Welcome back to Table Talk, where The Daily Memphian’s food and dining editor Jennifer Biggs or her colleagues send the latest food news (along with a dash of this and that) to your inbox every Wednesday.

Sides at Second Line will include Käsespätzle (a Swiss macaroni and cheese with German noodles, pictured above) and fries with curry ketchup.  (Courtesy Second Line)

There’s a sequence early in the second season of “The Bear,” Hulu’s much-loved series about the ups and downs of a family-owned Chicago restaurant, where chef de cuisine Sydney spends time visiting other restaurants across the city, eating, talking to the people who work at them and gathering inspiration for the the menu she’s developing. 

A few episodes later, as The Bear (the restaurant) is about to reopen, transitioning from sandwich shop to fine dining, Sydney walks by one of the places she’d earlier visited and sees a sign in the door announcing they’ve closed.

Deep breath. 

That’s the restaurant world: openings, closings, reinventions, menu changes, pop-ups. Not just filling up plates, but keeping them spinning. 

Memphis chef-restaurateur Kelly English (Restaurant Iris, Pantà, Second Line) wrote about “The Bear” for us this week, and like many others in the business, didn’t sniff at its unavoidable liberties and inaccuracies as much as express admiration for its feel and concern for the restaurant life and the people in it. 

And now English is back to spinning plates. 

He’s been experimenting with pop-up events and specialty menus at his sibling restaurants near Overton Square, the Creole casual Second Line and the swanker Catalan-inspired Pantà.

Greg Thompson, right, and Madison Michael toast during brunch at Second Line Dec. 20, 2020. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

The latter has done short-term Portuguese and Greek menus in the past year or so and is planning a South Korean sequel after the winter holidays, inspired by some family recipes from business partner Sylvia Richey, whose mother is Korean. 

But first, Second Line, which did a Creole Italian pop-up menu last September, will feature a German one this year, an Oktoberfest menu that will fully replace the normal Second Line menu for a month starting Friday, Sept. 1, and running through Tuesday, Oct. 3. 

If that confuses you, you might be an Oktoberfest amateur. As English points out, the actual Oktoberfest in Bavaria is more of a September thing — starting Saturday, Sept. 16, this year, to be exact.

Before moving to Memphis, English was a chef at Luke, a French and German brasserie in New Orleans. 

That will be an influence on Second Line’s Oktoberfest menu. So will Erika’s, a German restaurant in Downtown Memphis that closed a generation ago. English said he loved Erika’s when he first moved to Memphis and has consulted the family who owned it for menu tips.

Panta’s Aaron Ivory mixes cocktails July 15, 2022. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

English and Derk Meitzler, the general manager of both Second Line and Pantà, have put together the kind of menu you can’t otherwise find in Memphis and which is likely to expand the food vocabulary of most visitors. 

Appetizers will include Königsberger Klopse (meatballs with a caper white sauce) and Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes).

Sandwiches include Sauerbraten (roast beef cooked in vinegar) and Wurstl (sausages).

Entrees will include various Schnitzels (pounded, breaded, fried), Maultaschen (beef and spinach dumplings) and Flammkuchen (sautéed pizza). 

English calls the Flammkuchen “one of my favorite things in the world.”

Kelly English, pictured above, calls the Flammkuchen “one of my favorite things in the world.” (The Daily Memphian file)

Sides will include Käsespätzle (a Swiss macaroni and cheese with German noodles) and fries with curry ketchup. 

The brunch menu will include Dutch Baby-style apple pancakes. 

There will likely be some Second Line twists, such as a Sauerbraten po-boy, but the normal Second Line menu will disappear for a while. When it returns on Wednesday, Oct. 4, there will be some new twists on the restaurant’s Creole staples. 

“The core Second Line dishes aren’t going anywhere, but we’ll take the opportunity to introduce some fresh menu stuff Derk’s been developing,” English said. 

He also said Second Line will try to expand its normal beer menu for the month, to celebrate as many local breweries as possible, and will feature a special Second Line Oktoberfest beer from Meddlesome Brewing.

Memphis Made Brewing serves Slumber Party, a 9% ABV Imperial Stout. (The Daily Memphian file)

A few blocks away in Cooper-Young, Memphis Made Brewing isn’t doing anything Oktoberfest-specific — beer is front-and-center there every day — but is getting ready to celebrate its 10th anniversary late next month. 

Before that, they’ve got their own one-night-only pop-up event. 

Memphis Made is teaming up with Central BBQ founders Craig Blondis and Roger Sapp for an “Ale to Tail” beer dinner at Central’s Downtown location.

If Memphis barbecue — and Central BBQ more specifically — is rooted in pork shoulder and ribs, this will be a little different. 

Blondis will slow smoke a whole hog for the dinner, pairing it with a collection of side items beyond Central’s normal menu.

Barbecue nachos on housemade potato chips served at Central BBQ. (Jennifer Biggs/The Daily Memphian file)

Most of these will come from chef Marisa Griffith, formerly of Sweet Grass and currently catering director for Across the Board, the restaurant group Blondis and Sapp formed with Sweet Grass owner Ryan Trimm. 

Griffith will be preparing pimento cheese tarts, green goddess deviled eggs and dill pickle fritters with comeback sauce. Sapp will be doing hoecakes, succotash with fresh vegetables and tomato pie. Blondis will also do a potato salad.

All of this will come with suggested beer pairings from Memphis Made. 

The dinner is Saturday, Aug. 19, from 6 to 9 p.m. Initially $75, tickets for the dinner are now $50 and can be purchased here. 

Those aren’t the only spinning plates in Memphis food this week, of course. Comings, goings and reinventions are constant.

Maria Ahedo serves lunch behind the counter at La Llamarada on Summer Avenue. (Chris Herrington/The Daily Memphian file)

When I got back to town after a recent vacation, I was driving down Summer Avenue, and my heart sank when I saw the location of beloved (to me) Mexican home-cooking spot La Llamarada empty. Turns out, they didn’t close. They only moved, and just a few doors east, to a bigger spot at 3103 Summer Ave. just a couple of weeks ago.

Owner Jose Ahedo says the move was spurred by a rent dispute with their prior landlord. The new location doesn’t have quite the hole-in-the-wall charm as the former, but it is more spacious and more comfortable. And the food was undiminished on a visit last week when Ahedo’s mother Maria was cheerfully dishing out the same deeply flavorful stews that made La Llamarada one of the highlights of our Summer Avenue tour last year.

Meanwhile, a nearby neighbor, Broad Avenue ice cream/bubble tea shop Sugar Ghost, just opened a second location in Germantown at 9077 Poplar Ave. suite 103.

I first wrote about Sugar Ghost a couple of years ago, when owner Mary Claire White was just developing her soon-to-open shop from what began as a truck. As a nearby-neighborhood parent who bemoaned the paucity of local ice cream shops (with both local ownership and made-in-house ice cream), I was rooting for her. She pulled it off, and now the eastern side of the city will have easier access to these house-made ice creams, dip cones, bubble tea floats and more. 

Speaking of second locations: I’m going to take partial credit for Belltower Coffeehouse taking over the too-long-empty shop space at the Shelby Farms Park Visitors Center.

The new Belltower Coffeehouse is expected to open in the early fall, within Shelby Farms Park’s First Horizon Foundation Visitor Center at 6903 N. Great View Drive. (Brad Vest/Special to The Daily Memphian)

I’d cut through the park recently while biking the Shelby Farms Greenline out there and lamented that I could no longer pop into the space for a drink and a snack. This seemed like a real need, and a satellite location of the fine University District coffee shop is a good candidate to fill it. Rashod Cobb has more on this. 

And speaking of restaurant reinventions and food truck origins: Germantown staple New Asia ended an era recently. Sophia Surrett documented its final supper of sorts. The space has been taken over by the owners of the now-retired Memphis Dim Sum 101 food truck, which I profiled a couple of years ago. They’re retaining the “New Asia” name. 

And speaking of longtime staples going away, but not quite yet: Greenlaw neighborhood shop Roxie’s Grocery, much loved for its belly-busting burgers, is up for sale. The family founders will continue to run it until then, but are getting their well-deserved flowers now. 

More new: Central Station’s French brasserie, Bishop, has updated its menu under new chef Chrisopher Zelinski. Christin Yates takes a look. And Joshua Carlucci checks out Arnold’s Smokehouse, a new restaurant for both carnivores and vegetarians in South Memphis. 

Elsewhere this week: Local composters have hit a hiccup. And Carlucci has tips on vegan breakfast sandwiches and a home-brew lemongrass sauce. 

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