My first Arkansas Times shift of 2023 was on Jan. 2, and I wasn’t at my desk for more than a couple hours before confirming that restaurant/music venue South on Main had closed over the holidays. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be a glimpse into the year that was about to unfold. Several classic Arkansas eateries closed their doors this year, some great restaurants entered the scene and several announced future openings in 2024. My editor Stephanie Smittle and I published a fairly comprehensive list of 2023 restaurant departures and arrivals at the end of November, and since then, at least three new restaurants have announced openings, four restaurants have closed (so long Applebee’s on Chenal), four have opened, one burned down in White County, a car drove into another and 7 Brew welcomed customers at its seventh new Central Arkansas stand of the year. Out of many blunders and mistakes I made throughout the last 12 months, my biggest professional failure was not striking a balance between keeping up with food news and immersing myself in the local food scene. I vow to do better in 2024.

Meet me at the water bar

Rhett Brinkley

The first new restaurant I covered this year was Flora Jean’s, the chic downtown vegetarian restaurant from the sisters behind @The Corner. Before I even checked out the menu on my first visit, a friendly waiter asked if I would like some chlorophyll added to the carafe of water she’d just set down on the table. She told me the green pigment aids in detoxification and is good for the skin, so I downed it, of course, hoping it would smooth out some of my forehead lines and restore a youthful glow to my complexion.

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I also drank a lovely pink latte made with plant milk and beet root that came garnished with dried rose petals and ate delicious sweet potato pancakes with adaptogenic maple syrup (infused with mushroom powder) and blue jean-blue-tinted biscuits made with butterfly peas (the digs at Flora Jean’s used to be the Tuf-Nut blue jean factory). A vegetarian “wellness centered” restaurant seems like a bold move for the city, and let’s face it, who doesn’t need a little wellness in their diet?

My new favorite sandwich shop

Rhett Brinkley

There are 20 tortas on the menu at Levy’s Tortas Mexico, each dressed with mayonnaise, tomatoes, onions, jalapeno and avocado. Half of each sandwich is about as big as your face, and they’re served with two large squeeze bottles full of red and green hot sauce. The bread is lightly grilled, so the sandwiches have a nice, crispy texture on the outside to contrast its softer inside, which absorbs the flavor of its filling.

Espresso martini with cheese 

Rhett Brinkley

The espresso martini has been having a revival moment for like three years now, so it looks like it’s here to stay. Nathan Miller’s new hip SoMa restaurant BCW (Bread Cheese Wine) has an espresso parmtini on the cocktail menu featuring Parmesan-washed vodka. I tried without success to hide my humiliation for being the only person at the table unaware that the espresso parmtini was a 2023 TikTok trend. The menu’s description of the cocktail is simply “IYKYK” which was even more devastating because I did not know. I found the parm flavor to be subtle, but it added extra body and umami flavor to the trendy coffee cocktail. Other memorable cocktails this year: the $6 old fashioned on happy hour at Sterling Market and Ristorante Capeo’s Boulevardier.

Don’t skip Brave New Restaurant’s chocolate creme brulee

I was told the chef in charge of Brave New’s chocolate creme brulee has been at it for nearly two decades, and it shows. The creamy rich chocolate and the perfectly crisp candy shell is topped with a healthy dollop of whipped cream and edible flower garnishes that differ between guests.

Goodbye, Cregeen’s 

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When I found out Cregeen’s Irish Pub was closing in Argenta, I drove over during work hours to have one last Guinness on the clock. Sure, the place was dusty and smelled like a bowling alley, but it still had charming Irish decor with the mahogany wood bar (imported pieces from Dublin) and snarky signs (“Absolutely no wagon wheeling allowed”). But the absolute best part of my last visit was being seated near a man who was, according to the back of his t-shirt, a member of the “Old Farts Club.”

Tales from the walk-in cooler

I wrote about restaurant staff members and customers sheltering in walk-in coolers during the EF3 tornado on March 31.

“It was pitch dark and we all experienced that pressurization drop in our ears,” Trio’s owner Capi Peck said. “People say it sounds like a freight train. I don’t know what it sounds like, it just sounded like rumblings from hell.

“And then it was over. We walked out and I thought, ‘Holy shit, how did we survive this?’”

The most uncool res of the year

My biggest public restaurant blunder this year was showing up for my reservation a week early at Park Grill, the new restaurant in the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. As I stood at the host stand trying to come to grips with my failure, the security guard who greeted me at the museum’s entrance opened the door to the restaurant to tell me the Carolina tomato pie is really good. Since my table wouldn’t be ready for another week, the host offered me a seat at the bar. The security guard was right about the savory tomato pie. It didn’t look like much, but each bite left me wondering how a tomato pie could taste that good.

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Raiding the pastry cases at Sterling Market and The Bagel Shop

Several of my favorite bites of the year came from Sterling Market’s bakery at the new food hall-inspired restaurant in East Village. The brookie brownie, chocolate chip cookie with chocolate chips the size of quarters, berry cream cheese muffins and various slices of cake all blew my mind. I’m still thinking about the cranberry chess pie I ordered for Thanksgiving.

You can’t go wrong with anything Monica Chatterton of Flake Baby Pastry fame puts in the pastry case at The Bagel Shop in SoMa. The grocery store cookies, danishes, chocolate chip cookies and Little Debbie-inspired “Cosmique” brownies all slap. I can’t wait to try the cinnamon rolls they’ve been putting out recently.

Favorite food text

My friend Motley and I had lunch plans this summer to go to McDonald’s to celebrate Grimace’s 52nd birthday with purple berry milkshakes. That afternoon Motley sent me the following text:

“Well I called University to see if the shake machine was functional and it is not, of course.”

Motley and I would find an operating shake machine on Broadway. The highlight of meal was another quote from Motley:

“I asked for a packet of Big Mac sauce because they’ve been advertising that they have prepackaged sides now for 50 cents. They brought this …”

Best incognito dining 

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Hot Springs Best Cafe chef Joshua Garland opened speakeasy-style restaurant DONS Southern Social this year on Central Avenue with entrances through an art gallery or a phone booth. The Devil’s Egg — a steamed egg white the size of a rice cake topped with egg yolk mousse, crispy fried alligator, black truffles, hot sauce and dill flower — was one of my favorites apps of the year. Don’t miss the opportunity to have The Flight 3.14 dessert featuring three different pie offerings delivered to the table on a wooden windowsill.

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Eat Arkansas willpower at its finest

My favorite line written for Eat Arkansas this year came from Sammy Williams, who encountered a breakfast option at his hotel when he was on a two-day barbecue road trip through the Arkansas Delta:

“Any other day, I would have been thrilled to have a continental breakfast, but we were aiming to hit five spots on our way home, so we walked right past the biscuits and said no thanks to the gravy.”

The summer of broth

Rhett Brinkley

I love the ramen at Gold Bowl, the new Japanese/Chinese restaurant that opened on Center Street during a heat wave this summer. The blazing temperatures didn’t matter; the Eat Arkansas staff was ready for spicy broth, and I’ve become a regular for the kimchi ramen and spicy miso ramen.

Worst bite

A special pink and blue “Barbie” and Ken-inspired elote was being touted at the Arkansas State Fair this year, and some friends and I were excited to try it, maybe take some food selfies for the #gram. But it looked nothing like it did on the poster.

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The corn was slathered in pink mayo and covered with shredded cheese and pink sprinkles. There’s no way Barbie would be seen with such a monstrosity. When my friend Andy took his first bite, State Fair Barbie corn juices flew directly into my eye.

Other favorite bites: 

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The gougéres from the shareables menu at BCW were a hit at our table — and were a hit again when my co-worker Mandy Keener brought leftovers to the office. The baked gruyere cheese puffs drizzled with hot honey are impossibly light and pillowy, and we all wanted more.

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The Jack Benny at Big Bad Breakfast takes eggs Benedict off the English muffin and onto a crispy hash brown cake with wilted spinach, hollandaise sauce and sliced ham. It’s just about perfect.

The jerk chicken at Yeh Mon.

I loved the spicy, tangy jerk chicken served with cabbage and rice and peas from Yeh Mon: Authentic Jamaican Restaurant in West Little Rock.

I tried a lot of pizzas this year, but my favorite was The Werks, a supreme-style pie from Raduno, which answers the time-honored question: Do sliced pepperoncinis belong on pizza?”

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The Beekeeper king cake I ordered from Amy Jewell’s cottage bakery Southern Jewells featured chamomile honey brioche cake slathered with lavender glaze and filled with a tart lemon custard. It was garnished with a dusting of bee pollen powder, and it might be the best king cake I’ve ever had.

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El Sur’s baleadas are without rival, as are its arepas, but one of my favorite dishes this year was the Pollo Chuco, a Honduran specialty featuring crispy fried chicken served with pickled veggies, a creamy aderezo sauce and salsa roja on top of a bed of house-made plantain chips.