Cooked from within a day’s drive of Savannah
Aldersea opened in 2021 in a narrow brick building on West Perry Lane, with one menu, thirty six seats and a chef who grew up on the Georgia coast.
Wren Calloway was raised in Brunswick, where a September supper meant a bucket of shrimp heads on the porch. She cooked in Charleston and New Orleans for twelve years and came home convinced that this coast deserves the patience a tasting menu usually saves for truffles and caviar.
The kitchen’s rule is narrow on purpose. If an ingredient can’t come from within a day’s drive of Savannah, it has to earn its place on the plate. That rules out a great deal, and it’s why the menu reads like a calendar.
“Nobody needs another plate of lobster in Georgia. They need to taste what a white shrimp is in the week it comes in.”
Wren Calloway, chef and owner
A menu that follows the calendar
The growers and waters behind this month’s plates.
The sounds
White shrimp off the Darien boats, littleneck clams from McIntosh County, and oysters farmed along the barrier islands. Wreckfish comes in from the deep water off the shelf.
The fields
Carolina Gold rice and Sea Island red peas from growers on the coastal plain. Okra, field peas and tomatoes from a family farm outside Statesboro.
The fence line
Muscadines, figs and the season’s last peaches. Sorghum syrup from a mill in south Georgia, and benne seed grown the old way for its oil.
Who you’ll meet
Wren Calloway
Chef and ownerWrites the menu in the last week of each month, and is at the pass every night the dining room is open.
Dana Okafor
General manager and wineBuilt the list around small growers and the whites that suit salt, butter and smoke.
Luis Ferrer
PastryBakes the sourdough every afternoon and makes each dessert from whatever the orchards sent that week.
Come and taste September
Tables open 30 days ahead, released every morning at 10am.