Birmingham

Birmingham's restaurant record is shaped in large part by Greek immigrant families. The Bright Star, opened in adjacent Bessemer by Tom Bonduris in 1907, is documented by the Southern Foodways Alliance as Alabama's oldest operating restaurant; the Hontzas family's Niki's Downtown (1951) and Niki's West (1957) carried that lineage into the cafeteria-line meat-and-three. Greek proprietors also held the downtown hot-dog trade: Pete Graphos founded Sneaky Pete's, Sam Graphos ran Sam's Super Samwiches, and Gus Koutroulakis worked a single small stand for decades. Barbecue here reads as north-Alabama practice — the mayonnaise-based white sauce identified with the state was made by Robert Gibson in Decatur in 1925 — and Jim 'N Nick's Community Bar-B-Q began in Birmingham under Nick Pihakis.

The city's modern fine-dining line starts in 1982, when Frank Stitt opened Highlands Bar and Grill in Five Points South, applying French method to regional ingredients after time at Alice Waters's Chez Panisse. Bottega (1988), Café Bottega (1990) and Chez Fonfon (2000) followed; Highlands, nominated annually from 2009, won the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Restaurant award in 2018. Stitt was a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and has served on the boards of Jones Valley Teaching Farm and the Pepper Place farmers market.

In drinks, Queen's Park opened downtown in 2018 under co-owner Laura Newman, winner of that year's USBG World Class US competition; Cayo Coco, opened in 1919-era Founder's Station in 2019, keeps a rum list of more than 140 labels.