As a child in Atlanta in the 1980s, I would frequently street-vacation with my spouse and children via the South, heading to Savannah for pralines on River Road or Chattanooga to ogle the aquarium. The destinations would modify, but the lunch alternatives have been consistent—often biscuits, peanuts, and fried chicken at some greasy spoon—the iconic cuisine of the japanese conclusion of the Sunlight Belt and for us, a relatives from Puerto Rico, quintessentially American.
As I acquired more mature, I learned that outside of the collard greens and apple pie there are Salvadoran pupusas, Bangladeshi biryani, and intensely spiced Mexican hen. I nevertheless get pleasure from checking out the South by car, but now I thrill extra to the immigrant-centered backstories and dishes from dining establishments that are much too normally overshadowed by the region’s most well known dishes. On a latest generate up I-85, from Montgomery, Alabama, by Atlanta and up to Charlotte, North Carolina, I discovered flavors from Ethiopia, Thailand, and far more: the full entire world on a plate in just 3 times.
Day 1
Montgomery is a proud Southern city that played a pivotal position in the Civil Legal rights Movement—and yet the Alabama money was created by the Greeks. At minimum, a good part of its early meals scene was. You can feel it currently not so a great deal in the souvlaki or feta but in the technique to hospitality imparted by Montgomery’s early Greek-born restaurateurs. A block from the place where by Rosa Parks got on a city bus that day in 1955 is Chris’ Hotdogs, a lunch counter opened in 1917 by Christopher Anastasios “Mr. Chris” Katechis. He opted to serve burgers and common very hot puppies soon after recognizing that his adopted countrymen did not have a taste for Greek dishes. While it was the segregated South, Katechis welcomed everyone to his cafe Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. frequently ate on the exact same purple leather-based stools where I devoured my scorching dog (topped with the house’s spiced chili sauce and paired with onion rings that my neighbor on the subsequent barstool—Gwynne, a frequent for 37 years—rightly insisted I test). At the finish of my meal, Katechis’s grandson Costas “Gus” Katechis, who operates the put nowadays with his father, Theo (Chris Katechis’s son), poured me a friendly shot of bourbon on the residence.
It can be a identical story a couple of miles north at Mr. Gus’ Ristorante, introduced by Dimitri Polizos in 2008, which serves Greek salads and stuffed grape leaves alongside pizzas, and the much more formal Charles Anthony’s Restaurant at The Pub, started in 1972 by Charles Anthony Kamburis, which does a necessarily mean steak. The Greek affect is even far more pervasive up in Birmingham, in which will have to-visits include things like Nabeel’s, owned for a long time by Patras-born John Krontiras (he is now the general manager), whose moussaka is 1 of the greatest dishes in the point out.
Day 2
The two-and-a-fifty percent-hour drive from Montgomery to Atlanta isn’t really memorable, but it goes rapidly. My idea: Have a small breakfast so you happen to be plenty hungry by the time you attain Buford Freeway, a 40-mile extend on the outskirts of the metropolis whose grey suburban sprawl belies the truth that it is household to 1 of the most assorted sets of cuisines in America. Lively dim sum joints, bulgogi spots, and taco bars sit shoulder to shoulder beneath gaudy indicators in each and every language. Started by the immigrant house owners of the highway’s gas stations and strip malls to feed their workforce, these compact but phenomenal eating institutions are common these days with people from throughout the city, who will courageous the Atlanta traffic for the vermicelli salads and drinking water chestnut dumplings.
This journey, I went straight to Salsa Taqueria & Wings, tucked guiding a Shell station, for beef and hen birria tacos whose shells had been dipped in sauce in advance of being correctly fried. Heaven. I have been coming to Buford Freeway given that I was a child, when my family members would stock up on plantains and other Puerto Rican staples at its farmers sector, so I understood not to overdo it on my initial end. Following I drove 50 percent a mile north to Bismillah, a takeout location at a Bangladeshi grocer in which the braised lamb shank is eye-rollingly delicious. I followed this by traveling to Tum Pok Pok, the new child on the highway, whose devoted owner, Adidsara Weerasin, does tamarind-abundant pad thai with head-on grilled prawns just like again household in northeast Thailand. I was entire, but I was not accomplished. Before I still left, I had to swing by Sweet Hut, an aged favored. Any one who has ever experienced the taro Swiss cake and bubble tea knows that the location are not able to be missed.
Day 3
Beloved as Buford is to me, I couldn’t hold out to get to Charlotte, whose more and more quite a few Ethiopian cultural residences and places to eat mirror the group that is spreading throughout this quickly-growing metropolis. I hit the highway early and designed it to Nile Restaurant, in eastern Charlotte, in time for lunch. The tables had been previously complete of the city’s various citizenry, listed here for dishes like fried phyllo-pastry pockets of spicy lamb. The air was fragrant with the berbere seasoning employed on the chicken. Hospitality arrives straight from the Southern playbook, with partner-and-wife staff Zerabruk Abay and Tsige Meshesha cooking and serving each and every dish. I stuffed my uncomplicated desk with sambusa and shiro chickpea purée with correctly smooth injera.
If I might experienced far more time, I would have headed to Enat and Abugida, two Ethiopian cafés I would been explained to to test, but those people will have to wait for the next highway vacation. So I stocked up on teff grains and black wush wush tea at Nile’s storefront grocer and used the drive back again plotting my return.
This posting appeared in the July/August 2021 problem of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine in this article.
