Tag: Ryan Smith

Owner/chef Ryan Smith recently stopped offering a tasting menu at Staplehouse. Instead, he’s serving a 14-or-15-item one at Uberto, a fine dining restaurant at Quercus, a working farm and luxury ranch resort in Gay, Georgia, for which he serves as culinary director and founding partner. Located about an hour south of Atlanta, Uberto was originally designed as the in-house restaurant for guests staying on the property. However, Smith and his wife, Staplehouse co-owner Kara Hidinger, decided to open it to the public on Friday and Saturday evenings.

It’s been 10 years. Ten years since Jen Hidinger lost her beloved husband, Kara Hidinger lost her only brother, and chefs Chris Hall, Todd Mussman, Ryan Turner, and Ryan Smith lost a dear friend and fellow chef. It’s been just over 10 years since the Atlanta community rallied around Ryan Hidinger—known for his work at Bacchanalia, Floataway Cafe, and Muss & Turner’s—after he was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer, raising $275,000 for his medical expenses at what has since become an annual charity gala called Team Hidi.

The best of Atlanta's food and drink in 2020, including best new restaurant, new chef, burger, diner, new barbecue, and more.

This charming little lounge tucked in an alcove above the highly celebrated restaurant Staplehouse feels more like a Brooklyn living room than a bar in the classic sense.

Staplehouse is a fine-dining experience as innovative as it is unfussy.

It’s been eight years since celebrity chef Hugh Acheson opened Empire State South and challenged Atlanta’s notion that Southern food is something preciously preserved in the past. But a lot can change in eight years. Empire State South’s next chapter, under newly installed executive chef Adam Waller, marks a deliberate return to the basics.

Shay Lavi is a master behind the grill, where proteins make up only about 30 percent of his impressive, vegetable-laden spreads. Now, the catering chef plans to open his own cafe downtown.

Staplehouse might have been ahead of its time when it introduced its tasting-menu format in 2015. But his time around, Atlanta is more ready for it than ever.

The James Beard Foundation's 2018 Restaurant and Chef Award semifinalists include seven Atlanta-based chefs and three elsewhere in Georgia received nominations. If you look closer at the list, you'll notice a trend: Seven of these ten chefs are people of color.

Sunday’s Landlocked Oyster Fest is the first of its kind put on by nonprofit Oyster South and will benefit the University of Georgia's Shellfish Research Lab. Chefs such as Staplehouse's Ryan Smith and Southern Soufflé blogger Erika Council will partner with farmers to present oysters on the half shell dressed up with various accoutrements at Color Wheel Studios in Decatur.