An all-American holiday deserves an all-American meal of steaks, seafood, signature dishes or even some Tex-Mex. All Ray’s Restaurants -- Ray’s in the City, Ray’s on the River, Ray’s at Killer Creek and Ray’s Rio Bravo will be open and eager to serve from noon-9 p.m. on Memorial Day, May 30. As a token of appreciation, the restaurants are extending a 20 percent discount to all veterans and active-duty military plus one guest. Additionally, Dining Club members will receive double points for Memorial Day purchases.
Eater has sifted through hundreds of nominations for the Young Guns class of 2016 and boiled the crew down to 48 semifinalists from across the nation. Gunshow sous chef Spencer Gomez is one of the two Atlanta representatives on the list, and Gunshow executive chef Joey Ward could not be more proud of the 28-year-old Gomez. Ward describes this kitchen dude team member as a “natural leader who demonstrates the kitchen talents, skills and composure of someone twice his age.” He furthers, “Gunshow would not exist in its current level of execution without Spencer.” Eater’s annual class of Young Guns celebrates exceptional new culinary talent in the 30-and-under crowd with fewer than five years experience. Eater will announce its 2016 Eater Young Guns winners on June 28. Congratulations, Spencer! We’re pulling for you more than smoked pork at a Terminus City barbecue.
Saturday, May 28 is a very busy day – opening Memorial Day weekend, carving open National Brisket Day and uncorking National Wine Day. Come along with us as we Wine Down for National Wine Day. Find a magnum of keen-o vino ideas: tipsy, chillable and floatable wine glasses; tips on pairings, including unpretentious wine and popcorn pairings; and for the desperate house wines of Atlanta, ways to open a wine bottle without using a corkscrew. Cook with wine (in recipes as well as your glass) and turn out red wine spaghetti, merlot meatballs, wine and chocolate cake bites, red wine ice cream, white wine mojitos, peach or raspberry wine slushies, sangrias and more. This board is a veritable wine-o-pedia, and a very fine vintage, indeed.
Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer. What better way to welcome the al fresco season than to “Basque in the Sun” on the open-air patio at Gypsy Kitchen? On May 29, the Spanish restaurant in The Shops Buckhead Atlanta is hosting a special Memorial Day weekend edition of the popular Sunday social. Enjoy live music by a flamenco guitarist, flavorful paella, $4 tinto de verano, $5 glasses of rosé and half-off select bottles of wine. Flamenco and specials begin at 4 p.m.; DJ takes over from 7 p.m. until who knows when. Gypsy Kitchen will be closed on Monday, May 30, in honor of the Memorial Day holiday.
Saturday, May 28 is National Brisket Day. “Oh,” you say, “there goes my day, watching the smoker smoke that darn brisket into a state of tenderness.” Not so. The Brisket Burger ($14) at Ray’s Restaurants is ready at lunchtime, Monday through Saturday. Ray’s plops the beefy boy on a toasted brioche bun and dresses it up with local craft beer cheese, house-made pickles, bibb lettuce, vine-ripened tomato and onion and serves it with hand-cut fries, chips or a side salad. There’s a reason the Brisket Burger falls into the “Handhelds” menu category at all three Ray’s Restaurants –Ray’s in the City, Ray’s on the River (also available on Bar Bites menu) and Ray’s at Killer Creek (also available on Bar Bites and dinner menus). You will need the napkin.
How much fun can one squeeze into a holiday weekend?Johnny’s Hideaway packs a dance floor full -- and then some -- in a pre-Memorial Day bash on Sunday, May 29 beginning at 8:30 p.m. Band X, Atlanta’s favorite high-energy party band, provides adrenaline-pumping music, and cover is only $5. Hospitality workers enjoy Sunday night industry specials. Open into the wee hours of Memorial Day morning. Can we rank a salute for that?
A sold-out, all-star chef dinner hosted by food writer Kate Parham Kordsmeier and photographer Heidi Geldhauser, held May 1 at Umi, raised nearly $24,000 for charity. The inaugural event for the Emily Cameron Art Scholarship, honoring the late photographer Emily Cameron, gave $10,000 to Atlanta-based painter Natalie Escobar. Kordsmeier and Geldhauser, along with Cameron’s parents, established the scholarship to change the life of a service-industry worker pursuing a career in the arts. The remaining $14,000 in proceeds was donated to The Giving Kitchen to go toward crisis grants for members of Atlanta’s restaurant community facing unanticipated hardship. Some of Atlanta’s most-celebrated chefs, including Fuyuhiko and Lisa Ito of Umi, Gerry Klaskala of Aria and Joey Ward of Gunshow, united to prepare the multi-course meal at Umi. To toast the occasion, Gunshow’s Mercedes O’Brien mixed a signature cocktail named “The Emily,” featuring bourbon, SHISO liqueur, honey, lemon, seltzer and strawberry absinthe ice pearls.
Kickstart Saturday morning, May 28, with a bit of Revival. Executive chef Andreas Müller is stopping by Morningside Farmers Market to lead this Saturday’s chef demo before hunkering down in his kitchen at the Decatur restaurant. The homegrown fruits, vegetables and fresh foods of Müller’s boyhood in Sweden stuck, igniting a passion for seeking farm-fresh ingredients throughout his chef-hood. Bingo. Hits the asparagus on the head for a farmers market cooking class. Shop the year-round market for locally grown organic from 8-11:30 a.m. but peel yourself away around 9-ish for this demo on the patio of market-adjacent Morningside Kitchen. Another reason to praise the morning, Morningside Farmers Market requires all produce to be certified organic.
Award-winning chef RJ Cooper has stirred fine dining scenes in Atlanta, NYC, Miami, Anchorage and Washington, D.C. He’s choosing to hang his toque back in the South at 5Church Atlanta, opening late spring/early summer at the corner of 14th and Peachtree streets in Midtown. Cooper will drive a modern American menu tailor-made for Atlanta while collaborating with 5Church partner and chef Jamie Lynch, who oversees the menus at locations in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. A Detroit native, Cooper began his culinary career working under Guenter Seeger at The Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead and Gilbert Le Coze at Brasserie Le Coze in Atlanta. NYC’s Le Bernardin, Brasserie Le Coze in Miami and The Crow’s Nest Restaurant at Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage further stocked his pot of experiences. In Washington, D.C., Cooper won accolades as executive chef at New Heights Restaurant as well as the 2006 Chefs Rising Star Award and 2007 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic for his work at Vidalia. He moved on to open two of his own restaurants in the D.C. area -- Rogue 24 and Gypsy Soul. This chef knows his way around culinary landscapes, in Atlanta and beyond, and he is thrilled to further his Southern-inspired fare in our city. Follow 5Church Atlanta on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
If only the radio could disperse captivating wafts of grilling meats when Star 94.1 FM host Jeff Dauler and chef Kevin Gillespie chew the fat about grilling at 8 a.m. on Thursday, May 26. Tune in and let The Jeff & Jenn Show and the red-bearded chef/restaurateur/owner of Gunshow and Revival fire up your morning.
Cue the 'Cue because May is National BBQ Month. Pull the pork out of the wings and throw it into the limelight with “So Good You’ll Slap Yo Mama” smoked pork butt or 16-hour pulled pork. Strut the bird in bacon bourbon BBQ chicken kabobs, spicy smoked chicken thighs or go tandem with BBQ chicken and ribs. Slather on barbecue sauces – Guinness, Cheerwine, smoky bourbon, homemade root beer, blueberry, Alabama white, North Carolina vinegar or South Carolina mustard to name a few. Rather massage your meat? Pat it down with Buffalo spice rub, sweet and smoky BBQ dry rub mix, cowboy spice mix, pulled pork rubs or coffee rib rub. Your grill will be thrilled.
Haylie Duff is a mama, actress, cookbook reader and writer, and Cooking Channel personality who hosts – and keeps in real life – a Real Girl's Kitchen. Her Instagram, Snapchat andblog dole out recipes, tabletop ideas, entertaining tips and sweet baby pictures (for dessert).
