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:

• Meet the new owners of Vincenzo’s Pizzeria 🍕

• An opportunity to try wine straight from the extreme altitudes of the Andes Mountains 🍷🏔

• These chef’s cravings will have you making a trip over the bridge🍹

• Try this homemade Caesar Salad recipe!

• The sexiest Twix on the planet 🌍

THE MAIN DISH

A Slice of Southside: Vincenzo’s Pizzeria enters third decade under new ownership 🍕

Little did Henry and Sarah Aguilar know that when their eldest children began working at Vincenzo’s Pizzeria that they would be the parlor’s next owners.

Funnily, though, the parlor’s founder Jimmy Johnson knew.

“Jimmy mentioned it one day,” Henry Aguilar recalled. “I dropped off Valentino, and I just came in to say ‘hi.’ He said, ‘Come on, Valentino. Come learn the pizza oven so that when your dad is ready to buy the place, he will have his right-hand man.”

That casual comment came at the end of July 2023. Aguilar chewed on the idea, checked with his wife, and had a serious conversation with Jimmy and Renee Johnson a few weeks later.

“I was really nervous,” Sarah Aguilar confessed.

On Oct. 15, the couple unlocked the Windsor Forest pizza parlor doors, the new proprietors of Vincenzo’s with Eva and Valentino already on the payroll.

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

Ashley Mumbray and Harold Schroeter - Nom Nom Poké Shop 🌮 

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 the charmingly sweet husband-and-wife team of Ashley Mumbray and Harold Schroeter, who brought us Nom Nom Poké Shop and its offshoot food truck and who are the parents of Ava (8), Hayden (3), and Chloe, who turns 2 in May.

HS: I think I know her answer - well, two answers. We love sushi, but it’s generally Mexican.

AM: He was going to say Bull Street Taco. When we have a minute to get away, that’s where we go. I get the carnitas taco, and he gets the burrito.

HS: Every time. It’s just consistently delicious and flavorful. We’ve been eating there for five years now, and they’ve refined it. It’s just really good.

AM: The queso! Occasionally, we splurge and add the queso, and they do the chorizo on top. It’s really delicious. We don’t do that everytime, just when we’re feeling extra-hungry.

HS: Taqueria El San Luis. We switch it up when we go there. We like it because the food’s delicious, and the hospitality is just top-notch. They ask every single table, “How is everything?” It’s “hello,” “goodbye.” They do a wonderful job.

When you are with your kids, where do you go out to eat?

(cue: laughter from both)

HS: Nowhere.

AM: We don’t.

And for a special occasion?

HS: Our top date-night place, we’ve been, what?...ten…fifteen times?

AM: Yeah. It’s always FARM. They did open up Common Thread in Savannah, so we’ve been to Common Thread three times, but we just love FARM. We’ve been eating there from before we opened Nom Nom. It’s our favorite favorite place.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Caesar salad with chicken-fat croutons 🥖 

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

This one is a long walk, but you will thank me when we get there. The croutons alone are well worth the trip.

Even though I know that a Caesar salad is a familiar yet pretty prosaic starter, when my wife and I eat out, I often order one, accepting before the first bite that it will be wanting in some way. In fairness to those making their varied resto renditions, my expectations of what this salad should be are set by the one I put together at home.

I make no bones about being a fan of Jamie Oliver. He was the British breath of fresh air that Food Network needed in its fledgling years, which coincided with my own in-the-kitchen education and evolution as a ‘home chef’. 

Back in 2007, Oliver’s programme Jamie at Home was filmed at his rural Essex house with many recipes prepared in his garden, breads baked and meats roasted in an outdoor oven. 

Included in his cookbook of the same name is his recipe for a “Proper chicken Caesar salad,” which sounds simple but is so much better than other common concoctions.

What sets this salad above the rest is the croutons. I know what you are thinking. Trust me.

Oliver’s ingenious preparation of what is an afterthought in most salads makes for sinfully savory croutons that are both crispy-crisp and deliciously unctuous. His inventive twist is roasting the skin-on chicken leg quarters atop the bread, allowing the rough-cut cubes to sizzle in the dripping juices and fat for more than an hour. 

It might sound strange, but you will never eat a better crouton.

Further rendering of this rendition comes an hour in by draping the bacon over the roasted chicken. After another fifteen minutes, you have a casserole dish overflowing with crackling delights.

Equally delectable is Oliver’s Caesar dressing that tastes every bit like a ‘classic’ but without the worry of whisking finicky raw egg yolks. Instead, he calls for crème fraîche, which I sub out for equal parts sour cream and plain Greek yogurt. With anchovies, lemon juice, olive oil, and plenty of Parmesan, what whips up is a thick and creamy dressing doppelganger. 

Honestly, although the entire salad is superb, whenever I put this dish on our week’s menu, my wife and I are really looking forward to the croutons. You will, too.

If you want to go pro and home-bake a crossbred ciabatta-pan francese loaf that becomes these croutons, let me know.

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 16 oz. bread (ciabatta, pan francese, crusty French) 🥖

• 4 chicken leg quarters, skin on

• 2 T. fresh rosemary (6 long stems)

• 1 t. cracked black pepper (or more to taste)

• 1 t. kosher salt (or more to taste)

• 12 oz. bacon 🥓 

• 6 anchovies

• 1 small garlic clove 🧄 

• 1 oz. (or more) freshly grated Parmesan 🧀 

• romaine hearts 🥬 

• ½ c. Kalamata olives (optional) 🫒 

WET GOODS

• 1 c. (or more) + 1 T. extra virgin olive oil, separated

• ¼ c. lemon juice (1 big lemon) 🍋 

• 1 T. sour cream

• 1 T. plain Greek yogurt

DO THIS

1. Preheat an oven to 400°

2. Rough-cut the bread into ½-inch to 1-inch cubes 

3. Lightly coat a 9” x 13” casserole dish with cooking spray

4. Spread bread cubes evenly in casserole dish, not necessarily in one layer

5. Pluck and dice the rosemary

6. Place the chicken leg quarters in a large bowl and dress with 1 T. olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary, turning to coat evenly

7. Puzzle-piece the chicken atop the bread cubes so that as much of the surface as possible is covered

8. Bake for one hour or until the chicken skin is brown and crisp

9. While the chicken is in the oven, blend the anchovies, garlic, lemon juice, sour cream, Greek yogurt, and half of the Parmesan to create the dressing base

   • This can be done manually, but the blender starts the emulsification process more quickly

10. In a steady drizzle, add the 1 c. of olive oil to the dressing base until it emulsifies fully

    • If being made manually, whisk constantly while slowly adding the olive oil

11. Chill the dressing until service

12. After an hour, remove the casserole dish from the oven

13. Lay the bacon slices in rows over the cooked chicken

14. Return the casserole dish to the oven and bake until the bacon is crisp (10-15 minutes)

15. Remove the casserole dish from the oven again

16. Take out the bacon and the chicken and set both aside to rest

17. Lightly rotate the bread cubes, some of which will be soft still from being fully beneath the chicken

18. Return the casserole dish to the oven one last time and bake while you prepare the rest of the salad

19. Remove the chicken skins and pull-shred the meat, placing it into one bowl

20. Rough-chop the bacon, placing it into another small bowl

21. Rough-chop the romaine, placing portions into serving bowls

22. OPTIONAL: halve the olives, placing them into a another small bowl

23. Remove the casserole dish from the oven and break apart the croutons, as needed, placing them into a bowl

24. Assemble the salad with all of its components, topping with a dusting of Parmesan

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Cotton & Rye

During the pre-pandemic years, our modest New Year’s Eve night out was a delightful dinner at Circa 1875. We happily stood on the sidewalk and waited for the brasserie-side staff to open up at six so that we could take the two-top by the front window: our table.

Sadly, Circa’s quality has fallen off of late, starting with the departure of original executive chef David Landrigan early in 2021, and COVID otherwise curtailed our inclination to go out at all to ring in a new year.

Not that we were ever going to revel on the riverfront or even stay up until midnight in our own house, the prospect of another meal at Cotton & Rye was tempting enough to coax us out this Dec. 31. 

The sun nearly set, it was too chilly to bundle up in the back garden, despite the ample heaters, so we sat in the main dining room for the first time in quite some time.

To celebrate New Year’s Eve, executive chef Caleb Ayers, chef-owner Zach Shultz, and pastry chef Peanut Ayers had on offer a four-course prix fixe ($95), and while that special menu looked amazing and ordering would have been easy, we just do not do dine-out blow-outs anymore and accept our own foodie-duddiness.

Instead, we went with our usuals. If we ate at C&R weekly or even monthly, I would order something other than the fried chicken thighs, which have been a succulent steal here since Day One, but since this remains a special-occasion resto for us, the stupefyingly crispy pair of thighs and steaming skillet of mac & cheese make the perfect meal.

Do not judge me: for $19, the server could bring me nothing but these singular chicken skins and I would be a pig in slop. I am admittedly and merrily uncouth with this dish, using my hands to alternate dips of juicy dark meat and crispy skin between the house-made spicy and hot honey that complement each other nicely. So tender and entirely edible, the only remnants were two bare bones.

The mac & cheese, creatively composed with cavatappi, aged cheddar, Parmesan, and whole grain mustard, came to the table with an appetizing char. The sharp sauce tends to be a bit loose but tightens up as the cast-iron skillet sits and cools down. 

For my wife, the shrimp & grits ($16) is the perfect portion. Though listed as a starter, the richness and heartiness of the recipe, enhanced by that same aged cheddar, tomato, and cubed bacon, would make a larger serving too much of a great thing.

On occasion, we tack on a side of C&R’s steaky fries, but even that would have been silly without another couple along for the eating assistance. Again, we know our limits, particularly when Chef Peanut’s desserts are on the horizon.

We only half-joked with our server that we would have plunked down the $95 per simply to sample the prix fixe’s final courses of opera cake and crème caramel, but the stalwart candy bars ($12) stood in splendidly: shortbread layered with caramel, coated in milk chocolate, and topped with whipped crème fraîche. As always, this is the sexiest Twix on the planet. 

-Neil Gabbey