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:

• Eden Supper Club Opens Up at The Garage 🪴👩🏼‍🌾

• Collins Quarter Team Shares Top Local Dining Picks 🍜

• Must-Try Frogmore Salad Recipe 🥗

• Unveiling The Wexford Irish Pub in City Market 🍀 🇮🇪

THE MAIN DISH

Eden Supper Club pulls into The Garage for restaurant residency 👩🏼‍🌾 🧺

Jared Jackson and Nicole Priore were less than two weeks away from packing up and shipping out again, off to another U.S. military base to subcontract cook for the Department of Defense.

The culinary partners were headed to Michigan for another food tour of duty when close friend and fellow chef John Behhase called with a favor to ask: would they consider bringing their Eden Supper Club brand into The Garage at Victory North for maybe a month?

Owner Mohamed Eldibany had reached out to Benhase for consulting assistance as the restaurant underwent a transition.

“He knew it needed a fresh take and had the foresight for that,” Benhase shared. “He asked me to come in and take a look to see what would be a good fit there and what best direction to go in.”

Benhase immediately contacted Jackson and Priore, hoping that they were in between cooking contracts and knowing that the duo would be dynamic in “right[ing] the ship from the kitchen standpoint,” at least for the time being.

“I’ve worked with Jared and Nicole a bunch of times,” he said, recalling when Jackson ran his Loki Food Bus when the Benhases had their first child. “They’ve been some of my go-to people to call.”

Eden Supper Club’s partners put their imminent DOD deployment on hold and reopened The Garage in what Benhase called a “no-brainer plug-in,” executing his menu served by the staff already at hand. 

“We were mercenaries,” Jackson said, unintentionally continuing the military motif, “under the guise that we were hired hands for him.”

Within the agreed-upon month, though, both Benhase and Eldibany recognized that The Garage had found its next culinary directors and that the “next logical evolution,” per Benhase, would see Eden Supper Club park it right here.

“A couple weeks into the consulting,” Jackson recalled, “John pulled us aside and said, ‘Hey, I don’t know what you guys were thinking, but if this is something you might want to make yours, there’s an opportunity for that.’”

That first month fulfilled, The Garage closed on August 23 so that Jackson and Prior could set to work on what is being called a residency. A friends and family soft-opening is slated for September 11, and then the restaurant will reopen for dinner on September 13.

“That’s twelve days.” Jackson paused. “Twelve days to put a restaurant together.” His laughter echoed inside what will soon be Eden Supper Club’s dining room, Priore smiling broadly in the adjacent booth.

“There’s a lot to do, but I think we’ve got it,” he said with a puckish grin.

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CHEF’S CRAVINGS

The Collins Quarter - Roberto Leoci, Tony Stockbridge, & Evan Beadle 🥘 🍹

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?

For over a decade, Roberto Leoci has been a notable name in the city’s culinary scene. Recognized as Best Chef in CONNECT’s 2015 Best of Savannah, he has owned his own and helmed kitchens at a handful of restaurants with stints at Green Fire Pizza and Pacci. Back in the spring, Leoci hitched his star to the Southern Cross Hospitality constellation and became the top chef at The Collins Quarter, whose flagship location may still have the longest wait list in town every weekend, especially around noontime. This week’s Chefs’ Cravings come from Leoci, CQ sous chef Tony Stockbridge, and lead bartender Evan Beadle.

TS: Cuban Window is probably one of my favorites. Always the Cuban sandwich. I lived in Miami for a while, and I think that’s one of the best Cubans I’ve ever had.

RL: Mine? For twenty years, I’ve liked going to Al Salaam. It’s like going to see family. I bring my kids, and I’ve been going there, literally, for more than twenty years. I have a gyro. I like the rice wrapped with grape leaves, and I get my spices from there, sumac and Middle Eastern spices. Basically, I go there to see the owners and to say ‘hello’. I love telling people about it, especially people who are not from Savannah 🥙

EB: My day off when I’m going to get some food? Circa 1875. French onion soup, mussels, and escargot, and that usually kicks off the night. Honestly, Brochu’s kills it. You’ve got to get a dozen oysters and their fried chicken sandwich and a chicken liver tart, I think it is: mind-blowing.

RL: I also like Flock to the Wok. Ele and Sean [Tran]. I go places where I’ve known the owners for such a long time. We build a bond. I remember back in the day when they only used to have The King and I, so I used to go there. That’s where our friendship started. That was a long time ago 🍱

And for a special occasion?

RL: Elizabeth because I like going to see [Executive Chef] Kelly [Yambor]. Again, over twenty-three years, I’ve built a relationship with them, and the head server, Kim Tettleton, he’s the captain, I used to work with him 🍝 Just go there, and you don’t even order from the menu. They just make it special, and they come and see me all the time when they find where I’m at. 

-Neil Gabbey

TRIED, TASTED, TRUE

Frogmore salad 🥬🍅🌽

THE STORY BEHIND THE RECIPE

During our Baltimore years, at least once a summer, we bought a bushel of steamed crabs, brought them home to our back deck, and spent the next several glorious hours shucking and talking. It was event eating at its least elegant but most delightful, especially when my family drove down from Rochester for a few days in Charm City.

Because of the prevalence of prime shrimp and superb sausage in the South, it is no wonder that Lowcountry boil serves a similar culinary capacity when it comes to community dining. 

The added advantage is that all of the other stuff is tossed into the same colossal pot. The boiler just has to get the timing right.

Evidently or apocryphally, the bountiful boil of the Lowcountry is so closely related to the eponymous Frogmore stew that some historical resources consider them one and the same; a few note that crab or crawfish are often added to the former, though the latter definitely hails from the namesake community on St. Helena Island, not seven miles east of Beaufort.

Either way and by both names, this is the South’s summertime feast. Get a pile of newspaper for the picnic tables and fire up a propane camp stove.

After he was named the executive chef of Thompson Savannah and its signature rez-de-chaussée restaurant, Fleeting, in 2021, Rob Newton graciously and generously treated my wife and me to dinner. Before the lovely evening ended, he gifted me his debut cookbook, Seeking the South, in which he chronicles regional American Southern cuisine while finding connections and commonalities with African, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian forebears.

Leaning on the Lowcountry and the Coastal Empire, Newton devised a salad composed of the familiar suspects in the aforementioned boil, calling it Frogmore stew. The intent is to incorporate the same flavors without any of the hand-on mess at mealtime.

Newton’s spin is scrumptious, and I use it as a starting point for my own even more salady dish whose parts are either boiled or grilled or both.

While a stock pot of water started bubbling, I lit coals in a chimney starter. In the meantime, I mixed up a variation on Newton’s Seersucker Spice Mix, which can easily be substituted with Cajun seasoning or shrimp boil spice, separately skewered and oiled the shrimp and cherry tomatoes, and cut the red potatoes in half. A little more than a tablespoon of the spice mix went into the boiling water, and I dusted the shrimp and tomatoes with another couple teaspoons.

Inside, the ears of corn and potatoes burbled for about fifteen minutes while outside, the grill prepared and hot, the grates cleaned and oiled, I arranged the Roger Wood Lumber Jacks and the shrimp and tomato skewers and left them to char.

What I have done to saladify Newton’s method is add rough-chopped iceberg and an actual dressing, whereas the unctuousness of the original comes from olive oil and lemon wedges. I had half a head of lettuce languishing in the crisper, and I used the remaining tablespoon of the sort-of-Seersucker Spice mix which I whisked into a basic buttermilk ranch.

After the corn and potatoes were tender, I removed both from the boiling water. The potatoes went out to the Weber for a little char before a light smashing of each piece. I sliced the kernels off of the cobs, cut the sausages into bite-sized pieces, and slid the shrimp and tomatoes off of the skewers. All of the hard goods went into the biggest bowl I own for a serious toss. 

Into the serving bowls, I laid a light bed of lettuce, and then my wife and I each shoveled heaping helpings of Frogmore on top. A generous drizzle of dressing and a few fresh chives, and you have yourself Lowcountry boil in a bowl.

-Neil Gabbey

THE RECIPE

HARD GOODS 

• 4 Roger Wood Lumber Jack sausages (or other similar smoked sausage)

• 1 pound medium (21-25) shrimp, peeled and deveined

• 4 ears corn, shucked 🌽

• 1 pound small red potatoes, cut in half if 2 inches or larger (or whole new reds) 🥔

• 1 pint cherry tomatoes 🍅

• 1 head iceberg lettuce 🥬

• Sort-of-Seersucker Spice Mix

  • 2 teaspoons smoked paprika

  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder

  • 1 teaspoon onion powder

  • 1 teaspoon ground celery seed

  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano

  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme

  • 1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

  • 1 teaspoon Kosher salt

• ¼ cup diced fresh chives (optional)

WET GOODS

• ¼ cup olive oil, used separately 🫒

• Frogmore salad dressing

  • ½ cup sour cream (or plain Greek yogurt)

  • ¼ cup buttermilk 🥛

  • ¼ cup mayonnaise (Duke’s)

  • 1 tablespoon of Sort-of-Seersucker Spice Mix

  • Dash of Texas Pete hot sauce (optional)

  • 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 🍋

DO THIS

1. Whisk together all of the spice mix ingredients and set aside

2. Prepare the dressing by whisking together all six ingredients and place in the refrigerator

3. Prepare a grill, warming to medium heat

4. Put a large stock pot of water over high heat and add 1 tablespoon of the spice mix

5. Skewer the shrimp and the tomatoes separately and set on a baking sheet

6. Lightly oil the shrimp and tomato skewers and dust with 2 teaspoons of the spice mix

7. Once the water comes to a boil, add the corn and potatoes to the pot

8. Around the same time, place the sausages on the grill

9. When the sausages have charred slightly on one side, place the shrimp and tomato skewers on the grill

10. Turn all of the items on the grill when they are nicely marked

11. After at least 15 minutes, remove the corn and potatoes from the pot and set aside to cool

12. Use the broad side of a chef’s knife or a mallet and press lightly on each potato piece

13. One at a time, hold the corn cobs upright in a large bowl or in a bundt pan and slice off the kernels

14. Take the sausages, shrimp, and tomatoes off the grill and remove from the skewers

15. Slice the sausages into half-inch (bite-size) pieces

16. Put the sausage pieces, shrimp, tomatoes, potatoes, and corn kernels into a large salad bowl and toss thoroughly

17. Rough-chop the iceberg head

18. Into serving bowls, place a handful of lettuce

19. Top with a generous portion of the Frogmore salad

20. Drizzle with dressing

BEEN THERE. ATE THAT.

Wexford - Savannah's Irish Pub 🍺🍀

Having written about dining in Savannah for more than five years now, I am flattered that friends ask me for food recommendations and are eager to tell me about their eating-out experiences. I apologize to my colleagues for talking restaurant shop far too much, even if it seems as though food conversations are, more often than not, our modern culture’s greatest common denominator.

Upon returning to school, folks who know their food shared with me where they had been recently, and no other single restaurant was given more pub - pun totally intended - than Wexford. 

Since it soft-opened on July 22 and then hosted a grand-opening celebration weekend that began on August 8, self-monikered as Savannah’s Irish Pub, Wexford has been the talk o’ the town and the subject of much due ballyhoo.

After Kevin Barry’s closed its doors on New Year’s Eve 2019, the Erin went bragh, if you will, in Savannah’s restauration landscape, leaving a Hostess City that boasts of the country’s third biggest St. Patrick’s Day celebration without a proper Irish pub, at least one that also serves food 🍀 The song remained the same until The Snug opened on Wilmington Island a few years later.  

Encouraged by relatively rave reviews of Wexford’s food, my wife and I headed downtown early the Friday evening of the last full week back to school, a Leopold’s gift card tucked in my back pocket as is our wont.

Clearly and gorgeously, Wexford’s co-owners Jennifer and Tim Strickland and Chris Swanson spared no expense in the renovation of what had become a manky Wild Wing Cafe, transforming the capacious two-story space into an Irish gastropub ideal 🍺 Seating area after distinct seating area, all appointed in rich honey and brown leathers, stand against walnut woods with antique brick abounding everywhere. Walls gleam with gilded mirrors and mementos of Irish history from both the island itself and Savannah’s own past.

On the cleverly cut-up second floor, open rafters give onto the skylight over the main dining space that leads to a huge horseshoe bar, and stained glass walls create cozy snugs. 

Because it is so brand-new, Wexford has a Disneyfied feel, which is a pejorative statement that can be qualified for its merits: it is clean as a whistle; it is organized and efficiently run; it is staffed by cheery droves, all wearing ‘Sláinte, Y’all’ tees; and the food comes out fast. Like the Magic Kingdoms, this place overtly welcomes families with wee uns and mates who gather for a few pints, locals who have headed downtown and Instapeople who have come to be seen.  

In fewer words, this place is going to print money this coming March - which is another way of saying that we will visit Wexford in the wintertime. For now, though, it is so pristine as to be unpub-like.

Just after five o’clock, both floors offered several seating options, so when our host oddly led us to a table tucked in a corner next to the only baby in the entire restaurant, we asked to sit in the second floor’s open dining room. 

Perhaps it was the luck of the youknow in our reseating that made Amanda our server. Note to Wexford’s owners and general managers: give Amanda a raise and promote her. If she alone is emblematic of the employees throughout the restaurant, good on you and great for your guests.

My wife and I went with what friends had recommended and split the Classic Reuben ($18) and the Wexford Fish & Chips ($22), proper pub grub.

The former was “piled high-ish” with lovely layers of thin corned beef that required no chewing whatsoever with melted Swiss and Paw Paw’s comeback sauce on deceptively smallish slices of grilled marbled rye. I had not had a legitimate corned beef sandwich in quite some time, and this one more than met the mark.

The real craic was the fried haddock, which must have been a whole fish, served with a tangy malt vinegar tartar sauce. Perfectly cooked, the flaky white flesh was knurled with nooks and crannies, fully enveloped in the best of beer batters, a serving easily enough for two.

Other than the coleslaw that inexplicably contained blue cheese and Craisins, the only poor part of our meal was the chips. Cut correctly into flat batons, the Irish fries were soggy nevertheless, probably not twice-fried, which made me wonder about the sheer volume of spuds Wexford will go through each day and if the kitchen can keep up.

Speaking of, I appreciate what an eating establishment in a largely tourist-driven area feels duty-bound to do, but I wish that a place as palpably well-thought-out as Wexford did not have to meet the masses with a menu that is a gigantic double-sided placement. Hopefully, people from Pooler, Pembroke, and Pittsburgh are going to come here to partake of standard Irish fare, a splash of Jameson here and a drop of Guinness there. Fish and chips and shepherd’s pie, corned beef and colcannon.

Some of the mammoth menu’s Irishizations seem unnecessary and forced. The pan-seared cod is accompanied by ‘wee’ tomatoes. The Caesar salad and the shrimp & grits have Irish bacon. Wait, grits? Chili? An Emerald Isle Cobb Salad with avocados? Pub nachos? 

Faith and begorrah. Considering the volume that Wexford is going to serve, just turn over the tried and true.

As the nights grow colder, I am sure that we will return to Savannah’s Irish Pub to try the lamb sliders (hold the mint jelly), the potato & leek soup served with Irish soda bread and butter, and the Celtic Knot pretzel that is as big as a hubcap.

In the meantime, if halving the menu means double-fried crispy chips, I will give Wexford my pot of gold.

-Neil Gabbey