This is a special look at the chefs of some of Athens restaurants along with recipes to help entertain any kind of holiday party.
The creators of a few favorite uptown dishes and specials spearhead the kitchen with different perspectives and backgrounds on cooking. Three Athens restaurants opened up their kitchens for The Post with an in-depth look into the careers of three local chefs and three dishes that can be made at home. The chefs show off their restaurants and their own cooking styles through the food and atmosphere.
Hilarie Burhans “just fell” into cooking. Burhans lived all around the world when she was young, and she always found cooking fascinating. Burhans had a great love of spices, “big flavors and rustic food,” which showed in her cooking. She taught culinary services at Hocking College and at seven different men’s prisons. With an interest in Middle Eastern cuisine, she opened Restaurant Salaam, 21 W. Washington St., which means “peace” in Arabic.
Burhans served Vegan Harira, a vegan soup containing tomatoes, onions, lentils and a variety of spices and housemade bread. Burhans said harira is a traditional soup from Morocco and Algeria, where meat, eggs and noodles are often added. Her fragrant vegan version, however, is a popular, healthy and inexpensive Salaam mainstay. She said she chose the dish because of its accessibility to everyone. The soup is vegan, gluten-free and only $5. The dish originates from North Africa and shares similar spice with the traditional African dish. The soup is perfect for a cold winter’s day.
“Not everyone can afford to travel to exotic locales for their vacations,” Burhans said. “But we kind of wanted to make a place where when you walk through the door, you felt like you were in another place.”
Cooking is practically a family trait for Gabriel Anthony Antonucci Fisher. His father opened multiple restaurants, including Purple Chopstix, 371 Richland Ave., which opened in 1989. Both of Fisher’s two sisters cook — one started a restaurant in Hawaii. Fisher is following in the family footsteps and is now the sole chef at Purple Chopstix, where he works with his father and his wife. The restaurant is decorated with sculptures from Patty Mitchell, an Ohio Arts Council artist in residence.
“I grew up working with the family, and so, it all seems right to stay kind of like a family restaurant,” Fisher said.
Fisher prepared crab cakes with a coconut caper remoulade. He said he likes the dish because of all the colors, and because it’s his wife’s favorite. He said it is also perfect to take to a holiday party.
When he was nine years old, Bill Justice began working at a country club, where he picked up golf balls and traded items with the chefs for lunch. His parents worked at a Stouffer’s manufacturing plant, so he ate a lot of frozen dinners in his childhood. When he experienced some “real French cooking,” he said he discovered how great food could taste. He worked in food science and food safety for 20 years until his daughter was born. In the same month, he opened 9 Tables, 11310 Jackson Drive. The restaurant only has nine tables, which are not flipped throughout the night. Reservations are required. Justice focuses on purchasing all of his food locally and making his customers feel as if they are having “dinner at his house.”
“What I try to do with my menu is to highlight what you can get locally and show that cooking doesn’t have to be scary,” Justice said. “It doesn’t have to be ‘big-city centric.’ You can find everything to make. Everything on my menu is at Wal-Mart. It isn’t scary ingredients. It’s the way you combine them. You can use very simple ingredients and get some giant tastes.”
Justice cooked mussels with white wine sauce. The dish is the house specialty and the only item that is always on the menu. It is what identifies the restaurant, and Justice said it requires a certain amount of skill, but it is a good dish to make for a family style dinner. Justice recommends adding pasta to the dish to double the serving size.
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