I’m sitting at the bar at Vic’s on the River a few days ago enjoying a wonderful French onion soup, when a very nice gentleman approaches me.
“Good afternoon, sorry to interrupt you,” he says, “but I enjoy your columns. I am new to town and was wondering if you could tell me where I may find shad roe.”
Oh. My. Goodness. There’s a first for everything, right?
For those of you who aren’t familiar, shad roe is a particular type of fish egg. Shad is the fish. In the Herring family. Shad roe is considered a delicacy.
Caviar we know about; shad roe requires a special type of kitchen, a special chef, a special audience. Not exactly the type of thing you’d find on a regular menu. Maybe as a special one day? Maybe?
My response: “Oh, wow, good luck with that around Savannah. I don’t think this town is ready for that type of stuff on a consistent basis.”
He understood. I named a couple of places I thought might have it on their menu as a special, but otherwise wished him luck, bead of sweat rolling down my temple.
That raises a question that gets asked ’round these parts quite frequently: “Is Savannah becoming a foodie town?”
The story has been told a zillion times. Variety helps, new types of menus help, but until Savannah has grown enough to support a “destination” type restaurant outside of the historic district, then we will continue to carry a “wannabe” label by the real food snobs that run around the country, blogging about wild blue mussels and frites.
“When I started, we had two world class restaurants — Elizabeth on 37th and 45 South,” says Dee Herb, a Savannah native and veteran wine distributor with Quality Wines and Spirits, widely regarded as one of the tops in the area. “I, like a lot of people at that time, learned the art of food from the Butch brothers at Elizabeth’s.
“I remember when Chris Nasson opened Sapphire Grill in 1998 and Clara Fishel opened Café Metropole around then,” Dee says. “The response was tremendous.”
Combine that with the overall growth of Savannah as a tourist destination, and you get a lot of people coming here for the Lady’s Southern fare, but they are many, many times looking for more.
“We’re going to Paula’s one night, where else should we go?” Raise your hand if you’ve been asked that a time or 50. I know I have.
And while the choices are certainly becoming better and more varied, you usually find yourself repeating the same names when a tourist asks where they can get a great “Savannah dining experience.”
“With a few exceptions,” Dee says, “restaurants here were always known as decent, but nothing special. I could get in trouble here, but right now I think we have six to eight that restaurants that can hold their own with any other town. If things keep trending the way they are, in five years we could be considered one of the great food towns in the South.”
Frankly, it’s hard to argue. The flagship foodie city of the South, obviously, is Charleston. Any real foodie from Savannah rolls up into Charleston and thinks they’ve died and gone to heaven. Food, wine, craft cocktails, the whole nine. Charleston has been way out in front for years. The rest of us spend our time fighting for second place.
There is certainly nothing wrong with that. For years I’ve been asked to compare Savannah to Charleston. My response is always “apples and oranges.” Some things we love there. Some things about our wonderful city I wouldn’t trade for all the grits on King Street.
That said, Savannah is beginning to wake up and realize there are millions of tourists every year looking for that memorable dining experience. Why not really put a foot forward and offer it here? Everything else is in place.
So where are we going?
Paul Kennedy is a successful caterer in Savannah, been so for more than 30 years. Feeding the masses has been his gig. He’s owned a couple of restaurants in his time but now he just caters events including a good number of destination weddings.
“Sure, we get people who come down here looking for traditional Southern fare,” Paul says. He adds it’s not uncommon for a bride to ask for an upscale Southern menu. Paul tells me he has served “watermelon gazpacho shooters, catfish tacos with green chile salsa and chipotle buttermilk ranch dressing.” Not exactly the kind of thing you will find at a meat and three.
“But because of the growth of the Food Network and local television shows like ‘Eat It and Like It,’ the education level is quite different,” Paul says. “It has definitely created more sophisticated palates.”
It’s a very interesting point, and one Dee tends to agree.
“When I started in this business, a show as inventive as yours probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground,” he told me. “Now that our food scene is on the rise, it is a great asset in getting the word out about all the cool stuff going on.
“Savannah is on the brink of breaking out,” Dee says. “I am proud of that.”
So for now, we keep plugging away, one gastopub at a time, making our way up the list of foodie towns in the South.
Truly inventive, creative food trucks on the street might help that cause (so it’s not all foie gras and pate).
Savannah is coming. Count on it. Just don’t ask me to put a timetable on the shad roe.
QUICK BITES
The Beer Garden at Moon River Brewery on Bay Street is set open March 9.
Not too late for tickets to the Hilton Head Island Wine and Food Festival. Looking forward to seeing everyone there. I’ll be a judge in the Grey Goose Cocktail Competition. (Hey, someone’s gotta do it.)
R.O.S.E Public House is a new restaurant on Broughton Street, next door to the Marshall House. They’ve done some nice work inside updating the look. More on them coming soon.
Jesse Blanco is a local news anchor at WTGS and host of the Emmy-nominated “Eat It and Like It,” Savannah’s only TV show dedicated to its culinary scene. Visit him at www.eatitandlikeit.com or email jesse@eatitandlikeit.com.