The newest dish at Helen, the lauded Southern grill in downtown Birmingham, embodies chef-owner Rob McDaniel’s dedication to serving the best seasonal ingredients he can find, sourced as locally as possible.
It utilizes grits and eggs from Wilsonville, foraged mushrooms from a Birmingham purveyor, artisanal country ham from Tennessee, and redeye gravy made with Non-Fiction coffee roasted in Pelham.
(Helen/Contributed)
In the no-meat take on Gulf-style shrimp and grits, wild lobster mushrooms and chanterelles are roasted and braised on a wood fire with thyme and bay leaf. They’re served on top of creamy McEwen & Sons grits and doused with an umami-rich gravy made from rich pork stock and coffee. An egg, soft-cooked in an immersion blender, provides a second sauce when diners pierce its runny yolk.
“It has this really nice, firm texture,” McDaniel, a veteran of Alabama restaurant kitchens, says of the lobster mushroom. “To me, it is very earthy. The chanterelle mushroom has more of a delicate texture, with an apricot aroma. This dish is delicious, especially as the weather gets a little crisp outside.”
Understatedly named McEwen & Sons Grits, it joins six other vegetables in the section labeled “Vegetables, Grains & Legumes” on Helen’s a la carte menu. Each side (most are $17) is designed to be served family-style, feeding up to four people, McDaniel says.
Most of those dishes are vegetarian or vegan; the rest can be made so. In the grits dish, for example, a broth produced by cooking the mushrooms can be substituted for pork stock in the redeye gravy, McDaniel says.
Each vegetable dish, which rotate regularly, is thoughtfully composed.
(Helen/Contributed)
“We’ve always said they were the heart of the menu,” McDaniel says. “Most every restaurant I’ve worked in, if a guest says I’m a vegan or a vegetarian they usually get a collection of things from other plates on the menu. We really put some thought into that so people who don’t want to eat meat can have the same dining experience as anyone else in their group.”
Each course on the dinner menu is built for sharing. The fire-cooked meats are steakhouse portions, including beef cuts weighing up to 40 ounces, whole fish, and smoked half chickens. Top-of-the-line steaks, some aged up to 45 days for extra flavor, range from $80 for a 22-ounce strip to $150 for the 2.5-pound prime porterhouse. Other a la carte meats start at $25.
The restaurant pays tribute to McDaniel’s grandmother, Helen Frutiger, a talented cook whose home kitchen in Oneonta was outfitted with a grill. Meals there also showcased fresh-picked Southern-style vegetables.
“We’d come to her house and she’s over there flipping steaks on the grill,” says McDaniel, who grew up in Haleyville. “Her house would smell absolutely amazing. It’s a food memory that I have carried with me my whole life.”
The restaurant is open Tuesday through Friday for lunch, with a different lineup than at dinner. Helen’s popular Warm Angel Biscuits are common to both menus. The yeasty rolls are served with butter that has been whipped with cane syrup, and flaked sea salt.
(Helen/Contributed)
Desserts are seasonally-oriented and imaginative, currently including muscadine and scuppernong sorbet, and Spiced Caramel Pumpkin Tart with a butter cookie crust and brown butter pecans.
One of the state’s elite chefs, McDaniel has been a six-time semifinalist for a coveted James Beard regional best-chef award – both at SpringHouse restaurant at Lake Martin where he was executive chef from 2008-2020, and at Helen, which he and his wife, Emily, opened in August 2020. Along the way, Helen has garnered accolades from regional and national food media.
Chef McDaniel’s resume also includes Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, and Jim ‘N Nick’s, which has been a training ground for several local restaurant chef-owners.
With colder weather coming, expect more braises on the menu, McDaniel says. Helen’s kitchen uses a smoker for the simmering portion of the braise, which adds a different dimension to the flavors.
It’s all part of the creative process in Helen’s open kitchen. “We’ve got good, thoughtful chefs,” McDaniel says. “We bounce ideas off each other [and] try to make fun and interesting things.”
The McDaniels’ talents and drive have seen their business through tough times. SpringHouse opened just as the housing market tanked in 2008. Helen launched during the pandemic.
“We opened at one of the worst possible times,” the chef says. “We’ve been very blessed and fortunate to have the business we’ve had and continue to have.”
Helen is at 2013 Second Avenue North. It is open for lunch 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, and for dinner 5 p.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. The bar opens at 4 p.m.
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.