Octopus salad at Acre: Be bold and give this delicious dish a try.
Every August, Memphis magazine compiles an annual City Guide, a primer to arts, entertainment, sports, and food in the Bluff City. Instead of reviewing a single restaurant for the issue's Dining Out, we like to spread the love around, picking our top dishes for the previous 12 months.
This year, food writer Hannah Sayle also contributed picks, so our list is far-reaching, moving from food-truck fare to beautifully plated entrees at the city's high-end restaurants.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to post individual selections from our Top-10 list, beginning with Tender Spanish Octopus at Acre in East Memphis. Here's what I had to say about this appetizer's balanced flavors:
“The first time I ordered this appetizer, I was sitting on Acre’s patio in early July, sipping an icy martini to forget the summer heat. When the dish arrived to the table, I was mesmerized by its color and texture. Grilled octopus curled around chunks of olives, sopressata, roasted potatoes, and red onions. A puddle of paprika jus blended the appetizer into such a wonderful sense memory that I returned a few days later to order the octopus again.”
If octopus is a little too weird for you (my husband won't touch it), try two of the other appetizers recently added to Acre's menu. The goat ragu with fussili pasta, pictured below, is a surprisingly delicate dish flavored with braised kale and alpine renegade cheese. I'd never eaten goat before, and I was impressed with the unique texture of the meat
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The restaurant's summer corn soup, pictured above, is bright and cheerful with a little smokey taste. We were spoon fighting over the last of the soup and were particularly impressed with its garnishes: chorizo, scallions, and sumac-malted popcorn.
Acre, 690 S. Perkins (901) 818-2273
