Photograph by Martha Williams
The vestiges of Anthony Spina’s Italian American childhood, spent largely in New Jersey, are all over the 25-year-old chef’s first restaurant. That would be Small Fry, a tiny slip of a room at Atlanta Dairies on Memorial Drive, where Spina makes magic by embellishing deep-fried foods with Italian touches.
Behold Spina’s vodka parm sandwich: Never before have I seen a breaded chicken cutlet smothered with so much sauce, pesto, and cheese. It’s criminally good. Consider his impeccably fried polenta sticks, intended to be dipped in warm sugo, a sauce made from Sclafani “Jersey Fresh” tomatoes. (Holy moly.) Now to the fries: Small, indeed, these potatoes are thin, crispy shoestring-style ringlets, tossed with beef tallow and seasoned, unbashfully, with salt and herbs. The takeaway on Spina: Baby, he was born to fry.
Spina moved to Atlanta from Red Bank, New Jersey, when he was 13. The third of five kids, he helped his dad, Anthony Spina Sr., in the kitchen of O4W Pizza, where the square, crackly bottomed grandma pie became a virtual overnight sensation. “I got thrown into the fire immediately,” he says of his childhood immersion into the family business. During the pandemic, he went solo with Spina Pizza, a pop-up offering Neapolitan-style pies. A brick-and-mortar version of Spina Pizza is in the works, in collaboration with Spina’s partners, Duane Kulers (Pollo Primo) and Omar Ferrer (El Malo). It will sit side by side with Small Fry.
For now, Spina has proved himself to be the primo fry guy of Southeast Atlanta.
One might surmise that his affinity for fried seafood is related to childhood memories of the Jersey Shore. (I did—wrongly.) In fact, he told me, it was on his first trip to Italy, in 2022, that he came full circle with his Mediterranean heritage. In Venice, he saw seaside strollers spearing fishy fried morsels out of paper cones with toothpicks. Spina’s version of the classic fritto misto—tail-on shrimp, calamari, cherry peppers, lemon slices, and polenta planks—is one of many reasons I feel such big love for Small Fry.
Spina, whose Instagram handle is @dirtyjerseyy, favors T-shirts over chef whites. When he needs to let off steam, he might grab the joystick of the video game Mortal Kombat, which stands in one corner of the restaurant. His playlist is loaded with old-school hip-hop (Jadakiss), West Coast rap (Cali Life Style), classic ’70s rock (38 Special), and swing music (Thee Sinseers).
Likewise catholic in his food-and-drink taste, he invites pop-up buddies like Coffee Was Black and Ruki’s Kitchen (an Ethiopian food vendor) to work alongside him at Saturday brunch. Atlanta pastry star Claudia Martinez keeps treats under the cake dome interesting, and Small Fry lures concertgoers wandering out of The Eastern, Atlanta Dairies’ live music venue, with such late-night specials as bacalaitos (salt-cod fritters), tostones, and mojitos. (For the record, Spina’s mother is Puerto Rican.)
Yet the main draw is the all-day menu of sandwiches and baskets; a few salads and appetizers; and delicious, original cocktails by Caleb Grubb, the general manager and beverage director. Grubb coaxes delicate flavors from bright ingredients. He likes to switch things up, but you can depend on his Royale Flush (a frozen drink of tequila, cachaca, cassis, lime, cherry bark, and vanilla) or the Chu-Hai (lemongrass shochu, plum brandy, and sake—with lemon, ginger, and tonic). Or perhaps you just want a glass of wine or beer: The list is concise and appropriate.
Photograph by Martha Williams
Voluptuous and messy, the aforementioned vodka parm sandwich is like the girl who couldn’t decide what accessory to wear so she wore them all (luscious tomato sauce, squishy burrata, nutty pistachio pesto, and Parmesan). It’s so rich it may make you feel drunk. A little less showy but no less tasty, the fishcake sandwich plays like a fancy, over-the-top Filet-O-Fish. To make it, the chef presses Atlantic cod, prawn, and scallops into a patty and dresses it with American cheese, tartar sauce, chili crisp and, for an upcharge, Siberian caviar. No sturgeon eggs for me, but I couldn’t have loved it more.
The falafel burger was a textural delight: crispy chickpea balls and crunchy pickled cabbage, moistened with tzatziki and toum (garlic sauce). Next visit, I might order some falafel a la carte so I can investigate it further—which is to say, drag it through the zingy tzatziki and pop it into my mouth. (Incidentally, there are six dipping condiments, including honey mustard and tartar; personally, I think the chili mayo makes everything better.)
Photograph by Martha Williams
Consider pairing the wedge salad with the fritto misto, perhaps with a dry martini. The chilled salad and the warm, salty, crunchy fried bits taste like they belong together. The humble iceberg gives Italian glam with heady gorgonzola instead of the traditional blue; pepperoni crumbles instead of bacon; and a lovely green goddess–like dressing instead of the pedestrian blue cheese. The fritto misto, for its part, has more surprises than a box of Cracker Jacks: fried lemon slices, crispy bites of sweet shallot, and textbook polenta sticks.
After four visits and one takeout order, I’d say the kitchen’s command of fish and chicken cookery is often stellar but not infallible. On one visit, with Spina apparently not on deck, the breading of the fish, shrimp, and chicken seemed a bit more panko-y than usual—not a misstep but less satisfying than I’d grown accustomed to.
One crazy-good fried item, which involved no breading at all, was the Ripper (aka fried hot dog), so named because the skin sometimes bursts while cooking. Served on a masterfully toasted and buttered bun over a bed of fries, it was a superb frankfurter, all the better with the addition of chili and cheese. This Jersey-style weenie didn’t just give a Varsity dog a run for its money—it beat it by a Peachtree mile.
Should you have a hankering for something sweet, make it the rice krispy treats or the cannoli. Filled with pistachio-cherry or chocolate-chip cream, the cannoli may be on the dainty side, but they are made with so much love, who cares? “That’s one thing I’m always going to have, no matter what restaurant I open,” Spina says. “I could open a Chinese restaurant—I’m having cannoli there.”
This article appears in our May 2025 issue.
