“From pop-up, to Bread & Butterfly, to Summerhill,” Chef Demetrius Brown writes upon the opening of his new restaurant Heritage. It’s a moment Brown wants to savor because it’s been a journey to get here – and one in which his family helped him navigate.
In fact, his mother’s shepherd’s pie anchors the food menu in the cocktail lounge. His aunt’s cucumbers begin the multi-course tasting in the dining room.
Heritage is meant to be an immersive experience, exploring not only Brown’s culinary roots in the South and the Caribbean, particularly Trinidad, but the ingredients and dishes part of the far-reaching tendrils that connect food throughout the African diaspora.
Located across from Little Bear, Heritage is another collaboration between Brown and Brandon Blanchard. The pair met working at The Hill at Serenbe, then worked together again at The Pinewood in Decatur. When The Pinewood closed in 2020, Brown and Blanchard partnered to found Heritage Supper Club, followed by the purchase of Bread & Butterfly in Inman Park from Chef Billy Allin three years later.
Heritage Supper Club continued popping up at Bread & Butterfly, while Brown and Blanchard laid plans to transform it into a permanent restaurant. They settled on Summerhill, a neighborhood founded by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. Summerhill would also become home to a thriving Jewish community during the early 20th century.
A full-body experience
Brown sees Heritage as a full-body experience. People arrive in the cocktail lounge for drinks, before traveling down a hallway to the dining room, ending the night at the dessert bar deep inside the restaurant.
The separation of spaces is intentional, with the music and design changing as people move further into Heritage and the dining experience.
Music in the lounge spans the gamut from 1960s pop to the early 2000s and Atlanta artists like OutKast. Brown said the music should feel classic and timeless, like songs we’ll still be listening to 30 years from now.
Moving into the dining room, music sets the pace and storytelling for each course.
“The dining room music will change more frequently because we want it to pair with the menu. The playlists are nostalgic for me,” Brown said. “There are songs on it like the one my wife and I used for the first dance at our wedding.”
The cocktail lounge
Seating 17 people, the cocktail lounge acts as an extension of the dining room, as well as a space for walk-ins to grab a drink and a bite. Here, the a la carte food menu leans regional and into Brown’s upbringing in Rhode Island and Georgia.
“There’s lemon pepper wings on the menu, as a nod to Atlanta, but ours use sumac to bring in that acidity and an African pepper,” Brown explained. “We ferment a lot of local peppers to make our own hot sauce.”
For his take on his mother’s shepherd’s pie, Brown seasons lamb with berbere, an aromatic Ethiopian spice filled with heat.
Brown found inspiration for the Jamaican patties served in the lounge from the ones he grew up eating at the bodega across the street from his house.
Cocktails from beverage director Keyatta Mincey are made with spirits produced by Black-owned, BIPOC-owned, and women-owned distilleries, incorporating ingredients from around the diaspora.
The 1865 is a signature cocktail at Heritage. Named for the year Summerhill was founded by formerly enslaved people, the drink includes hibiscus, lemon, and warm notes of cinnamon.
The dining room
Hidden behind a secret door in the cocktail lounge, people enter the 40-seat dining room through a dimly lit hallway. The two-tier dining room also features a chef’s counter.
Comprising eight courses, the tasting travels between countries and cultures within the African diaspora and Brown’s family recipes.
Carmen’s cucumbers, named for Brown’s aunt, kick off the tasting. Brown weaves memory into dishes like this, recalling summers spent helping his aunt tend her garden. After harvesting cucumbers, they would sit on the porch talking and eating what they picked.
“We’ve done cucumbers in three or four different ways and they’re garnished with herbs and oils,” Brown said.
“Later on down the menu, it transitions to more Caribbean, so we have a jerk chicken yakitori and waakye at the very end, which is a West African stew. We’ve deconstructed it and then kind of constructed it again to modernize it to keep the soul of the dish,” he continued.
People finish their tasting experience with dessert up a staircase, in another area of the restaurant. One dessert offered is Brown’s riff on his grandmother’s cassava cake served with curried ice cream.
The tasting comes with optional wine pairings. As with the spirits used for cocktails, Mincey sources wines for pairings from BIPOC-owned, women-owned, and Black-owned producers, including La Fête Wine Co., founded by Clark Atlanta University alumnus Donae Burston.
The design
Designer Imani James worked with Brown to bring his vision for the restaurant’s spaces to life.
The banquette and walls of the cocktail lounge are drenched in rich purple and burgundy tones with wood accents. Brown wanted the lounge to feel organic, familiar, and lived in, with an assortment of artwork, as if someone bought individual pieces during their travels.
In the dining room, James flips the script and the mood. The tasting takes place in a bright and airy space with minimalist aesthetics. Artwork represents Brown and his family.
“There’s a mural of my great-grandmother that we had commissioned by a local artist. Then there’s a collection of artwork we commissioned from an artist called Charity that are all milestones of my life, from growing up, to my wife and our wedding, to our son,” Brown said.
Other art adorning the walls includes historic pieces, like a quilt from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, another community established by formerly enslaved people now known for quilt-making.
Through Heritage, Brown wants his guests to recognize that Black food and culture aren’t monoliths. Incorporating familiarity, comfort, and history through music, design, and food are all storytelling tools he uses to expound on the depth and breath of the African diaspora.
“Even though something may seem unfamiliar, we want everybody to come away feeling like they’ve had this dish or this ingredient before,” said Brown. “The menu should feel personal, not just to me, but to everybody. That’s the biggest thing we’re trying to accomplish at Heritage.”
Heritage, 63 Georgia Ave., Summerhill. Open Tuesday-Saturday. Reservations highly encouraged for dinner, from 5 to 9 p.m. $195 per person. Chef’s Counter is $225 per person. Cocktail lounge open for walk-ins, from 4:30 to 10 p.m.
