Last year, when Landon Thompson set out to open a Basque restaurant in Atlanta, he found himself in the challenging position of trying to balance the old and the new. The Basques have a “violent passion” for food, the executive chef of Cooks & Soldiers in West Midtown says. Their cooking straddles Spain and France, mountains and sea, city and farm. It is a rustic style of eating that embraces salt cod and cured ham, tomatoes and peppers, beans and potatoes, cheese. Basque cuisine is also an international movement that has spawned wild experimentation, celebrity chefs, Michelin stars. Complicating matters, perhaps, is the fact that Thompson, who just turned 30, is a Columbus, Ga., native who...
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