Justin Fox Burks
Who needs Destin with the seafood-centric menu of Saltwater Crab?
Presenting the second part of our profiles of the top-10 new restaurants in Memphis, determined by the voters in our 35th annual Readers Restaurant Poll. The new restaurants are diverse in atmosphere, menu, price, and location. Downtown, diners can enjoy a double-handful of Sage Burger on South Main Street. In Midtown, they can take their pick of wood-fired pizza or seafood boils. And to the east, there's elevated Southern cooking in Chickasaw Oaks Village, and traditional Italian fare on the Collierville Town Square.
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Justin Fox Burks
Chef Andy Knight developed the seafood-centric menu at Saltwater Crab, which includes crab legs with butter, seafood boils from an extensive assortment of shellfish, and favorites like sushi, seared sea scallops, and shrimp and grits with smoked sausage and tomato gravy.
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Justin Fox Burks
Chef Andy Knight developed the seafood-centric menu at Salt Crab, which includes crab legs with butter, seafood boils from an extensive assortment of shellfish, and favorites like sushi, seared sea scallops, and shrimp and grits with smoked sausage and tomato gravy.
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Justin Fox Burks
Chef Andy Knight (above) developed the seafood-centric menu at Saltwater Crab, which includes crab legs with butter, seafood boils from an extensive assortment of shellfish, and favorites like sushi, seared sea scallops, and shrimp and grits with smoked sausage and tomato gravy.
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Justin Fox Burks
Chef Andy Knight developed the seafood-centric menu at Saltwater Crab, which includes crab legs with butter, seafood boils from an extensive assortment of shellfish, and favorites like sushi, seared sea scallops, and shrimp and grits with smoked sausage and tomato gravy.
Saltwater Crab
Fish favorites, seafood boils, and the catch of the day
Sit me down in front of a cluster of hot crab legs, and I’ll happily go to work for the meat. I don’t even need tools, except maybe for the claws — it’s a real skill. If you’d seen me at the table at Saltwater Crab in early January, intently bending and cracking the brittle legs for the ocean-sweet treasure inside, you’d know that this is something I take quite seriously. No time for talk as my spice-and-butter-covered fingers work their way through each precious inch of harvestable morsels.
The seafood boils — like the one I ordered and still daydream about — are a popular choice. Customizable, with a combination of blue crab, snow crab, shrimp, clams, green mussels, or lobster tail and served with corn on the cob and red potatoes, the boils arrive at the table in a steaming-hot, tied bag — a delicious gift waiting to be unwrapped. The components inside swim in melted Cajun butter, heavy on the seasonings. (Choose regular, mild, or spicy.)
If a messy, slightly barbaric feast isn’t your thing, go for some raw oysters, shipped in from Canada or the coast and available at market price daily or Sunday specials for just $1 each. For a completely different kind of starter, try the fried green tomato bruschetta with heaping spoonfuls of cold lump crab, diced red tomato, and tart balsamic atop crisp, warm fried green tomato slices. There’s also a daily wild-caught “Catch of the Day” offering, in addition to the standby fish dishes. My partner ordered the blackened salmon, perfectly cooked and topped with a dollop of house-made mustard chive cream, which we’re certain had a bit of honey in it.
By the time you read this, the menu will have been revamped a bit. Memphis’ own Michael Donahue spoke with Saltwater Crab owner Gary Lin about changes kicking off mid-January. Among them: Chef Jimmy Sinh, owner of the former Sushi Jimmi food truck turned restaurant, will join the team as chef/kitchen manager. Sinh plans to bring sushi back to Saltwater Crab’s menu and tweak other items, including the steak, which he says will be a thicker cut and better-seasoned.
We look forward to trying the new options. Just keep the seafood boils exactly as they are. — Shara Clark
2059 Madison Ave. (901-922-5202). Open 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. - 11 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday.
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Justin Fox Burks
Miles Tamboli discovered his love of egg pasta while visiting the Adriatic coast and started selling his own hand-made pasta at the downtown farmer’s market. At his new restaurant, pasta is still the star, along with house-made specialties like sauces for pasta and pizzas and fresh cheeses like ricotta, burrata, and mozzarella.
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Justin Fox Burks
Miles Tamboli (above) discovered his love of egg pasta while visiting the Adriatic coast and started selling his own hand-made pasta at the downtown farmer’s market. At his new restaurant, pasta is still the star, along with house-made specialties like sauces for pasta and pizzas and fresh cheeses like ricotta, burrata, and mozzarella.
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Justin Fox Burks
Miles Tamboli discovered his love of egg pasta while visiting the Adriatic coast and started selling his own hand-made pasta at the downtown farmer’s market. At his new restaurant, pasta is still the star, along with house-made specialties like sauces for pasta and pizzas and fresh cheeses like ricotta, burrata, and mozzarella.
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Justin Fox Burks
Miles Tamboli discovered his love of egg pasta while visiting the Adriatic coast and started selling his own hand-made pasta at the downtown farmer’s market. At his new restaurant, pasta is still the star, along with house-made specialties like sauces for pasta and pizzas and fresh cheeses like ricotta, burrata, and mozzarella.
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Justin Fox Burks
Miles Tamboli discovered his love of egg pasta while visiting the Adriatic coast and started selling his own hand-made pasta at the downtown farmer’s market. At his new restaurant, pasta is still the star, along with house-made specialties like sauces for pasta and pizzas and fresh cheeses like ricotta, burrata, and mozzarella.
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Justin Fox Burks
Miles Tamboli discovered his love of egg pasta while visiting the Adriatic coast and started selling his own hand-made pasta at the downtown farmer’s market. At his new restaurant, pasta is still the star, along with house-made specialties like sauces for pasta and pizzas and fresh cheeses like ricotta, burrata, and mozzarella.
Tamboli’s Pasta and Pizza
Chicken parmesan, wood-fired pizzas, and pastas made by hand
When our friend Bobby Maupin hears our plans to visit Tamboli’s Pasta and Pizza, he is direct with his recommendations: Order cheese pizza and fried chicken Parmesan. Maupin helped owner Miles Tamboli compile the wine list at the restaurant, which opened in early November in what many old-timers still refer to as Hatley’s Garage.
Younger customers are more likely to remember Fuel Café, the last restaurant to occupy the building on Madison Avenue owned by Tamboli’s father, Roy Tamboli, the well-known artist who works in a studio next door. Either way, the family’s extensive redesign of the space updates its past uses with a refreshing energy, an enlarged sun-filled dining room, and a seasonal Italian menu that is delicious and fun to eat.
Let’s start with that three-cheese pizza, which we order as an appetizer for four along with beef carpaccio, a lovely dish served with mozzarella mousse, amaranth micro-greens, and a dab or two of pesto. We pass around the carpaccio plate and then focus on the pizza pie and its appealing crust that billows into bubbles from the restaurant’s wood-fired oven. By now, we are well into an eating frenzy, and when we reach for slices, each one pulls apart in beautiful stretchy strands of mozzarella, ricotta, Pecorino, and Parmesan.
The pizza is, in a single word, perfect. “I tried to make a cheese pizza that a 4-year-old would like and a seasoned food writer would like,” Tamboli later explains, smiling.
No wonder Tamboli looks happy. His restaurant is a runaway hit, thanks in part to loyal customers who know Tamboli’s handmade egg pasta from local farmer’s markets. In fact, Memphis magazine readers took control when Tamboli’s was not included in this year’s pull-down menu for best new restaurant. (The restaurant opened after the ballot’s official cut-off date.) Their write-in votes still pushed Tamboli’s into the top-10 list, a first for any new restaurant in the poll’s history.
“I want to surprise people by rejecting the idea that affordable casual food has to be a certain way,” Tamboli says. “It can be intentionally made, and it can be made with good, locally sourced ingredients.”
Under the direction of Chef Shane Wiggington, Tamboli’s year-round menu of pasta (rigatoni with tomato bacon gravy!), pizzas (meat board!), and mains (meat lasagna and chicken Parmesan!) holds steady, but seasonal specials regularly change to match the availability of produce. For instance, a few days after our visit, oyster mushroom and arrabiata sauce pizza replaces duck confit pizza with coffee-honey glaze. Up next: Look for deconstructed barbecue spaghetti and mozzarella cheese sticks with marinara sauce, all house-made. — Pamela Denney
1761 Madison Ave. (901-410-8866). Open 5 – 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday.
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Justin Fox Burks
Fried chicken with buttermilk waffles at Mahogany Memphis.
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Justin Fox Burks
Oxtail on stoneground grits at Mahogany Memphis.
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Justin Fox Burks
Elevated Southern cooking is a beautiful thing at the hand of Chef Christopher Hudson (above).
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Justin Fox Burks
A specialty cocktail — the “Thomas Edison aka Black Maria” — is made with black vodka, cherry and lime juices, and edible pearl dust.
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Justin Fox Burks
Elevated Southern cooking is a beautiful thing at the hand of Chef Christopher Hudson Consider the fried chicken with buttermilk waffles, oxtail on stoneground grits, sweet and spicy pork belly, and a specialty cocktail — the “Thomas Edison aka Black Maria” — made with black vodka, cherry and lime juices, and edible pearl dust.
Mahogany Memphis
Cajun chicken eggrolls, Memphis fried chicken, and star-studded cocktails
Is it soul food? Or does it perhaps hew more closely to fine dining? Chef Christopher Hudson, formerly of L’Ecole Culinaire, chooses both options at Mahogany Memphis, the chic new establishment in Chickasaw Oaks Village. The sheer breadth of quality and intriguing options for lunch and dinner makes it almost impossible to choose just one item, so naturally, we have to try several.
But first, cocktails. Mahogany (named after Diana Ross’ turn in the 1975 film of the same name) is decked in cinematic flair: The menu is broken up into sections akin to a movie set: the Extras (appetizers), the Props (soup & salads), The Cast (entrees), as some examples. But nowhere else is the movie scene as influential as the cocktail menu, with an extensive list paying homage to celebrities, ranging from “Al Pacino aka Scarface” (amaretto, lime juice, coke, and bourbon) to “Cardi B aka Spicy Mommie” (jalapeño martini made up of cucumber, vodka, sweet and sour, simple syrup, and a splash of club soda). I raise my glass to one of the greatest musicians of our time with the “Prince aka Purple Rain,” a sweet aperitif of vodka, sour raspberry liqueur, blue curacao, lime cordial, and cranberry juice.
For starters, there’s no beating the Cajun chicken eggrolls. One of the restaurant’s most popular appetizers, they are carefully crafted over a two-day period with the chicken eventually mixed with okra and sausage.
The main courses have plenty of Cajun options as well, like baked Cajun Cornish hen, while Hudson’s take on Memphis fried chicken goes well over either waffles or greens. The lasagna roll, wrapped up in a neat Italian package with beef, tomato sauce, and a healthy portion of melted cheese, is balanced with a side salad and garlic bread. What I have my eye on from the beginning, however, are the coffee rubbed lamb chops. Cooked to tender, medium-rare perfection, the chops melt off the bone and onto the bed of grilled asparagus spears, all topped off with a spicy seasoning blend.
Alongside the excellent food, the Mahogany atmosphere has something for everyone; there are tables on the cobblestones outside, a conventional dining room, or a casual lounge next to the bar. The latter area was hopping, while a private event was taking place upstairs, as well. But that’s no surprise; the restaurant has been packed since it opened last fall, so when (not if) you go, be sure to make a reservation. — Samuel X. Cicci
3092 Poplar Ave., Suite 11 (901-623-7977). Open 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. for lunch and dinner Wednesday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. for Sunday brunch. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
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Justin Fox Burks
Chef Eli Townsend (above) takes an eclectic approach to food: egg rolls stuffed with fried chicken, as well as salads like the strawberry, spinach, and green apple.
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Justin Fox Burks
Egg rolls stuffed with fried chicken at Sage Restaurant.
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Justin Fox Burks
Salads combine strawberry, spinach, and green apple.
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Justin Fox Burks
Bring a big appetite to tackle the Sage burger, a perfect coming together of Angus beef, Swiss cheese, mashed avocado, and fried egg.
Sage Restaurant
Soul rolls, Sage burgers, and peach cobbler for dessert
Nearly every seat is taken just 20 minutes after Sage opens its doors on the morning I stop by. Co-owner and executive chef Eli Townsend is dashing between the kitchen and the dining room, greeting guests and handing out menus in a sleek modern space on South Main Street, transformed last year from the former home of Oshi Asian Kitchen.
The vibe is pleasantly sophisticated, yet relaxed, much like the restaurant’s fusion soul food, a cuisine mash-up readily apparent in Sage’s most popular dish, the Soul Roll. The aptly named appetizer includes two egg rolls stuffed with fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and turnip greens. As if it couldn’t get any better, the roll’s cherry-colored dipping sauce is sweet and tangy, a creative spin on sweet-and-sour sauce. After just one bite, I can easily understand why this is Sage’s signature dish.
My server, Desiree, wants to help me decide on a lunch entrée and confidently suggests I try a chicken salad sandwich. “It’s definitely one of my favorites,” Desiree says. “My boyfriend always orders it, too.”
The sandwich — marinated grilled chicken dressed in pesto mayo, sun-dried tomatoes, and orange marmalade — sounds enticing, but I want to try another signature dish instead: the Sage burger. When the burger arrives surrounded by an ample portion of house-made sweet potato fries, I pluck a fry from its herd. The texture is crisp, not greasy at all. There’s no added sugar here, no syrup, no overbearing toss of salt. Simply put, the fries are spectacular.
The Sage burger — an upgraded version of a handheld lunchtime classic — is a $12 creation of perfectly seasoned beef, mashed avocado, fried egg, and flash-fried sage drenched in thick, silky Swiss cheese. It is large and filling, but I’ve always believed in a well-rounded meal, so I order rosemary-ginger-peach cobbler for dessert. The name alone is enough to make my mouth water, and the warm dessert does not disappoint. Under a blanket of golden, crumbling crust, Georgia peaches soaked in Hennessy cognac mingle with fresh rosemary and spicy ginger. At $11 with the addition of ice cream, the cobbler seems like a steal.
As I swallow my final forkful of the sweet, buttery dessert, vanilla bean ice cream dribbles a bit down my chin, and I can say with unequivocal enthusiasm: I am pleased with my first taste of Sage. — Anna Turman
94 S. Main St. (901-672-7902). Open for lunch Monday and Tuesday; lunch and dinner Wednesday through Friday; dinner and late-night menus Friday and Saturday; and brunch on Saturday and Sunday. Hours vary.
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Justin Fox Burks
Anna Zopita (above) turned her love of cooking into a scrumptious retirement job. She serves Italian favorites like lasagna and chicken Parmesan, along with unexpected lunch items like tenderloin pork or chicken salad sandwiches. Zopita also makes chocolate eclairs, a delicious accompaniment to the restaurant’s coffee options.
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Justin Fox Burks
Zopita also makes chocolate eclairs, a delicious accompaniment to the restaurant’s coffee options.
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Justin Fox Burks
Anna Zopita turned her love of cooking into a scrumptious retirement job. She serves Italian favorites like lasagna and chicken Parmesan, along with unexpected lunch items like tenderloin pork or chicken salad sandwiches. Zopita also makes chocolate eclairs, a delicious accompaniment to the restaurant’s coffee options.
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Justin Fox Burks
Zopita's serves Italian favorites like lasagna and chicken Parmesan, along with unexpected lunch items like tenderloin pork or chicken salad sandwiches. Zopita also makes chocolate eclairs, a delicious accompaniment to the restaurant’s coffee options.
Zopita’s on the Square
Lasagna, freshly baked French bread, and caramel cake rooted in Italy
I remember when my friend, Pepe Palazola, told me his mom, Anna Palazola, was opening a restaurant in Collierville. I thought, “Hmmmm.” A new restaurant opened by someone who never owned a restaurant before seemed risky to me.
Okay, I was wrong. Zopita’s on the Square, which opened early last year, is a hit.
The restaurant, named after Palazola’s Italian grandmother, Anna Zopita Colantoni, features Italian and other dishes. Cindy Varner, manager of the nearby Army Surplus Collierville, says she eats at Zopita’s four times a week. “It’s good for you, and it tastes good,” she says.
Everything about the restaurant, to me, is good. It’s located on the beautiful Collierville Town Square, which was rated as the number-one town square in the United States by Parade magazine. The restaurant with its exposed brick walls and steel tables with wood tops is attractive and welcoming.
Zopita’s once was the location of Collierville’s City Hall, says Anna’s husband, Charlie Palazola, who helps to run the restaurant. He shows me where an opening, now filled in with newer brick, was once an entrance to the jail next door. Zopita’s also housed a bank at one time, and the original old vault is at the rear of the restaurant.
And what about the food, which is the main attraction? I tried two of Anna’s signature dishes: lasagna and chicken salad. They were fresh and tasty. The Palazola/Pavone (Anna’s maiden name) heritage figures strongly into the restaurant. The potato salad is made from a recipe from Anna’s mother, Adela Pavone. The vinaigrette for the salad is from a recipe from Charlie’s mother, Josephine Palazola.
Anna bakes the restaurant’s fresh French bread when she gets to work around 7 a.m. Her eclairs and caramel cake also are exceptionally good. The cake, which tastes like a tiramisu, is her take on the “Diplomatica,” a popular Italian cake typically made with puff pastry and crème Chantilly. The caramel cake features the pastry cream, but Anna uses caramel frosting in place of the Diplomatica’s top layer of puffed pastry.
I asked Anna why she wanted to open a restaurant. “Charlie retired from the produce business,” she says, referring to M. Palazola Produce Co. “It’s something for us to do in our twilight years.” — Michael Donahue
114 North Main St., Collierville (901-457-7526). Open 11:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon - 4 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.