Restaurants in Leeds

Fat Sam's Sub Station, a local eatery neighboring UAB, doles out submarine sandwiches piled high with fresh meats, veggies, and cheeses. At sunup, chefs fold omelets, flip pancakes, and drizzle syrup on alarm clocks, crafting diner-style breakfast entrees. As lunchtime rolls around, foodsmiths shift their attention to preparing hot and cold sandwiches on pita, wheat, and rye bread or hoagies. Customers applaud the restaurant's namesake cook, noting Sam's boisterous personality and passion for sandwich artistry. Catering services are available.

Guthrie’s slathers its golden chicken fingers in a sauce invented by a 10-year-old. The youngster was Hud Guthrie, and he crafted his condiment in 1978 for a competition between the Guthrie children. The question to be settled: who could concoct the most delicious enhancement for the family restaurant’s chicken fingers?

More than 30 years later, Hud’s exact formula continues to drizzle Guthrie’s chicken throughout the South, complementing bucketfuls of golden fried chicken or plates heaped with fries, slaw, and texas toast. Kitchens also whip up lighter fare, such as grilled chicken sandwiches, which ride rivers of sweet tea toward stomach satisfaction. Afterward, desserts of fried pie sweeten repasts more effectively than cutlery whittled from candy canes.

Each morning, the family staff at JoJo’s Diner on Broadway grinds fresh Black Angus beef into quarter-pound patties and prepares breakfast sausage. They also create their salads, desserts, and backyard spacecraft from scratch. From 7 a.m.–3 p.m., hungry passersby can stop in for the sausages and simultaneously served breakfast and lunch staples, including eggs, pancakes, burgers, and hot dogs.

The chefs at Sitar Indian Cuisine pay homage to their cultural muse by adhering strictly to the country's cooking traditions. They specialize in searing veggies, meats, or seafood in the karahi––an iron skillet native to India. Similar edible elements roast over the glowing charcoal of the tandoor, a traditional clay oven that seals flavor into dishes such as shrimp and housemade cottage cheese. Since these and the entire menu's eats are crafted each day onsite, patrons can dig into dinner entrees or the lunch buffet knowing that their additive-free meals are fresher than a class president at prom.

For more than 25 years, Chef Bob has relied on real butter, milled cake flour, and farm-fresh milk and eggs to craft each of his made-from-scratch cakes. Though baking for confectioneries and coffee shops remains his passion, Chef Bob also flexes his culinary muscles by catering special events. He once cooked a southern-style meal for more than 6,000 guests at the US Naval Academy, through which he earned a private visit to the White House and a chance to inspect its fabled collection of Grover Cleveland–shaped eggplants.

Chef Bob also regularly shares cooking tips as a guest on WBRC Fox 6, and enlivens functions with custom cakes and ice sculptures. In addition, his cooking classes and demonstrations embolden students to try their hand at kitchen fundamentals or elaborate Ginzu-knife juggling routines. Though he loves sharing his expertly made sweets, he remains committed to promoting balanced diets with his portion-controlled Fit2Eat program.

Global Restaurant's Chef Bernard grew up along the sun-soaked shores of the southern French village of Nice, where his grandfather was a pastry chef and his father owned a fish shop. This rich familial and Francophilic culinary heritage inspired him to take chef apprenticeships in Paris, the United Kingdom, Russia, and upon globe-roving cruise ships. His travels infused an eclectic edge into his cooking, which still incorporates traditional meals, fusion concepts, and a French spirit. His journeys also yielded him more than recipes — during one of his cruises, he met his wife, Shannon, whose experience with the front end of the food-and-beverage industry led the pair to open their own restaurant in Charlotte.

Inside the duo's creation, Global Restaurant, electric blues and oranges brighten the space, and crisp tablecloths lay a canvas for dishes with inventive flavors and artistic presentations. Chef Bernard's specialties include cauliflower-goat-cheese sauce, boldly splashed across a seared sea bass, and date chutney and caramelized apples that dance across an all-natural duck.

The menu, which is in many ways a travelogue of Bernard and Shannon's journeys, has snagged the attention of the Charlotte Observer and of WCNC's Charlotte Today, which invited Bernard on air for a live cooking demo, where he seared some of his famous diver scallops atop the weatherman's greenscreen.