was an eager amateur in the kitchen, and this largely uncomplicated compilation quickly became stained with spots and spills as I worked through its seasonal slate of meals. 

Around that same time, I fell in love with Peter Mayle’s Provence trilogy, having no idea then how important France would become in my life and daydreams over the next twenty years. In his prismatic depiction of fish-out-of-water life in the Luberon Valley, food is at the fore, and Mayle’s playful passion for shopping at weekly village markets, eating al fresco, and experiencing incredible cuisine was equally eye-opening and mouthwatering for me. 

One of my most made meals from the The Eating Well Rush Hour Cookbook, probably because we were young and poor, was pan bagna, more properly pain bagnat. A baguette, a couple eggs, a can of tuna, a handful of olives, some veg, and a simple vinaigrette: voila!  

In 2000, my wife and I spent three indescribable weeks in Germany and France, the first time in Europe for either of us, and the middle section found Avignon our home base with day trips dotting the hilltowns along the D900. While I do not recall eating an authentique pain bagnat back then, we shared several sandwiches served at market stalls and along village thoroughfare grab-and-gos.

A few years later, I Ringoed my way into chaperoning my school’s biannual Spring Break trip to France. Though I spoke Tarzan French and could decipher only foodstuffs on menus, I had just been to both Provence and Paris. Looking for ice cream in Arles or the right Métro stop for the Musée Rodin? I am your homme.

On those trips, we allowed our students the opportunity to order lunch for themselves, at a Provençal village market or in the backstreets of Paris’s 5e arrondissement. Down south, especially, the signature sammie was a merguez-frites: charred lamb sausages and golden fries stuffed into the same baguette. I would dip the bread into Dijon before each bite. On Avignon’s Rue de la République, an abundance of sidewalk sandwicheries made for quick bites for famished eighth graders: jambon-beurres et croque monsieurs.  

A proper pain bagnat is a longer walk than a simple sandwich au thon, but there is some solace in that it has to be made well ahead of eating time and is alterable in its ingredients. Then again, food Francophile David Lebovitz’s relatively recent article revealed the existence of the Commune Libre du Pan Bagnat, an organization that defends the provenance of this single sandwich and lists the compulsory ingredients - and “tolerated” exceptions - on its website.

Some recipes call for hollowing out the bread, which does not have to be a baguette. Some say only a little of the interior crumb should be scooped out. I stick to The Eating Well steps, hollowing out the halves and then pulsing the bread bits in a food processor with the garlic-salt paste. 

I take detours by doubling the tuna and ditching the bell pepper, and I hop on Lebovitz’s traditional train with the additions of artichokes, radishes, and hard-cooked eggs, plus a few anchovies on mine. To the garlicky breadcrumbs, I add just the yolks and whazz it a few more times in the Cuisinart. You will thank me later.

Spreading softened chèvre in one bread channel is my own caprice, so do not rat me out to La Commune.

Because Sixby had just opened up a few blocks from our house, I decided to give myself a break from baking the baguettes and bought one of the pros’ loaves. Kroger’s bakery had a bin of soft, flour-dusted round rolls for 50 cents apiece, so I bought two of those.

In my pantry, I had unopened jars of Trader Joe’s Kalamata olives and marinated artichokes, the latter allowed by La Commune. In the fridge, I had a few fresh radishes, some good anchovies, and about half a log of chèvre, and our neighbors had just gifted us two vine-ripe tomatoes.

All that was left was to boil two eggs and to buy a big can of tuna, which is not as cheap as it used to be. Depending on how much other stuff is going into your sandwich stuffing, you can get away with one five-ounce can, still twice what Lebovitz uses. Because the preparation yields a product in which the fish is flaked into the medley of other ingredients, you can save a buck or two and choose chunk instead of solid. Also, both canned tuna in water or in oil will work, the latter simply necessitating an adjustment in the vinaigrette volume, though the true Niçoise preparation will welcome more olive oil.

This is, by both origin and design, a bit of a kitchen sink dish, which is nice. Grab yourself a big bowl. Tossing everything together and stuffing the stuffing into the baguette and bun halves is a little indelicate, but go ahead and use your hands. 

If you have any filling leftover, which is unlikely because you were eating some while you stuffed the sandwiches, save and serve with some soft greens.

The final step is tightly mummifying each sandwich section in plastic wrap and pressing them in the fridge. Put the portions on a baking sheet and top with a large cutting board or another baking sheet that you then weigh down with bricks or 28-ounce cans or a marble mortar. Over the next several hours, the bread will soften as it soaks up the dressing.

Lebovitz’s newsletter article is entitled “Pan Bagnat...and will the real salade niçoise please stand up?” Essentially, this sandwich is that salad but between baguette halves, a fully packed, more portable picnic lunch perfect for summer, especially when you are not in the South of France.

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 2 16-inch baguettes or 4 round rolls (firm, somewhat crusty exterior)

• 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed 🧄 

• 3 large eggs, hard-cooked (see below) 🥚

• 4 ounces chèvre, softened to room temperature

• ½ cup (5 ounces or more) Kalamata or Niçoise olives (pitted), rough-chopped 🫒

• ½ cup (6 ounces or more) artichoke hearts (marinated), rough-chopped

• 1 tablespoon capers, drained and rough-chopped

• 3 radishes, sliced into thin rounds

• 4 scallions, rough-chopped

• 1 large tomato, sliced thin 🍅

• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, used separately, plus more (to taste)

• Fresh-ground black pepper (to taste)

• 12 (or more) anchovies (optional)

WET GOODS

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice 🍋

• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil 🫒

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

DO THIS

1. For the dressing: whisk the lemon juice, olive oil, and Dijon until it emulsifies and set aside

2. For the hard-cooked eggs: put them in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water by about 1 inch, sprinkling in 1 teaspoon of salt

   • Set the uncovered saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil

   • Cover the saucepan and turn off the heat, leaving the pan on the burner

   • Set a timer for 10 minutes

   • While waiting, prepare a bowl with ice water

   • After 10 minutes, remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place in the ice water bath

3. Slice the bread in half 

4. Using your fingers, lightly scrape out the interior crumb and place the innards in a food processor

5. On a cutting board, minced or press the garlic and sprinkle the remaining ½ teaspoon salt over it

6. Use the broadside of a chef’s knife to mash the salt and garlic into a paste

7. Peel the eggs and separate the whites and yolks

8. Rough-chop the whites and put in a large bowl

9. Put the garlic paste into the food processor with the yolks of all three eggs

10. Process until the breadcrumbs are nicely tinted yellow with the garlic and yolks

11. Drain the tuna and place into a large bowl, breaking up the chunks

12. Put the breadcrumbs in the bowl with the tuna, followed by the egg whites, olives, artichokes, capers, radishes, and scallions

13. Using a folding motion, mix all of the ingredients together until nicely integrated

14. Pour the dressing into the sandwich stuffing and fold together

15. Season with fresh-cracked pepper (to taste)

16. Spread the softened chèvre in the hollow of one piece of bread per sandwich (optional)

17. Lay tomato slices and the anchovies (optional) atop the chèvre 

18. Using your hands, stuff wodges of the tuna mixture into the bread’s partner pieces 

19. Bring the two halves together and press gently

20. One at a time, tightly wrap each sandwich in plastic wrap, tucking the ends as you go

21. Place the wrapped sandwiches on a baking sheet and put in the fridge

22. Place another baking sheet (or cutting board) atop the sandwiches and weigh down with bricks or heavy cans for at least 2 hours

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Maté Factor ☕️☀️🥮

There was a time when my wife and I were regulars at Maté Factor. Beginning in 2016 and hemorrhaging into 2017, a home renovation left us without a functional kitchen for 11 months. Simply leaving the stasis and stud-bare walls for a couple hours each week was much needed respite. 

Incidentally, whenever we regaled our tale of firing and threatening legal action against our ‘contractor,’ friends in town reacted with nods and even shoulder shrugs, sharing similar experiences and welcoming us to this absurd rehab club.

Left lacking even a toaster, we found refuge at a few nearby eateries, and Maté Factor was a frequent stop. On a scouting trip before we moved to Savannah, we discovered the bakery run by a local Twelve Tribes community and fell stomach over heels for their mammoth muffins and sweet rolls and succulent savory sandwiches 🥐

Once our interminable house project actually reached an end, weekend breakfasts at home became cherished, and our visits to Maté Factor grew unnecessary and occasional, at best, even though we would see it each Sunday morning as we pulled into Kroger’s lot.

In July, my wife and I made good on our shared desire to revisit this unique café with a breakfast and a lunch spaced two weeks apart, both of which we enjoyed in the charming back garden 🪴

One sunny Friday morning, my wife chose the muffin de jour, just as big as they have always been, and I ordered the sticky sweet roll. The former’s balloon top was covered in nutty streusel, and the interior was moist. The sweet bun had evidently gone on a diet, if you will, since last I devoured one, no longer containing raisins or nuts, to my dismay, not to mention just being smaller than it once was. Still, both were tasty, and sitting underneath the pergola and sailcloth shades as a summer’s day began was delightful.

To go with, I ordered an iced mango juice 🥭 Though I miss the mango-peach concoction that Maté used to make, the drink remains delicious. I only wish it came in a cup twice the size.

A few weeks later, we returned for lunch, mostly so that I could have the Deli Rose sandwich. All in all, Maté Factor’s midday menu has remained relatively unchanged over the year, which is fine, especially because there is only one lunch offering that I am ever going to order.

I do not eat at Burger King or McDonald’s, but I have a feeling that the Deli Rose is the roast beef realization of what those mass-produced mouthfuls aspire to be. Maybe it is the sliced white onions and onion roll. Maybe it is the rare and warm shaved roast beef draped in melty mozzarella and hot pepper jack and slathered with butter, mustard, and a special sauce 🧀

Whatever the reasons, the result is a relatively small sandwich that eats big, an unsung underdog that might be the tenderest hero in town. It is marvelously juicy and messy, so grab six napkins and adopt the holdover pose before each bite.

Another iced mango juice washed it down wonderfully, though I could only eat half. I wanted to hammer the whole thing, but I had something nice planned for dinner.

-Neil Gabbey