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:

• From HBO’s The Big Brunch to Savannah’s Late Air 🥂

• Strange Bird’s top picks for Asian, Pizza, and BBQ restaurants in town

• Whip up restaurant-style Butter Chicken Tikka Masala at home

• Tacos + Tequila vs. Tequila’s Town? 🌮

• Stir the pot in these food debates 🔥

THE MAIN DISH

Daniel Harthausen steps into executive chef role at Ardsley Park fave 🍷🪴

Since Day One at Late Air, chef Juan Stevenson realized and curated its modish and changeable wine-friendly food program, the culinary vision of husband-and-wife owners Colin Breland and Madeline Ott.

Back in April, Stevenson told Breland and Ott of his plans to move to D.C., which meant the Ardsley Park eatery would soon be in need of its second head chef.

“We were doing a lot of interviewing and running into dead ends,” Breland recalled of the search, “and it felt like it was working against us to be putting in all that effort when we could have just been focusing on the team we had in the moment.”

Ott added, “We just took a step back and decided to find somebody who could cook really well to join Late Air.”

Meanwhile, up in Richmond, Virginia, Daniel Harthausen had managed the bar at Restaurant Adarra, a Basque-inspired bistro where he “built connections to the wine world” and began cooking pop-ups under the moniker Young Mother in 2021. 

A year later, Harthausen won season one of HBO’s The Big Brunch 🍳 and embarked on the process of opening his own restaurant in Richmond, but between the design and contracting phases, he opted out.

This past November, he and Breland chance-met at Encounter, Virginia’s first natural wine fair: put a pin in that for now.

CHEF’S CRAVINGS

Strange Bird - Daniel Aranza + Felipe Vera 🍱🔥

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, the incredibly talented twosome who have made Strange Bird an immediate standout weigh in with their go-tos. Co-chefs de cuisine Daniel Aranza and Felipe Vera could just take their own incredible food home after each shift, but it looks like their Chefs’ Cravings lean toward fare far different than what they serve up each day at The Streamliner.

DA: One of my favorite places to eat around here is E-TANG. Amazing food, super-fresh, the spices I love, and I always go for somewhat similar items unless I’m going with a lot of people. Some of my favorites are the minced beef soup and my go-to that I always get, the sour soup with fatty beef 🍜 It’s just such a great dish. The big portion comes with rice, the broth is nice and flavorful.

FV: I like Flock to the Wok. I love their fried calamari and the chicken with broccoli 🥦 Sometimes, I like cooking at home, too. Just a seared rib eye.

Because Asian cuisine is across the globe from what you serve at Strange Bird, is that a reason that you crave it?

DA: Yeah, I think so. For sure.

FV: Yes.

DA: Personally, I grew up eating a variety of Asian food, growing up in California. One of my dad’s earliest jobs was working in an Asian mall, whose food court was remarkable. He worked in a Vietnamese restaurant, so we were exposed to some really good Vietnamese food. I’ve always liked those types of flavors.

FV: I like going to Late Air. They have really good customer service, good wine. I’m not a super-wine person, but I can grab a dozen oysters and one glass of wine 🦪 They always have a really good salad and fresh bread with butter.

DA: I really enjoy Slow Fire BBQ whenever I’m able to catch them. Terren’s an awesome dude. Every time I get a chance, I look him up.

FV: Pizza, too. Sometimes, I take a pizza home from Vinnie Van GoGo’s 🍕 I don’t know what they do with the sauce, but it’s really good. Banana peppers, Italian sausage, and onions, that’s it. Vittoria Pizzeria, too. 

DA: Their calzone. For me, the calzone is the best thing on there and the best bang for your buck. It’s huge. 

And for a special occasion?

DA: For me, honestly, it has to be Common Thread. It’s not even a question. It’s always been awesome. Even if we go for just a couple shared plates, they’re always super-flavorful. They know what they’re doing.

FV: And Brochu’s, too. Really good cocktails and what’s the name of the beans they’re doing with the pork?

DA: Pork and peans.

FV: They’re really really good.

DA: Peas with a play on words.

FV: They’re so crispy 🔥

DA: It’s very hard because, sometimes, we get out of here pretty late, and things are closed. When I have days off or even if I have a little lunch break, I like going to Brochu’s. It’s always good there. I definitely check out their Sour Hours. They always have a special sandwich, some nice flavored wings, and some oysters. I recently went and got their BLT 🥪 that was really good, and lemon pepper was the wing flavor.

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Butter Chicken Tikka Masala

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

My wife and I had no Indian pins in our food map until we had settled into our Baltimore lives, but our maiden meal of this cuisine was marvelous. We sat in the garden at Ambassador Dining Room, the stately restaurant nestled beneath the namesake historic property’s apartments, and feasted on an indoctrination of Anglo-usuals.

We were instant fans of naan, papadum, samosas, palak paneer, and chicken tikka masala.   

From there, we frequented Indigma for a slightly less schmancy Indian feast, and our cheaper takeaway choice was some of the same from Mount Washington Pizza & Subs & Indian Cuisine, even though we acknowledged that this was the greasiest of spoons.

It did not matter: the spice combinations, the blistered but pillowy naan, and the creamy gravy were incredible regardless of their provenance.

When we moved to Savannah, we tried what we thought would be suitable replacements but were never wowed. The sister restos Naan Appetit and Naan on Broughton may be the best of their cuisine kind around, though we are rarely in Pooler around a mealtime nor are we often in an Indian mood when we venture downtown.

To satisfy the occasional hunger for Punjabi fare, I make it at home. Because I have yet to build a subterranean brick tandoor in our backyard, my naan is either baked on a pizza stone or in a dry cast iron skillet, and my chicken is broiled simply for the char.

I have yet to buy Kashmiri red chili powder to electrify the chicken’s color, but that might be my next tweak because the rest of this hybrid recipe is legit.

More than a decade ago, a survey of U.K. eaters saw chicken tikka masala displace fish and chips as Britannia’s most beloved dish, and while food history is full of its origin apocrypha, few trace the recipe’s actual roots to the Subcontinent.

Butter chicken, on the other hand, is definitely Indian, but even it may be no more than eighty years old, when murgh makhani was first made in a Delhi suburb and then was appropriated by restaurants in London and New York City two decades later.

At this point, neither chicken tikka masala or butter chicken may be genuinely Indian, not unlike how Americans’ favorite ‘Chinese’ food is not really Chinese. No matter: both Indianesque innovations are drop-fork delicious.

The first recipe I tried, and used for years, was the chicken tikka masala concocted by the chefs of America’s Test Kitchen. The result was always good but not authentically great, too tomatoey and not nearly creamy enough. I also went spice nuts and created the blend from scratch with cardamom pods and fenugreek leaves, but the dried standards stand in just fine.

In recent years, my amalgam has combined the best parts of that rendition with the butter chickens offered up by Cafe Delites (cafedelites.com) and Recipe Tin Eats (recipetineats.com), which are remarkably similar. 

My main alterations are to omit any fresh chilis because we like the spice but not the spicy and to use one fourteen-ounce tin of crushed tomatoes because paste always tastes like paste. Cumin is not our favorite, so I halve whatever is called for and sub in coriander to make up the difference.

Whenever I make butter chicken tikka masala, I tend to go all out with sides of mushy peas or palak paneer, rice, and fresh-baked naan, which makes for quite a production in our little kitchen: apologies to my wife who does all of the washing up.

If all you are making is the main dish and some rice, this meal comes together rather quickly and simply and is not the palaver (cheers, Jamie Oliver) you might think.

It may not be a truly Indian specialty, but that just means that anyone can make it, though I will leave papadum and samosas to the pros. 

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 2 pounds chicken (tenderloins or boneless thighs) 🍗

• 4 big garlic cloves, grated (separated) 🧄

• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated (separated)

• 1 sweet onion 🧅

• 3 teaspoons garam masala (separated)

• 2 teaspoons turmeric (separated)

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin (separated)

• 1 teaspoon ground coriander (separated)

• 1-2 teaspoons chili powder, either New Mexican or Kashmiri red (separated) 🌶

• ½ teaspoon yellow curry powder

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt plus more to taste

WET GOODS

• 5.3 ounces (1 container) plain yogurt

• 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice (half a lemon) 🍋

• 2 tablespoons oil

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 🧈

• 1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes 🍅 

• 1 cup heavy cream (or more)

DO THIS

1. Cut the chicken into double-bite-sized chunks, three to four inches long

2. In a big mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice, two of the garlic cloves, one tablespoon of the ginger, one teaspoon garam masala, one teaspoon turmeric, half a teaspoon cumin, half a teaspoon coriander, one teaspoons chili powder, and the salt

3. Put the chicken pieces in the marinade and coat

4. Set the chicken in the refrigerator for at least eight hours (up to a full day)

5. Food-process the onion and the remaining two garlic cloves and one tablespoon ginger 

6. Heat the oil and the butter in a large skillet over medium heat

7. Add puréed aromatics and a pinch of salt and sautée until mostly cooked down (five minutes)

8. Add the remaining spices, including the curry powder, to the aromatics and combine

9. Continue to sautée for another five minutes

10. Prepare a broiler pan with cooking spray and lay the marinated chicken pieces atop it

11. Preheat a broiler on high

12. Add the crushed tomatoes to the skillet and whisk to combine with the sautéed aromatics

13. Broil the chicken pieces, roughly five minutes per side

14. Add the heavy cream to the tomato gravy and whisk to combine

15. Allow the sauce to come to a simmer and to reduce slightly while the chicken broils

16. When the chicken is nicely charred, add the pieces to the gravy and stir to coat and to combine, simmering for another five minutes

17. Serve over white basmati rice

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Tacos + Tequila 🌺 🌮

As soon as we began visiting Savannah, eating at Tequila’s Town became a happy habit. Back in that day, the flagship restaurant on Whitaker was the lone outpost for what has blossomed over a decade’s success into four local locations plus another that opened in Jacksonville in 2019. 

Since the brand moved into Sandfly more than eight years ago, my wife and I have eaten there more often than we have patronized the downtown original, mostly because we hit the former after a hike at Skidaway State Park or while we are running weekend errands on the Southside.

When the leadership team of Sergio Ortiz, Temo Ortiz, and Sergio Calderon took over the erstwhile home of Blowin’ Smoke back in the fall of 2020, Tacos + Tequila has been a once-monthly reliable resto in our rota, a short bike ride up Habersham from our house. As of two months ago, Poolerites started flocking to T+T’s second site.

No matter which branch of the mini-Michoacán empire you choose, fast and friendly service accompany amazingly affordable and delicious food. Along with Sly’s, the Tequila’s Towns and T+T remain the top two of the city’s ever-diminishing Cheap Eats eateries.

I hope that the folks there do not mind that we have never called these restaurants by their actual names, partly because I have never understood the possessive ‘s’ on Tequila. To us, they are collectively known as Taco Town.

After a few hours of yard work one Saturday morning, I had earned tacos. My wife and I were at T+T by half past eleven, seated at a barrel hightop beneath a fan, and before we picked up the menus, the warm chips and salsa were delivered.

I freely cop to being a frugal eater-out, so the fact that the Tequila’s Town family of restaurants still serves bottomless chips and salsa is a welcome windfall. We eat them like we are trying to win something. Yeah, I know that Moe’s offers this, too, but that might be the only reason to eat at a chain Tex-Mex joint. 

Though I have loved the sandwiches in T+T’s ‘So Mexican’ menu section, our strategy is splitting two of the ‘Para Compartir’ dishes: a pair of queso fresco empanadas ($6) and the fried avocado slices ($9). 

The empanadas could be filled with sand, and I would still devour the crispy pastry. The fried avocado 🥑 which was strangely absent for a few months, is back and better than ever, even crispier and still served with the same scrumptious chipotle crema. The bright green innards melt like softened butter with each bite, and the portion is more than ample for the price, though there is no need for the wilty spring mix bed underneath.

My wife is more than full with one empanada, her half of the avocado slices, and plenty of chips. If we share those two shareables, I supplement with one taco ($4.50), usually the atún: half-inch chunks of medium-well grilled tuna topped with grilled pineapple and corn salsa, pickled onions, a few radish slices, and cilantro on a warmed flour tortilla. I ask for the boom-boom sauce on the side because I am a lightweight.

The taco is always overstuffed, and I only wish that the radish and salsa pieces were diced smaller than the tuna for easier eating. If I have room for a second, Taco #2 is the pork belly because I want something no one else is making.

Because we do not drink, all told, our bill that day came to twenty bucks, which is far more than we normally spend at T+T or its sister restos. Beat that.

-Neil Gabbey