Every summer when I compile a list of favorite dishes for the City Guide, I’m reminded that memorable food is a confluence of taste, place, and timing. Most years, one of the three influences sways my decision-making because of a food trend or a propensity towards certain restaurants. Last year, I leaned toward simple fare from the city’s leading chefs. In 2014, I was seafood crazy.
At first, this year’s list seemed scattered with no guidepost, but then I remembered how I felt before eating a tender brisket hoagie (famished by late afternoon) and a platter of round, buttery oysters (exhausted by a long drive to the Alabama coast). Like magic, the food transformed me, as did the rest of the dishes on the top-10 list. In fact, the impeccable timing of each pick was so memorable that I added runner-up dishes for every meal. The list follows, but don’t interpret the order as any kind of ranking. After all, a Popsicle dipped in chocolate on a blue-sky summer day can be as perfect as an elegant entrée at a birthday dinner.
1 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Puff Ball - Hog & Hominy
Puff Ball at Hog & Hominy
The Puff Ball — an omniscient charred loaf that will make you wonder if the Mother of Dragons is coming to dinner — begins as pizza dough fermented five days so sugar and yeast can work their magic. Baked in the coolest part of the restaurant’s wood-burning oven, the dough ball puffs up like a blowfish, and roasted garlic oil, Maldon salt, and Parmesan add sheen and flavor. Poke the ball at the table and it deflates into a kind of pizza pita bread for scooping up dip made with whipped ricotta. “Chefs Andy and Mike like to keep the spread really seasonal,” explains general manager Nick Talarico. “Now it’s ricotta whipped with lemon and olive oil, and a salad of summer corn, chanterelles, peaches, and herbs.”
Contender:Buttercrunch salad with Green Goddess dressing
707 W. Brookhaven Circle (901-207-7396)
2 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Farmer’s Platter at Sweet Grass
Credit goes to photographer Justin Fox Burks for suggesting the Farmer’s Platter, a celebration of local produce and culinary technique from Chef Ryan Trimm. Served on a platter large enough for a Thanksgiving turkey, four vegetables (they change daily) line up like colorful swatches in a book of fabric samples. On a recent visit, the dishes could tempt the most ardent carnivore: roasted eggplant and red onions drizzled with carrot-top pesto; bi-colored corn elote cut off the cob; heirloom cherry tomatoes tossed with vinegar, olive oil, and Thai basil; and finally, the platter’s beauty queen — smoked beet pastrami garnished with goat cheese, pistachio gremolata, and skinny asparagus cut on the bias.
Contender:Charcuterie with house-cured bacon, chorizo, and country pâté
937 S. Cooper St. (901-278-0278)
3 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Wings and Waffles at HM Dessert Lounge
Originally served only on Wednesdays, wings and waffles now shape the daily menu’s core at HM Dessert Lounge, with mix-and-match options both sweet and savory. Chef Fran Mosley trilled off cake flavors to develop specialty waffles such as rum, maple bacon, and sweet potato, a customer favorite. Wings — so tender they need just a little tug to eat — marinate in special seasonings for flavors like spicy fried, Southern fried, and double-fried honey hot. There’s also smothered wings with brown gravy drizzled on top and served on the side for dipping. “Our secret is simple,” Mosley says. “We make the wings to order, flour right before we fry, and never keep anything under a light.”
Contender:Alex’s special apple and peach cobbler with ice cream
1586 Madison Ave. (901-290-2099)
4 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Wood-grilled Calamari at Strano Sicilian Kitchen & Bar
The tools chef Josh Steiner uses to prepare calamari on his kitchen’s wood-burning grill are deceptively simple: tongs and a well-used pan perforated with holes. The ingredients for the dish are simple too: tomatoes, squash, olive oil, roasted garlic, peppers — red, yellow, and green — fresh calamari sliced into rings, and Trapani sea salt (hand-harvested crystals from Sicily, a place that shapes Steiner’s cooking). Yet despite the calamari’s humble start, the finished dish is warm and cheerful, like a favorite uncle’s big-bear hug. Coupled with Rosemarie’s Sicilian Salad or fried olives stuffed with cheese, the dish is large enough to share, but so good you will hoard leftovers for a second meal at home.
Contender:Cannoli garnished with an orange peel rose
948 S. Cooper St. (901-275-8986)
5 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Chocoflan at The Sweet Cake Shoppe
Good-looking and a little mysterious, Chocoflan is a popular dessert for birthdays in Mexico, where it is also called Impossible Cake. Here’s why: The cake defies baking logic. At the Sweet Cake Shoppe downtown, baker Jorge Acosta layers luscious caramel, cake batter, and flan made with seven eggs and a little Rompope (yum!) into a Bundt pan. When the cake goes into the oven, the flan is on top. When the cake comes out about an hour later, the flan — sweet and spongy — is on the bottom. Flip the pan and the luscious layer of flan is back on top. “They separate and switch places,” says co-owner José Martinez, laughing. “That’s the impossible part.”
Contender:Lavender cupcake with purple florets
45 S. Main St. (901-364-3321)
6 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Casonsei at Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen
At Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman’s flagship restaurant on Brookhaven Circle, it’s easy to get sidetracked by a marvelous pork chop or a Sazerac cocktail or two. But please, oh please, don’t skip the casonsei, a filled and folded pasta that hails from Bergamo in north central Italy. House-made and tortellini-like, casonsei is a sublime foray into seasonal eating. In cooler months, look for fillings like sunchoke, horseradish, and mascarpone cheese tossed in brown butter. For summer, mixtures lighten up, marrying beet, dill, spring onions, poppy seed, and sambal, a spicy condiment popular in Southeast Asia. Seasonal eating aside, casonsei turns pasta — as a side or entrée — into classy comfort food, rich but unpretentious.
Contender:Mezza luna pasta shaped like crescent moons
712 W. Brookhaven Circle (901-347-3569)
7 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Carnitas from Pigasus Cured Meats
One way to get hooked on Pigasus carnitas is to grab a market slice from the Rock ’n Dough Pizza truck. Another is to get to the Memphis Farmers Market early, before Jonathan Burlison runs out of this Mexican favorite translated as “little meats.” A hobbyist-turned-vendor, Burlison starts his carnitas with meat from Home Place Pastures Tamworth hogs; adds garlic, adobe sauce, and dried Mexican chilis; and confits the mixture at a commercial kitchen downtown. “On my way to work at St. Jude, I put them in the oven and when I walk out at five, I go turn the oven off,” Burlison says. “Then I chop it up and re-season with smoked paprika and other spices.”
Contender:Smoked tofu
Memphis Farmers Market, Saturdays, April to November, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
8 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Italian Beef Brisket Hoagie at Ray’z World Famous Dr. Bar-B-Que
In Chicago, barbecue maestro Ray Nolan fell hard for the city’s famed Italian beef hoagie dipped — bread and all — into its au jus. For his own stellar interpretation in Memphis, Nolan smokes beef brisket, tenderizes the meat with Miracle Flavor Enhancer (made with secret ingredients), and layers the meat and juices into a soft hoagie bun. Next comes slaw, a squirt of barbecue sauce, and giardiniera, a garden-inspired relish made with carrots, celery, onions, and green olives. “So now you have three or four flavors going into your mouth at the same time,” Nolan says. “I eat one every now and then to make sure it’s popping on all cylinders, and it always is.”
Contender:Slab of barbecue ribs with fries
302 S. Main St. (901-527-9026)
9 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Chocolate-dipped Reverb Coffee Popsicle at Mempops
Handcrafted and natural, the Popsicle flavors at Mempops change regularly, depending on the availability of local produce and the creative whims of owner Chris Taylor. Happily, the coffee pop is a menu mainstay. The flavor starts with Sumatra beans from Reverb Coffee, a local micro-roaster. Next, the coffee is cold-brewed overnight and then strained twice: first through fine mesh and then through paper. Finally, dulce de leche transforms the coffee into a creamy and dreamy treat. “We make the dulce fresh, and then combine it with the coffee, half and half,” Taylor explains. A dip in chocolate — available for an extra dollar — accentuates the hint of caramel that occurs naturally in the coffee beans.
Contender:Hibiscus lemonade pop
1243 Ridgeway Road (901-421-5985)
10 of 10
Justin Fox Burks
Murder Point Oysters at Fisher’s OBM
When Johnny Fisher opened his excellent restaurant in the Orange Beach Marina, the artisanal oysters from Murder Point illustrated his commitment to quality ingredients and coastal vendors who practice stewardship. While most Gulf oysters are large and irregularly shaped, innovative farming off the Alabama coast keeps Murder Point oysters petit, deeply cupped, and uniform in size. Simply put, the oysters in their smooth, white shells are game-changers. Paired with chilled French Rose and house-made mignonette, each briny and buttery slurp brings salt and sea to a shady dockside table with a lovely bayside view. Order a second dozen and another drink, and you might never make it back to your blanket on the beach.
Contender:Marinated Gulf crab claws with grilled corn vinaigrette
27075 Marina Road, Orange Beach, AL (251-981-7308)
