By Anne Ruisi
Open the menu at Helen, Emily and Rob McDaniel’s downtown Birmingham restaurant, and you’re likely going to see items that are literally family-approved.
Creamer peas and middlins, a type of heirloom rice grown in South Carolina, is a dish he created with help from his staff but tested on his family at their Vestavia Hills home. It’s served with a black walnut, vinegar-like sauce with bay leaf. McDaniel, Helen’s chef, said his family, which includes the couple’s 5-year-old twin girls, liked it and it’s been popular on the menu since it debuted in September.
Butternut ragu made with dried mushrooms and San Marzano tomatoes is another family favorite. It also came about because of McDaniel’s experiments with his family’s palate. He put together ingredients in his kitchen.
“I cooked it and it was delicious. I said, alright, we’re gonna put this on the menu,” and it’s been a popular item for two years, McDaniel said.
The in-laws enjoy tasting the dishes, and their feedback has helped determine what ends up on Helen’s menu. McDaniel’s father-in-law usually comes over on Sundays, and on occasion his brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their daughter will drop by and he’ll cook for the whole clan. Steak is a family favorite. Even the twins, Rosemary and Amelia, love steak.
“We try to get them to eat what we eat,” their father said.
Helen, at 2013 Second Avenue North, is upscale and serves 180 to 250 people a night. McDaniel described it as a very Southern restaurant, kind of like a meld between a barbecue place and a steakhouse. The kitchen has a smoker and a wood grill, with all the meat cooked over hardwood.
At lunch you’ll find Iceberg and Bacon Salad with pecans, crispy onions and buttermilk basil dressing; blackened catfish; Fripper’s Bologna Sandwich with cheese, pickle, mustard and Duke’s mayonnaise; or smoked chicken thighs.
Dinner will feature steaks, fish, pork chops, chicken and a list of vegetable dishes such as Celery and Blue Cheese Slaw made with crispy potatoes, sweet onion and Gremolata, braised collards and Yukon Gold potatoes.
“It’s all approachable food, things people are familiar with, like butternut squash and collard greens,” he said, adding Helen uses mostly locally sourced ingredients.
That means the restaurant works closely with local and regional farmers, fishermen and meat producers to use the freshest, high-quality ingredients in the kitchen. Helen’s in-house butcher carves the meats into cuts.
Dishes can be tweaked, even daily, to reflect seasonal changes, and the restaurant rotates different dishes on the menu. Beef and fish menu items depend on what suppliers have available for delivery.
The Tennessee farmers who supply meat might offer bone-in pork loin and ribeye steaks one week, while the fisherman in Destin sometimes uses traditional fishing techniques but also uses a spear gun while scuba diving. Amberjack, small barracuda and snapper are among the fish harvested.
Vegetables are plentiful, offering vegetarians and vegans more variety than they might be used to when dining out. A braised button mushroom dish is a steady presence at Helen, which the restaurant’s namesake, McDaniel’s late grandmother, Helen Fruitger of Oneonta, made.
Sometimes Mother Nature drives menu changes. The hard freeze the South experienced just before Christmas ruined the carrots, so the restaurant had to find an alternative source. What they got were multicolored carrots in hues of orange, white, yellow and purple that looked “beautiful on the plate,” McDaniel said.
And while the menu changes regularly, staple items that customers love – such as warm Angel Biscuits served with whipped butter with cane syrup and sea salt – remain to be ordered time and again.
