Table Talk: Meet Your Chef + Breakfast Pizza + Tomatotinis
June 24 —Happy Tuesday and welcome to the table!
In today’s “Family Meal,” Rough Draft dining reporter Sarra Sedghi brings you a profile on Atlanta chef and The New South collective member Christan Willis, who will be competing tonight on Food Network’s cooking competition “Chopped.” Sarra also brings you a recipe for the breakfast pizza served during weekend brunch at Indaco Italian restaurant on the Eastside Beltline. No need to click out to read either!
For “The Move,” I’ll tell you where to find an exceptional take on the martini with heirloom tomatoes as the star ingredient. I see a tomatotini trend emerging this summer on Atlanta’s cocktail scene.
👉 Programming note: Look for a story from me next week on summer wines, which includes hot-weather and cookout-approved wine recommendations from a handful of top sommeliers in the city. The story will also air on WABE’s new City Lights Collective on July 8. Stay tuned for more!
Cheers!
🍸 Beth
🏡 Just 90 minutes from Atlanta, this 100-year-old Lake Rabun lodge, listed with Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, blends history with luxury. Originally a stone-and-timber barn, it now offers seven bedrooms, a commercial grade kitchen, a 1,000± square foot deck, a firepit, and easy access to outdoor adventures. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Trend Spotting: Tomatotinis
🍅 I spy a trend emerging on Atlanta’s cocktail scene, and it involves both tomatoes and martinis – or at least riffs on martinis.
A handful of restaurants around town have chosen to make the humble tomato the star ingredient in cocktails this summer, using clarification techniques or the base recipe for a martini as the building blocks.
As a classic gin martini lover, I’m not the biggest fan of the dirty martini. I find them either too briny or completely unbalanced. If I do drink dirty martinis, I opt for vodka rather than gin. Tomato martinis, or tomatotinis, are savory with hints of salinity and sweetness. I find them super refreshing to drink, especially when mixed with a good vermouth and super botanical gin or a solid balance of gin and vodka that play well together.
🍸 The tomatotini pictured above is from Little Tart After Dark, the Saturday and Sunday evening bar at the Grant Park location of Little Tart Bakeshop. This was an exceptional take on the tomatotini that allows the tomato a chance to really shine. It mixes vodka, the juices of fresh heirloom tomatoes, dry French vermouth, and hot cherry pepper and butter pickle brines. Floats of olive oil dapple the surface of the cocktail, which comes garnished with Castelvetrano olives.
I’m already working on a roundup of tomato-based cocktails, so let me know if you spot a drink I should check out at a bar or restaurant near you. Email me suggestions at beth@roughdraftatlanta.com.
Meet Your Chef: Christan Willis
By Sarra Sedghi
🍽 Chef Christan Willis entered the restaurant industry as a teenager.
“I was the hostess at a fine dining restaurant and my dad owned the valet,” Willis said. “I was thrown into it, not knowing I was going to take it seriously.”
🏰 Willis, an Atlanta native, reconsidered her path while studying broadcast journalism at Georgia State University. A heart-to-heart with her father convinced Willis to pursue culinary school with snowballing results — she landed an externship at Walt Disney World, oscillating between the Grand Floridian and Polynesian hotels in Orlando.
With 10-hour prep shifts starting at 4 a.m. and multiple tiers of hotel restaurants, working at Disney humbled Willis to her core.
“I cooked for 1,700 people a day at Disney,” she said. “I told myself if I could get through this, I’m going to come back to Atlanta, graduate with my culinary degree, and jump straight into the kitchens as a line cook and take it professionally. So that’s what I did.”
🎓 Willis graduated from Gwinnett Technical College’s American Culinary Foundation-accredited program, specializing in French cooking. She went on to work for Ford Fry’s Rocket Farm Restaurants group, primarily working at St. Cecilia under Chef Craig Richards and at The Optimist. At St. Cecilia, Willis said she learned the majority of her foundation for flavors, especially European cuisine and pasta. The fast-paced kitchens at both restaurants kept her on her toes, helping Willis learn to adapt to changing situations quickly.
Willis founded her private chef business in 2016. Since then, she’s added brand ambassador and TV personality to her culinary resume. But Willis had no idea just how much studying journalism would come in handy as a chef, because, like food, communication, she said, brings people together.
“I had no idea I was setting myself up for being on TV, hosting food festivals, traveling, [or] talking about food to other people,” Willis explained of her culinary career arc. “Every chef can cook, right? But a lot of chefs can’t walk into homes and cook [or] be part of the family.”
⏲️Willis quickly learned that being a private chef was vastly different from working in restaurants, and she embraced it. She has to learn a family’s specific schedule, food preferences, and dietary restrictions. Keeping repeat clients interested in her food and working with what they already have on hand in their home kitchens taught her multitudes about flexibility and time management.
Every day is different, Willis said, but she enjoys the challenge (“chefs love chaos”) — and ultimately, it primed her for televised cooking competitions.
🔪 Willis has appeared on Food Network’s “Cooks Versus Cons” and “Raid the Fridge,” as well as the Netflix series “Pressure Cooker.” Her latest television appearance airs tonight at 8 p.m. on Food Network when Willis goes head-to-head against three other chefs on “Chopped.” MidCity ATL in Midtown will host a “Chopped” watch party, starting with a cocktail hour at 6:30 p.m.
And while she won’t be cooking at this weekend’s The New South dinner at Auburn Angel in Sweet Auburn, Willis does plan to join for another dinner planned for later this summer.
Follow Chef Christan Willis on Instagram.
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Indaco’s Breakfast Pizza Recipe
By Sarra Sedghi
🍕 This week, Indaco Executive Chef Tyler Haake shares his recipe for the restaurant’s breakfast pizza.
“Breakfast pizza is more of an American or international invention than a traditional Italian or European dish,” Haake said. “In Italy, breakfast tends to be lighter — think espresso, pastries, or simple sandwiches — rather than the protein- and starch-heavy meals common in American brunch culture.”
Haake’s take on breakfast fuses hearty American brunch dishes with Italian flavors.
This recipe has been adapted for the home chef, with the most significant adjustment being the use of pre-made pizza dough. If you know how to or enjoy making your own dough, then by all means, prepare it yourself. You can source pre-made dough at a supermarket, or opt for a local shop like Your Dekalb Farmers Market.
“It’s worth asking your local pizza shop or bakery for some fresh dough,” Haake said.
🍳 A supermarket with a large cheese selection, such as YDFM, Whole Foods, or a Kroger with a Murray’s Cheese [stand], should be a sufficient source of dairy products. You can also try a local specialty store, such as Capella Cheese, or the farmers market. Haake is especially fond of Decimal Place Farms and Berger Family Farms’ cheeses and Story Farms’ eggs.
While a coffee-based beverage would work with the pizza, Haake suggests pairing it with a spritz to cut through the fattiness and help cleanse the palate.
Ingredients
- Pre-made pizza dough (16 oz)
- 1 tbsp minced garlic in olive oil
- 2 tbsp mozzarella
- 2 tbsp smoked mozzarella
- 2 tbsp fontina
- 1 tbsp red onion, julienned (can add more or less depending on preference)
- 2 eggs
- Hot sauce
- 2-3 pieces prosciutto
- Parmesan
- Flaky salt
Directions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
- Roll out pizza dough. Drizzle minced garlic in a spiral on dough base.
- Add mozzarella, smoked mozzarella, and fontina, as well as red onions atop pizza.
- Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, until golden brown.
- Meanwhile, cook sunny-side up eggs on the stove.
- Remove pizza from oven and top with eggs. Let cool. Garnish with hot sauce, prosciutto, Parmesan, and flaky salt.
🧑🍳 Pro Tips
Haake recommends touching the crust as little as possible in order to keep the maximum amount of air in the dough. While the egg may be a divisive topping, it’s also an art.
“If you want to be brave, you can crack the egg on top before putting [the pizza] in the oven,” Haake said. “Lightly poke the thickest part of the egg white and break it up a little so while cooking in the oven, the egg cooks evenly with the pizza.”
You can also cook the egg separately to ensure you don’t overcook the yolk — a runny yolk is part of breakfast pizza’s charm.
🏡 Just 90 minutes from Atlanta, this 100-year-old Lake Rabun lodge, listed with Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, blends history with luxury. Originally a stone-and-timber barn, it now offers seven bedrooms, a commercial grade kitchen, a 1,000± square foot deck, a firepit, and easy access to outdoor adventures. SPONSOR MESSAGE
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