DISH OF THE WEEK: Spent Grain Bread at 5 Seasons Westside in West Midtown
It’s always exciting to find a dish that’s simple, delicious and inexpensive. A dish with all that, and a great story, just seems too good to be true.
But the spent grain bread first created by chef David Larkworthy at the original 5 Seasons Brewpub at the Prado is a rustic little brown boule of nutty, chewy, crispy goodness, baked with barley left over from the brewing mash, and served warm with a tub of rich, salty, whipped fleur de sel butter. And it's on the menu every day at all three 5 Seasons locations for $1.50.
“I made this bread the night we opened in 2001, and I just made it up off the top of my head,” Larkworthy remembered during a recent chat about the origin of the bread.“We had the grains leftover from making our first batches of beer so I used that and some bread flour and whole wheat flour. Now I get a nine grain mix that we also put in there with the barley.”
But that’s not the whole story…
It turns out that the starter Larkworthy uses for the bread comes from a yeast strain that he cultured from a 1968 bottle of French Bordeaux that was opened in honor of his 21st birthday, representing the year of his birth.
“Sadly, it was a little corked,” Larkworthy said, laughing. “But we scraped a bit of the growth on the cork into a some flour and water and made a bread starter out of it. I carried that bread starter throughout my college years and my restaurant career.
“Since we opened this place, we've used it as a starter in most of our bread, and waffles, pizza dough and things like that. It has a wonderful aroma, with notes of apple and pear and a sour goodness to it.”
Asked to describe how the bread is made, Larkworthy doesn’t spare many secrets, and has even shared some of the starter culture with regular customers over the years.
“It is a rustic bread, and we make little 8-ounce balls, and we do a double rise,” he said. “On the second rise, we roll it in a high gluten flour to give it a nice crust, then we bake it in the oven with a little bit of water to further enhance the crust. Because of the fermentation it gets some good bubbles inside.
“As far as the butter, we just use good unsalted butter and whip some sea salt into it, so it gives it a nice clean flavor, with a little crunch. Like the bread, we’ve been doing that since the first night.”
Larkworthy agrees with me that the best way to enjoy a loaf of spent-grain bread is by yourself with a pint of 5 Seasons beer.
I saw a young woman sitting at the bar at 5 Seasons Westside doing just that, just this week. The look of contemplative enjoyment on her face was exactly what I’ve experienced for many years.
Spent Grain Bread, $1.50. 5 Seasons Westside: 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays; 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. 1000 Marietta Street, Atlanta, 404-875-3232, Also available at 5 Season at the Prado in Sandy Springs and Five Seasons North in Alpharetta. http://www.5seasonsbrewing.com.
More Dish of the Week picks:
Toasted CBJB from My Parents’ Basement
Fish filet from Wrecking Bar Brewpub
Kale pakoras from Chai Pani in Decatur
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