Skip to main content

King + Duke: Atlanta’s Newest Restaurant Cooks From the Hearth

At King + Duke, one of Atlanta’s newest restaurants, Executive Chef Joe Schafer is cooking with a steam engine. Well, not exactly.

“What it is, is a hearth. It’s 24 feet wide and the centerpiece is a 72 inch wood burning grill that has a custom box sitting on top of it,” Schafer said. “The box has openings at the bottom so what you have is a wood burning grill with a wood burning oven above it. That grill is flanked by two pulley system grills that are stainless steel. You start a rolling fire behind the main grill and the coals fall onto the pulleys and you bring those forward into the main grill. And then you continue feeding the rolling fire all night.”

Recommended Videos

It may sound complicated, but the dishes that Chef Schafer and his team are serving every night are anything but—they are simple culinary creations that use smoke and natural juices and fats to create a dining experience that does away with notions of high-brow and low brow.

King + Duke is the latest creation from Southern chef and entrepreneur Ford Fry. Fry is behind such Atlanta restaurants as No. 246, The Optimist and JCT Kitchen, which is where he and Joe Schafer first started working together. Schafer has long specialized in the art of smoking and when he and Fry began planning for King + Duke, the prospect to cook using the “hearth” set up was something he was eager to experiment with.

The name King + Duke comes from the names of two characters in Mark Twain’s classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and the old-fashioned, American theme for the restaurant was there from the beginning.

“We kicked the name around for awhile and it stuck and then we thought, oh, well then we could have a whole literary aspect going on which would be very interesting. The wine menus are actually bound like old books with spines of classic novels.”

The literary/historical aspect runs throughout the aesthetic of the entire restaurant. From cocktails named Sense and Sensibility and Grapes of Wrath to lunch and dinner menus that evoke the look and feel of title pages from 19th century books.

The menu itself features a variety of hearty dishes that reflect their unique cooking source. “We wanted to make a menu that fit the kitchen and not the other way around,” Schafer said. One can easily picture items like Bar Steak (coal grilled with fries), Lamb Saddle Chops (with crispy torn potato and herb salad, roasted olive and minted salsa verde), and Pasture Chicken Leg (with buttered potatoes, roasted mushroom, bacon lardons and chicken jus) benefiting from Schafer’s hearth cooking system, while dishes like North Georgia Brook Trout cooked “boy scout style” (which means cooking the entire fish) and lunch specialty Ploughman’s Lunch (“last night’s roast”, ad hoc salad, pickles, boiled egg,  and pumpernickel) bring visions of an historical America.

The menu will be changed seasonally, but for right now, Schafer wants to focus on cooking his current dishes the best he can and leaving the customers at King + Duke with a singular dining experience.

“I would like our diners to leave with an understanding that the work that goes into cooking the way we do is worth it. That learning how to use coal and wood and cast iron is worth it. The hearth itself is not just some kind a show. I want them to leave the restaurant saying, ‘Damn, nothing tastes that good anywhere else.’”

All photos courtesy of Andrew Thomas Lee photography.

Matt Domino
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Matt Domino is a writer living in Brooklyn. His fiction has appeared in Slice and The Montreal Review, while his non-fiction…
Switch to decaf with Orbital Coffee’s newest decaf concentrate
Going decaf just got easier
Orbital Coffee

Coffee concentrates make it easy to whip up cold brew and iced coffee at home, but many trending products contain caffeine. With Orbital Coffee's newest decaf cold coffee concentrate, decaf coffee drinkers can also get in on this trend. Orbital Coffee's Decaf Coffee Concentrate offers the rich, full-bodied taste of coffee without the jitters. It's the perfect product for those sensitive to caffeine's effects.

Orbital Coffee has redefined the decaf coffee experience by decaffeinating their sustainably sourced beans using the Swiss water process, creating a smooth, unforgettable brew. Unlike most decaf options that rely on harsh chemicals to strip the caffeine or low-quality leftover blends, Orbital offers a cleaner, healthier alternative to enjoy the best part of your morning ritual without compromise.

Read more
Jameson Irish Whiskey is celebrating the NFL coming to Dublin
Jameson Irish Whiskey helped pave the way for the NFL to come to Ireland
Jameson

The NFL season might have ended last night with the Philadelphia Eagles' demolition of the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs in the 'Big Game." But some of us are already looking forward to next season—especially the people of Dublin, Ireland.

That's because the Irish city is the newest international city (like London, Munich, Frankfurt, São Paulo, Mexico City, and Toronto) set to host a regular season NFL game. And Jameson Irish Whiskey is ready to celebrate.
Touchdown in Dublin

Read more
Mix up an unusual cocktail with these Southern Hemisphere spirits
Drinks featuring a New Zealand vodka and aguardiente
BACAN BERRY SMASH bottle

If you love discovering new ingredients for your home bar, then it can be fun to look for spirits beyond those you'll typically find in the US. As well as regional vodka brands like The Reid from New Zealand, you can also experiment with ingredients like the traditional Colombian spirit aguardiente, available from the brand Bacan. We've got a selection of cocktails making use of these ingredients below.
The Reid Berry Caipiroska

Ingredients:

Read more