DARLEY (VO): From a James Beard Award-winning restaurant serving Greek-style snapper throats and frequented by football greats...
So right here, this is the Coach Bryant booth. It's our most sought-after table. DARLEY (VO): ...to the home of fried green tomatoes and the inspiration for the hit movie.
You can tell that tomato is local from the farm. DARLEY (VO): We're diving into longtime award-winning restaurants in Birmingham, Alabama. Here, chefs put an emphasis on sourcing quality ingredients from local farmers and fishers...
Those oysters are butter oysters, and it is very buttery when you eat those.
Smooth like butter. DARLEY (VO): ...making for a tasty exploration. We'll head to the farmers market in Birmingham with Chef Chris Hastings, visit a brewery for train lovers and see where Alabama football stars and their coaches dine post-game.
Get ready to eat and drink with me in Birmingham on this episode of Travels with Darley: Southern Trails in Alabama. [THEME MUSIC] DARLEY (VO): I'm traveling to Bessemer, Alabama, a sleepy suburb of Birmingham with a nationally-designated Historic District and a James Beard Award-winning restaurant that's been family-owned since 1907.
Honored as an American classic restaurant by the James Beard Foundation, The Bright Star was founded by Tony Bonduris, who came to Bessemer from Greece in the early 1900s. The Bright Star's Andreas Anastassakis is introducing me to his family's legacy.
Right here, the man in the middle, the picture here, that is Mr. Tom Bonduris, so he is the founder of The Bright Star. DARLEY (VO): I've stepped inside the diner-esque, large main entrance hall with its grey tile floors and green walls lined with old black-and-white photographs.
How does it feel to carry on this family legacy?
This is a place that just, you know, had a vision in 1907 and just continued to reinvent itself. Bill Koikos' son, Jimmy Koikos, who is my cousin, his brother, Nicky Koikos, came in 1969. So 1969, they took it over together, so my grandmother was their mother's sister. And neither one of them had children, and they made me the offer to come here and be a part of The Bright Star, and it took me about ten seconds to decide, "Yes."
DARLEY (VO): Andreas was living in Canada at the time and working as a chef and restaurateur, when his Southern family asked him to move to Birmingham to keep The Bright Star shining and in the family. The restaurant is laid out as a series of large rooms, many lined with red diner booths and a few with special wood-paneled dining rooms. So what we feature here is private dining for eight, so we close all these dividers.
Wow.
And we have our private rooms. DARLEY (VO): Andreas takes me towards the back to see some of the original spaces, which haven't changed much over the last decade. So right here, this is the Coach Bryant booth. It's our most sought-after table.
So if you're a football fan, this is the booth for you.
This is where you want to sit. And the reason that Coach Bryant sat in this booth, okay, he had two ways to get in here. If he came in here after a big win, he walked through the front door, and he took his time and walked down here, just like we did, and the whole restaurant cheered for him. If he was in a bad mood after a loss, he snuck in through the kitchen, and nobody would know he was here. And if you look over here, too. So you see this pie case?
Oh my god, look at those pies.
This pie case was put in here in the '50s. We spend as much money as it takes to keep this thing going. We try everything in our power to not have to replace that. It's part of the history.
Share with me about these pies. Just name them for me because I'm already getting ready for dessert here.
Our most famous pies are lemon icebox. We got a chocolate almond pie, coconut cream pie, peanut butter pie and pineapple cream cheese. And then we have our baklava cheesecake.
What. Sounds amazing. I've never heard of a baklava...
Cheesecake.
...cheesecake. ANDREAS ANASTASSAKIS: Yes. Very unique to The Bright Star. DARLEY (VO): It's time for some pie, but first, we'll start with seafood. The Bright Star sources seafood locally and also has strong relationships with local producers. Andreas and I head into yet another wood-paneled dining room and sit down to try the snapper throats. I've never had a snapper throat before, or fish throat, I don't think.
Very tender. Pulling the meat off the bone.
Get a nice piece here. DARLEY (VO): The Bright Star is well known for these snapper throats. It's a menu item that dates back to the 1930s, when Andreas' uncle discovered that snapper throats were quite tender and meaty. Not wanting to waste any parts of the fish, he put them on the menu, and they've been a hit ever since. That's some of the most tender fish I may have ever had.
Yes, very simple dish. I mean, the freshest seafood in the southeast, and then all we do is a little seasoned flour, broil it and then finish it off with our olive oil, lemon juice and oregano; it's Greek style.
You're using as much of the fish as you can.
Absolutely.
Making it even more sustainable.
That is correct.
You can tell this is fresh caught.
I know that that fish came off the boat yesterday morning, and it was here last night.
Wow. DARLEY (VO): The food here is really good, and the atmosphere is comfortable and welcoming, which is why as soon as The Bright Star opens its doors for dinner, there's usually a line in the cavernous entranceway and sometimes outside, and the restaurant is home for many locals, some of whom eat here a few times each week. Everything has been so good. I can see why people will come here every week.
We're very blessed. A lot of people come here and come a long to see us.
I mean, you could get, I could get addicted to this. I have places that I go in my area where I go a couple times a week sometimes because I love it. It's so good.
Yes.
And you can't, I mean, I don't know if I could do this at home. I couldn't do this at home, but you bring your homestyle Greek flavors to this place.
That's right. DARLEY: And that's why people love it. That's exactly right. This is home. The Bright Star is home. That's what makes it special. DARLEY (VO): My next restaurant and chef also takes pride in sourcing local ingredients and is also a James Beard Award winner. Chef Chris Hastings invites me to Birmingham's creative district at Pepper Place to Hot and Hot Fish Club. This restaurant is housed inside the old Martin Biscuit Building.
As I arrive, Chef Hastings is making an elevated shrimp and grits for our lunch in his bright open-air kitchen. I stand beside him at a large blonde wooden island as he slices and dices.
Chef, you were pioneering farm-to-table before we even called it farm-to-table back in the '90s.
That's correct. We opened in 1995, and there was no term for it, and we lived farm-to-table every day. For me, it signifies our commitment to local, and I get to tell a story about all my friends who, you know, grow things, raise things, make things. And it just is a part of who we are as a restaurant and who we are, you know, just fundamentally as a member of a community. DARLEY (VO): He's plating up this dish in a grey handmade ceramic bowl with layer upon layer of grits and goodness.
First, we're going to put a nice little dollop of the grits—not too much because it's rich. So we're going to put the crépinette on top. Then, we're going to take the butter sauce and put it around with the grits, drizzle a little bit of the Calabrian chili oil on. And then, we're going to top it off with a nice little piece of the ham. This looks nothing like your grandmother's shrimp and grits, right?
A lot of these ingredients are very local, and I haven't had them, and that's going to make it a really cool experience.
Yeah, really understand what my voice is as a chef, and what my voice is, is what I source from really committed people. This is our voice of our place in our season of now.
Cheers CHEF CHRIS HASTINGS: Cha-ching. DARLEY (VO): We go in to take a bite. Mm. Wow.
I'm good with that. How about you?
Fantastic. The grits have such a wonderful flavor.
That's the real trick to good cooking, is that you're building flavor, right? The grits have to be built. So then there's the process of making the crépinette, and there's the sauce, and then the ham and the Calabrian chili oil. All of it together makes kind of one even palette of deliciousness, right?
DARLEY (VO): Just steps away from Hot and Hot Fish Club, local farmers sell to restaurants and locals at The Market at Pepper Place, an outdoor farmers market surrounded by shops and restaurants and brimming with local salsas, tomatoes, duck eggs and pastries. Chef Hastings scopes out new sources for unique products, and I tag along to help and taste. I'd like to buy local duck eggs instead of buying them from somewhere else. Thank you very much. I'm Chris. SPEAKER #1: Trevor.
Trevor. Pleasure. Sorry to interrupt.
We're wheeling and dealing out here at the market today. Finding new products. I'm glad I can help Chris.
So that's a real win for me. That I can find duck eggs just out of the blue like that on a beautiful, you know, spring morning and walking the market. That's a huge win. DARLEY (VO): Another restaurant serving up local products is Automatic Seafood and Oysters. Chef Adam Evans won a James Beard Award for Best Chef South.
At his innovative Automatic Seafood and Oysters, housed in an old sprinkler manufacturing plant, he's introducing me to oysters from the southern and eastern United States coastlines. We sit outside in bright blue Adirondack-style chairs to have a bottle of bubbly and some fresh oysters.
The oysters that come out of Alabama, all the nutrients from the Mississippi River are feeding into the Gulf, and so it's those nutrients that actually flavor the oysters. So these are Murder Point oysters from Alabama. Which I think really makes the southern oysters unique because you taste a lot more than just salt up front.
That's not really salty at all. It's really buttery, balanced.
Those oysters are butter oysters, and it is very buttery when you eat those.
Smooth like butter.
Alright, Little Honeys?
Little Honeys, yeah. These are so cute. These are the cute oysters.
Yeah, the Little Honeys out of Florida. A great name, too. What I like about the Little Honeys is they have a really nice minerality. They're so small, so they're so approachable, and it's also a really balanced taste.
Those are fantastic. All these oysters are so good. And I love that they're all sustainably farmed.
It's a great thing for me to support. It's so easy when they make such a good product. I would put these oysters that grow in the Gulf up to any oyster that's grown in the world. I think they're fantastic. And, you know, that was a big part of me opening an oyster bar in the South, is to kind of highlight the southern oysters.
DARLEY (VO): Seafood is big in Alabama but so are fried green tomatoes, and fans of the actual food item, or the novel or movie, might want to make a stop in Irondale, just outside of Birmingham. Author Fannie Flagg made the Irondale Cafe famous. It was the Whistle Stop Cafe in her book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. Many people travel here today because of her book, which was later made into a major movie starring Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy and Mary Louise Parker.
Today, patrons at Irondale Cafe can choose what they want from a large chalkboard menu and dine indoors or outside. I wait in the cafeteria-style line and get my plate of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and fried green tomatoes. I sit outside at a wrought-iron table along 1st Avenue. Just across the street, a small train depot and train tracks provide regular train sightings.
If you love trains and train-watching, this is your cafe because they're coming by every few minutes, so if you want to catch a train... [LOUD TRAIN HORN] DARLEY: ...you can see them and hear them inside or outside at Irondale Cafe. DARLEY (VO): It's time to taste the famous fried green tomatoes. That's a good fried green tomato. And you can tell that tomato is local from the farm. And I talked to the owner, Jim, and he said it is. And it's just fried up really nicely.
Crisp on the outside, juicy tomato on the inside. And of course, you have all the lore behind this place, which makes eating a fried green tomato here so special. DARLEY (VO): Another spot where history is at the forefront is also popular with those who love trains. Back Forty Beer Company is an Alabama craft brewery, located beside a national historic landmark, Sloss Furnaces.
It once operated as a pig-iron-producing blast furnace at a time when Birmingham's major industries were iron and steel production, and rails and railroad cars were manufactured here. Today at Back Forty Beer Company, you can sit in rocking chairs or tables on a giant outdoor porch or in the grass and peer over at the rusty red towers of the blast furnaces, which operated from 1882 to 1971. If you do sit outside, you most definitely will also spot trains.
Back Forty is located alongside train tracks, which get quite a bit of action. Back Forty owner Doug Brown sits down with me for a beer just as a train rolls by.
Welcome to Back Forty. There are 37 trains a day that go by here, so. Birmingham is a train town, if you didn't know that. People love it. And when I first—I actually counted the trains when we were considering leasing this, and people love coming here, especially with the kids, watching the trains go by.
It's the world moving around you. Let's just tell it like it is.
Oh, absolutely.
We have commerce happening. We have people enjoying themselves, and we have this beer that you have chosen called "Bridge to Hope." DARLEY (VO): The beers at Back Forty are unique, with some aged in bourbon barrels and IPAs made with orange juice and a special enzyme to eat away at residual sugars, leaving a champagne-like consistency. This does not taste like any beer I've had before, and I've tried a lot of beer. What's going on?
Well, it's an imperial brown ale but it has the extra-special conditioning that we put it in a barrel for about 14 months, and it was a Four Roses barrel out of Kentucky, so you're tasting a lot of that bourbon that's coming out of that barrel.
So you have champagne beer and bourbon beer here. Well, I've been thrown for a loop on this beer-tasting experience, I can tell you that right now, but I like it. DOUG BROWN: Great! I guess that's Birmingham for you.
Absolutely. Absolutely. It's all local.
That local flavor. DARLEY (VO): With places that take you to drink and dine with great train spotting and reminders of literature and movies, to award-winning chefs sourcing what's farm fresh in Alabama, Birmingham's food scene is strong and tasty. Thanks for joining me in Alabama for this food tour adventure.
Tune into my other podcast from Alabama covering great places to eat in Mobile and Montgomery, and continue the journey to other locations with food, history and culture with locals as your guides on Travels With Darley, the podcast.
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