Surfin’
safari? We’re game! Celebrity chef, restaurateur and author Kevin
Gillespie and Atlanta restaurateur Justin Anthony ignite a KUDU Braai Cookout on the Yebo Beach Haus patio Sunday, May 21 from 3-6 p.m. “Braai Masters” Gillespie (Gunshow, Revival, Communion Cantina and Terminus City) and South African native Anthony (10 Degrees South, Yebo Beach Haus, Cape Dutch and Biltong Bar) will man four custom KUDU Grills
in a celebration of South African culture. Along with libations and
chef chat time, enjoy passed plates of hot-off-the-grill South African
bites including shrimp kabobs, boerewors rolls, sosaties, peri-peri
chicken and vegetable kabobs. Alcohol will be available for purchase.
Buy tickets online, $30 per person plus small service fee.
Aah, spring turns fancies to outdoor cooking. Red-bearded chef, author and Bravo “Top Chef” celebrity Kevin Gillespie fans the flames of desire for backyard cooking over the open-fire grills of KUDU Safari Braai at a KUDU Cookout on Wednesday, April 12 at Shep’s Midtown Ace Hardware. Six cooking surfaces and a patented elevated grate system allow grill masters to grill, sauté, sear, fry, boil, smoke or steam almost anything (and roast s’mores) over an open flame, even simultaneously! Witness the hot action as Gillespie “KUDUs” grilled oyster mushroom toast with mascarpone and hot giardiniera, grilled pork tenderloin with Spanish-style garlic shrimp and dishes out a mean Dutch oven blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Truth be told, the ice cream is frozen, not grilled. Meet, greet, eat bites and enjoy booze with Gillespie from 7:30-9 p.m. Buy tickets, $55 each, on Xorbia.
Jason Fisher, 29-year-old sous chef at No. 246, is battling a rare form of cancer for the second time in two years. The industry veteran’s associates, a list loaded with lauded Atlanta chefs, are supporting Fisher by doing what they do best -- cooking and KUDU barbecuing on Sunday, Mar. 26. The fundraising Sunday opens with Eat the Wild, a 2-6 p.m. garden barbecue at Kimball House. Fisher’s friends are firing up the South African-inspired KUDU Safari Braai for open-flame, outdoor cooking: splay-roasted lamb al asador, vegetable-stuffed suckling pigs, fire-roasted whole chickens, grilled oysters and grilled sausages and vegetables. Food is paired with Three Taverns Craft Brewery beer and Kimball cocktails. Tickets are $40 and are available at the door.
How about a second helping of helping out? Sunday evening, Gerry Klaskala of Aria is among the more than 20 chefs contributing to a potluck fundraiser dinner for Fisher and The Giving Kitchen at No. 246 in Decatur. Come on over to the 5-8 p.m. backyard affair and enjoy Ping-Pong, the Packway Handle band, chow and beverages from Heaven Hill Distilleries and Terrapin Beer Company. A discretionary $40 donation per person is suggested and may be made online on Fisher’s up-and-rolling GoFundMe page.
Some of the South’s most influential chefs, purveyors and distillers will rub elbows this weekend to put on a pearl of a party, the 2017 Alabama Oyster Social on Saturday, Jan. 28 in Auburn, Alabama. Slide in and visit tasting tables featuring Southern fishermen, foragers, farmers, brewers, butchers, distillers, vintners and shellfish enthusiasts and learn how Alabama oyster farmers employ progressive, sustainable techniques to put those oysters on your plate. KUDU is participating as a sponsor, showing its unique multi-grilling design based on traditional South African open grills. Buy tickets online, $75 per person (plus $3.62 service fee); covers chef tasting, beverage samples and live music.
Few are better qualified to blow the lid off the American barbecue experience than chef Kevin Gillespie, a guy who titled his first cookbook “Fire in My Belly.” Atlanta restaurateur Gillespie has joined founder Stebin Horne and his business partner, Stewart Vernon, as owners of the innovative KUDU Safari Braai outdoor life fire cooking system. The multifunctional grill, griddle and fire pit combined in one heavy gauge steel dream come true ignites flames of passion and kindles grill thrills in backyard fire enthusiasts. Gillespie explains, “With the KUDU, you are cooking without a lid and regulating the heat by creating distance from the heat source, enabling cooking on multiple surfaces simultaneously. From a culinary standpoint, I have yet to discover something I can’t do on it!”
Gillespie and Horne met a few months ago and immediately bonded over barbecue as Horne shared about the South African communal cooking technique called braai, where South African farmers weld a cooktop onto their old disc ploughs to cook for friends and family. Read more about the fascinating KUDU Nation story and cooking techniques. For Gillespie, who created the backyard beer garden Communionat his Decatur restaurant Revival, outdoor cooking is not about getting the food to the table gas-grill fast, it’s more akin to inviting friends to be a part of the experience – firing up the grill, cooking amazing food then gathering around the fire to watch embers glow. KUDU does all of that in one steely unit. While similar professional-grade wood-burning grills run toward the $5K mark, KUDU is being introduced at an affordable $750. Gillespie summarizes his excitement, “I don’t put my name on a lot of products, but I’m proud to attach my name to KUDU.” Ignite the fire. Buy KUDU here.
