Chef and owner Chris ZapalowBy Anne Ruisi
People were hungry for the fare at the Homewood Gourmet when it closed for 60 days this winter to prepare for the move from its longtime home on 28th Avenue to its new site at 2703 Mamie L. Foster Place.
“Now they are coming back to eat with a vengeance,” said chef Chris Zapalow. The restaurant opened April 1 at its new location, a block off 18th Street behind Edgar’s Bakery and De Vinci’s Pizza.
Zapalow owns and operates the restaurant with his wife, Laura, a freelance food stylist who takes care of the paperwork and bookkeeping.
The couple made the move for a couple of reasons. The new building offers more effective and efficient workspace and is more energy efficient, Zapalow said. It used to be cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Also, unlike the previous site, there are no stairs, making it easier for customers who had trouble navigating the steps.
It also has a more comfortable 1,500-square-foot dining space that seats 30 people, and parking is more convenient, he said.
“It’s been a great move,” Zapalow said.
The restaurant’s menu, which is available for take-out, is geared to lunch. It consists mainly of soups, salads, sandwiches and meals to go. The lunch menu, for example, features the favorite Baby Blue Salad, which contains baby greens with honey-balsamic vinaigrette, blue cheese, pecans, oranges and strawberries. Diners can add grilled chicken, shrimp, fish or chicken salad for an additional charge.
Sandwiches on the menu include favorites such as chicken salad, a fried Gulf fish or shrimp po’boy, ham and Swiss with honey mustard and pesto chicken.
Homewood Gourmet’s Meals to Go, which feed a family of four, are popular on the menu. Choices include chicken and sausage jambalaya, Shepherd’s Pie and vegetable lasagna. The beef lasagna and creamy chicken with black bean enchiladas are the most popular, Zapalow said.
Everything on the menu is made from scratch, starting with the yeast rolls, bread loaves and boudin and andouille sausage. The soups, gumbos and a mushroom soup base used for the restaurant’s chicken, broccoli and wild rice casserole are all freshly made, with fresh bread crumbs sprinkled on the casserole.
Gumbo, shrimp, fish and po’boys reflect Zapalow’s New Orleans roots and love for that style of cooking. He notes New Orleans-inspired dishes have Creole roots, not Cajun, as some people assume.
Shifting Gears
While he has a bachelor’s degree in communications from St. Mary University in San Antonio, Zapalow always knew he wanted to cook. Realizing he didn’t want to work in an office, he headed back to New Orleans after graduation and applied for jobs with some of the city’s top restaurants. He was hired as a line cook at Emeril’s Restaurant with famed chef Emeril Lagasse, where he spent five years in on-the-job training and moved up to sous chef.
He came to Birmingham in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and applied for a position at some of Birmingham’s leading restaurants, landing at chef Chris Hastings’ Hot and Hot Fish Club. In spring 2010, he got the opportunity to buy Homewood Gourmet from Franklin Biggs.
While he kept much of the original menu, Zapalow said, he did add some of his hometown’s favorites, such as gumbo and po’boys.
“They had a lot of good things on the menu and everybody in Birmingham doesn’t eat the same way as people in New Orleans,” he said.
The food draws customers from throughout the Over the Mountain area and points beyond, such as one from Leeds who stumbled onto the restaurant and has made a return visit, Zapalow said.
With Mother’s Day coming up, regular customers will be serving items from Homewood Gourmet’s menu at their family celebrations. Baby Blue Salad is popular, as are sour cream poundcakes off the restaurant’s catering menu.
Business related to the catering menu gets busy in April and May in response to graduations and teacher appreciations, Zapalow said.
On Saturdays, Homewood Gourmet offers breakfast at the Pepper Place Farmer’s Market in Birmingham from 7 a.m.-noon, a tradition kept after the Zapalows acquired the business from Biggs. Breakfast burritos, boudin sausage, hot and cold coffee and iced tea are served to customers at the largest producers’ farmer’s market in the state.
The restaurant is open 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays and 10:30-2 p.m. on Saturdays.
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