Tupelo Honey Cafe: Spirited Recipes from Asheville’s New South Kitchen

As an early pioneer in the farm-to-fork movement, chef Brian Sonoskus has been creating delicious dishes at the Tupelo Honey Cafe in downtown Asheville, North Carolina, since it first opened in 2000. And from then on, Tupelo's food has been consistently fresh, made from scratch, sassy, and scrumptious.

Heralding in its own unique style of cuisine representative of the New South, the Tupelo Honey Cafe salutes the love of Southern traditions at the table, but like the people of Asheville, marches to its own drum. The result is a cookbook collection of more than 125 innovative riffs on Southern favorites, illustrated with four-color photographs of the food, restaurant, locals, farmers' markets, and farms, in addition to black-and-white archival photography of Asheville. At Tupelo, grits become Goat Cheese Grits, fried chicken becomes Nutty Fried Chicken with Mashed Sweet Potatoes, and poached eggs become Eggs with Homemade Crab Cakes and Lemon Hollandaise Sauce.

Capturing the independent and creative spirit of Asheville, Tupelo has garnered praise from the New York Times, Southern Living, and the Food Network, just to name a few.

Elizabeth Sims has had her work featured in such publications as Southern Living magazine, National Geographic Traveler, WNC Magazine, US Air, and Taste of the South magazine. Formerly an executive with the Biltmore Company, she now owns a business specializing in writing and strategic marketing. She is a member and past president of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

A graduate of Johnson and Wales, chef Brian Sonoskus is attuned to the freshness of the season by being a farmer himself. Sunshot Farm, just north of Asheville, provides the restaurants with seasonal vegetables, berries, flowers, and herbs, while the restaurant partners with other area farms and farmers to create a true taste of southern Appalachia.