Someone wrote: : I will be in the Birmingham area in the near future. If you can : recommend some good and reasonably priced places to eat on the road from : Boston to Birmingham and in Birmingham in particular I would be grateful. : Thanks : David Lipovitch Well, several of the better restaurants in Birmingham have gone defunct in the last couple of years (RIP, Dexter's), but there are still a number of good places there. The best chef in Alabama (or at least the best known) is Frank Stitt, who has two places on Southside. The better known, higher rated of these is Highland Bar & Grill in Five Points South. They're sort of nouvelle southern, emphasizing fresh, local ingredients. I've never dined there, only had appetizers and expensive champagne on someone else's expense account, but it was pretty good. It's been a few years, though. I think they recently quit serving lunch to concentrate on dinner. Reservations advised. Stitt's other place is a couple of blocks away on Highland Avenue, called Bottega/Cafe Bottega. Bottega is Northern Italian, pricey, and open only for dinner. Reservations advised, and I've never eaten there but everyone tells me it's great. Next door is the more informal Cafe Bottega. More reasonably priced, a bit of a see-and-be-seen hangout. Decent wines by the glass, short but interesting menu that changes more-or-less by the season; indoors is loud, outdoors is nice when the weather cooperates. Lots of gourmet pizzas and roasted stuff from their wood-fired brick oven. My favorite place for lunch when I'm in town. Another good place in the same area is Ivy's on Cobb Lane, just south of Five Points. Also in Five Points is decent pub food and bakery at The Mill, and an Original Pancake House for breakfast/ lunch across the street. For something completely different, try Bro' Chette's on 4th Avenue North downtown. This neighborhood has made some improvement recently, due to being designated an historical district and housing the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, but if you're caucasian you will still probably be made accutely aware of a modicum of remaining de facto segregation. The food, however, is incredible (creole-influenced soul food). It's mostly take-out (just a handful of stools), and has one of the best R&B juke boxes around. A friend and I almost ate ourselve into oblivion when we stopped in there on the way to the Auburn-Alabama game, and the bill was less than $20. No alcohol. Birmingham has several "types" of restaurants where, within a type, the different restaurants are almost indistinguishable. Greek seafood (John's, Nikki's, Bright Star (in Besemer), and a couple of others I forget -- Bright Star is probably the best of the lot, but also a ways out from downtown/southside). Barbecue (Andrew's, Johnny Ray's, Ollie's, and several others -- note I haven't eaten red meat in a couple of decades, so I'm not really up-to-date on these). There are also a solid pack of decent-not-great Chinese restaurants, but I seem to be having trouble dredging up the names. (It's been 11 years since I lived there.) Also worth a try - Cosmo's Pizza (Five Points), Ali Baba (Hoover), Pita Stop (UAB area), Social Grill (downtown close to the old YWCA; I haven't been here in a *long* time, but it should be good for a real slice of local life; it's an old steam table cafeteria -- get a vegetable plate), and I've heard good things about a place called Birmingham Diner, but haven't eaten there. Hope this helps. Larry Owen
Alabama