After two years of challenging growth environments, 2023 is when restaurants in the South really hit their stride again — both in terms of the quantity and quality of new openings. Here are some of our favorite new restaurants that started up service during the past calendar year.
Tuk Tuk Snack Shop
Location: Lexington, KY
More info: tuktuksnackshop.com
You might have seen Chef Sam Fore on PBS shows like Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street or Vivian Howard’s Somewhere South, where her amiable personality and breezy approach to cooking instruction have made her a popular television personality. But it’s her skills in her own kitchen that have earned this first-generation Sri Lankan-American chef so much respect in her hometown of Lexington and beyond. How much respect? She was a finalist for the James Beard Best Chef: Southeast Award in 2023 despite only cooking in pop-ups around the region and the rest of the country.
Now that her Tuk Tuk Sri Lankan Bites has set down roots as Tuk Tuk Snack Shop, Chef Sam’s legions of fans finally have a consistent location and schedule to enjoy her inventive offerings of traditional Sri Lankan street food accented with classic Southern food elements. The cozy dining area is decorated with fun elements reflecting the chef’s exuberant personality, creating a welcoming space to enjoy her menu of flavorful sandwiches, build-your-own rice bowls, and larger dishes like expertly fried chicken and curry chili ribs.
Chef Sam is an expert at layering flavors to tantalize the tongue, evident in sandwiches like The Webster, a fried slab of premium chicken thigh topped with a surprising coconut gravy and sambal. That rich gravy is also a star component of most of the other sandwiches on the menu, including The Tuey, which utilizes jackfruit — perfect for vegetarians. It’s also key in The Sterling, a brave riff on pulled pork (in the middle of prime BBQ country!), where Chef Sam serves curried pork on a hoagie roll with pickled carrots. Her courage is rewarded with a fantastic sandwich!
Chef Sam also offers decadent deep-fried bites like The Baron, an all-beef hot dog battered with lentils and spiced with sweet chili sauce and puffed lentils to provide a delightful crunch. Frequent diners know that the power move is to order a side of spicy fries with any meal, and the proprietary spice blend is already legendary around Lexington.
Dakar NOLA
Location: New Orleans, LA
More info: dakarnola.com
It’s tough to make a splash as a new restaurant in a food-obsessed town like New Orleans, but Chef Serigne Mbaye’ has created an immediate and sustained buzz at his Senegalese tasting menu restaurant named after major coastal culinary centers of his homeland and adopted home country. Professionally trained at the prestigious New England Culinary Institute, Chef Serigne honed his cooking skills in renowned kitchens nationwide.
In his own restaurant, the chef has combined West African cooking with the cultural and culinary elements of Creole, Cajun, and other regional cuisines to create a unique menu. That menu keeps the tables booked well in advance at his intimate restaurant, where languorous meals can last almost three hours.
This restaurant’s predominantly pescatarian menu changes frequently. Additionally, the chef and his managing partner, Effie Richardson, create a multi-course dining experience where diners can opt for a private table or communal dining. For the latter, six guests are seated together to share the meal, and many of the dishes are served family-style. All diners are seated simultaneously to encourage the communal feeling of the meal — like being a guest at a fantastic dinner party in a welcoming East Riverside neighborhood home.
Each service begins with the chef introducing his menu and the story he wants it to tell — tales of the people and ingredients brought involuntarily from West Africa to the Americas and their contributions to its culture and cuisine. A bracing cup of Senegalese tea called ataya sets the tone for the meal, focusing attention and opening up the chef’s culinary culture book.
What follows is a fascinating exploration of flavors and spices — some unfamiliar, while others feel right at home in the world of New Orleans cooking. The bountiful seafood of the Gulf steps in for West African fishes. They are the base for rich broths with greens, grains, and whole fish presentations. While it’s perfectly fine to dine with your own party at Dakar NOLA, the communal table offers the chance to make new friends while exploring exotic dishes. And it’s usually a short trip from strangers to friends in the Big Easy.
Ma’am Saab
Location: Charleston, SC
More info: maamsaabchs.com
After three years of popping up around Charleston, Chef and Co-owner Maryam Ghaznavi and her husband, creative director Raheel Gauba, finally opened the Pakistani restaurant they dreamed of. They took the proverbial leap, opening Ma’am Saab in the historic downtown section. The establishment’s name means “boss lady,” and there’s no question who’s in charge of this exploration of the Pakistani cuisine of Maryam’s youth.
Born from a long line of excellent cooks in her family, the chef offers modern interpretations of her native cuisine. They range from familiar, traditional dishes like Butter Chicken and kebabs to complex curries and tender cuts of lamb and goat. Adventurous eaters will be rewarded with modern takes on conventional Pakistani comfort food that are exciting and new, even for a culinary center like Charleston.
The interior of Ma’am Saab features a rainbow of bold colors, wall coverings, and curio shelves filled with curiosities and cheeky shout-outs to the owners’ previous and current homes, including a framed photograph of famed Charlestonian Bill Murray.
It’ll all make more sense if you indulge in one of their Delta 9-infused cocktails at the impressive bar. The talented mixologist can also whip up just about any of their drinks sans alcohol or THC so that everyone can be included.
Locals are fortunate enough to have access to the Ma’am Saab Supper Club, a monthly offering of both current popular dishes and experimental items that might or might not make future menus available for pick-up or local delivery. For the rest of us, we’ll just have to take the trip to Charleston to discover the five-senses experience that Maryam and Raheel present six nights a week with their virtual visits to a futuristic version of Pakistani cuisine.
Decade
Location: Louisville, KY
More info: decaderestaurant.com
Decade represents a sort of rebirth in a couple of ways at the new Butchertown neighborhood restaurant that opened last June. First, it occupies the space previously held by Butchertown Grocery when admired Chef and Owner Bobby Benjamin took a job outside of Louisville. Then, in late 2022, another local institution was lost when Decca closed after ten years of culinary excellence that launched the career of chef Annie Pettry.
But Pettry wasn’t the only asset Decca had going for it, and three of her coworkers have come together to create an all-new experience with a slightly new name. Decade is the project of new co-owners Chad Sheffield, Andy Myers, and Matt Johnson, who aim to reinvigorate the spirit of hospitality and culinary excellence of Decca in their new venture.
Andy and Matt serve as co-executive chefs, plating up seasonal New American cuisine dishes with Italian and French influences and created with locally sourced ingredients. As the name implies, time is significant to the concept of the restaurant, from the seasonality of Kentucky farms to the vintage clock in the shape of a “D” that the owners found in the basement of the 1870s building, which now serves as the basis for Decade’s branding.
Decca was always a popular spot for Louisville’s creative community, particularly musicians, and the new ownership seeks to make them feel at home with rotating displays of local art on the walls and a private events/music venue called “The B-Side” on the second floor. Being in Louisville, you know the bar menu is whiskey-centric, and that’s a good thing. Either served straight up or as part of a creative cocktail, bourbon and rye are always in the spotlight at Decade.
Little Coyote
Location: Chattanooga, TN
More info: littlecoyote.com
Chef Erik Niel and his wife Amanda have never been afraid of change. After years of successfully operating their flagship restaurant, Easy Bistro, in downtown Chattanooga, the Niels moved the restaurant to the trendy West Village in the middle of the pandemic, and their fans followed in droves.
In addition to his butcher and sandwich shop, Main Street Meats, Erik Niel has added a third gem to his crown with Little Coyote, an opportunity to explore and elevate everything you’d ever want to see on a tortilla. Not just a simple taco joint, Little Coyote starts by seeking to perfect the tortilla itself — by combining milled harina de maiz (cornmeal) imported from Mexico before adding lard rendered from Main Street Meats products and running the dough balls through a Mexican tortilla roller and oven. While vegetarian tortillas are available, the lard creates a succulent texture that makes almost translucent discs with a backbone and mouthfeel to complement the rest of the menu.
Chef Erik has long been interested in the different smoked meat techniques and traditions of Texas Barbecue, Cuban, Caribbean, and Southwestern cuisines, and many of those influences show up on his compact menu of seven large and seven small plates, three sides, and two flavors of soft serve ice cream with accompaniments. The menu is intentionally limited to encourage diners to order multiple items to share and build custom meals.
A wood-fired pit behind the restaurant is responsible for much of Little Coyote’s cooking, and the smoke aroma doubtlessly attracts potential diners waiting in line for the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway just steps away. Those who make the wise choice to get out of line are rewarded with tortilla toppers off the smoker, like beef brisket and pork shoulder, as well as composed plates of carnitas and smoked chuck eye.
Augment the smoked meats with a couple of side dishes plus housemade accompaniments such as pickles, cremas, pico de gallos, and hot sauces to create a perfect family-style meal at Little Coyote. Or you could just enjoy a few tortillas at the bar, which offers frozen cocktails, draft beers, and a particular focus on agave spirits with more than 100 varieties of tequila, sotol, raicilla, and mezcal to choose from. That Incline Railroad may just have gotten a little steeper!
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