Skip to site content
Group Travel Leader Group Travel Leader Group Travel Leader

Culinary Debuts in the South

Dining at an up-and-coming restaurant or discovering a new culinary experience makes any trip memorable. All around the South, spots to do that are popping up like wildflowers.

With the help of state tourism officials, we’ve compiled a list of the hottest 50 restaurants and other culinary experiences that have burst onto the Southern scene in the past 50 months. They’re sure to intrigue your group with unusual offerings of both place and taste.

In Arkansas, South on Main combines innovative Southern cuisine and stage performances reflecting Southern culture. Sugarfire Smoke House in the St. Louis area serves up stellar barbecue and fabulous sides. Going full circle from creation to plate, the Western North Carolina Cheese Trail not only highlights the farmsteads where cheese is made but also the wineries and restaurants that use those products.

Food experiences with a twist are sure to please groups looking for something different. Uncork and Create unleashes the imagination through its art and culinary classes. In Nashville, Pinewood Social’s all-in-one gathering place invites groups to relax, dine and play from morning to night. And the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans showcases the relationship between food and culture in each Southern state.

 

South on Main

Little Rock, Arkansas 

Diners can take in a performance while savoring a full menu of Southern cuisine at South on Main. This innovative Little Rock establishment is located in the historic SOMA district. The restaurant hosts a variety of shows on a stage that’s surrounded by tables and booths.

Wednesday nights, “Local Live” features local and regional acts. Ticketed concerts include dinner and host big-name acts such as Rosanne Cash and Rodney Crowell. Literary readings, light film screenings and partnerships with bands from local universities and colleges fill out the performance calendar.

“We work with the Oxford American magazine that has offices within our building, and they book all our performances and cultural programming,” said owner and chef Matthew Bell. “The magazine looks at the entire South when they put together each issue, and we do the same as we tell the story of the South through food.”

Chef Bell prefers to reinvent traditional Southern dishes. For instance, his Gulf Boil is a play on cioppino, an Italian fish stew, and a Southern low-country boil. Bell sources ingredients from around the region, using clams from the Carolinas and bass from the Gulf in a rich fennel-tomato broth.

Lunch and dinner menus change six to eight times during the year. Desserts rotate daily and weekly, with notables such as parfaitlike desserts in Mason jars, homemade pies and fried-to-order doughnuts.

www.southonmain.com

 

Sugarfire Smoke House

St. Charles, Missouri

Artisan barbecue, handcrafted with tender, loving care, has won over many a “’cue aficionado” at Sugarfire Smoke House. Since opening in September 2012, Sugarfire has expanded to three St. Louis-area locations and garnered a host of awards. One respected St. Louis magazine awarded the restaurant the best barbecue and the best burger in St. Louis two years running. It’s no wonder: Co-owner and chef Mike Johnson worked for Emeril Lagasse in New Orleans and Charlie Trotter in Chicago and did a stint in France before coming back to his hometown.

“We open at 11 a.m. and only cook a certain amount of meat daily. And we sell out every day — sometimes it’s at 7 p.m., and sometimes it’s 9 p.m.,” said Casey Jovick, head pit master. “Barbecue is both science and art and has to be executed perfectly.

“We did some research on brisket-cooking techniques in Texas before we opened, and our brisket is cooked between 12 and 15 hours, so it’s incredibly tender and flavorful.”

Surefire’s top sellers are its Texas-style brisket and its pulled pork. Sides are made from scratch daily and run the gamut from pork-belly hush puppies with jalapeno jelly to smoked, fried artichokes with lemon aioli to white truffle-infused sweet potato salad.

The kitchen staff makes six sauces in-house. The somewhat-sweet St. Louis sauce is the top seller. The coffee barbecue sauce actually has the brewed, soft grounds mixed into it. And there’s a white barbecue sauce that Jovick describes as a “hillbilly version of a horseradish cream sauce that will knock your socks off.”

www.sugarfiresmokehouse.com

Elizabeth Hey

Elizabeth Hey is a member of Midwest Travel Journalists Association and has received numerous awards for her writing and photography. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook @travelbyfork.