After ordering a quail appetizer at Highlands Bar and Grill, I'm torn between two wines the waiter has recommended.

"How about a half-glass of each so you can compare?" says Patrick Noling, a longtime server at the Birmingham restaurant that is considered one of the nation's best. "I mean, why not?"

Why not, indeed? Highlands is totally devoted to the guest experience.

Booking a table is difficult these days, since the James Beard Foundation bestowed one of its most prestigious annual culinary awards on Highlands (Outstanding Restaurant in America), and named Highland's head pastry chef Dolester Miles this year's national Outstanding Pastry Chef.

Winning the nation's top restaurant award in its 10th consecutive year as a finalist validates the hard work and constant search for excellence by everyone at Highlands, says Frank Stitt, a multiple Beard Award-winner himself since opening the restaurant in 1982.

Stitt says he kept thinking being a finalist was just as good as winning. "But that is not the case," he says. "Some pay attention to the nominees. But people really pay attention to the Outstanding Restaurant winner."

Birmingham suddenly is a dining destination for gastronomes across the country. The week after the awards, a couple drove from Minneapolis to experience Highlands. Desserts, led by Miles' signature Coconut Pecan Cake, have nearly doubled in sales.

With Highlands, Stitt revived Birmingham's once-moribund dining scene. The restaurant was instrumental in building today's tight relationships between local farmers and eaters. And Stitt helped make Southern cuisine a national obsession. Pardis Stitt, the chef's wife and partner whose oversight includes the front of the house, exemplifies the grace and attention to detail that makes an evening at Highlands such a special experience.

On a visit to Highlands, let servers guide you when ordering. They have an encyclopedic knowledge of the constantly-changing menu, how each element on the plate is cooked, and what libations pair best.

Highlands' menu reflects what's fresh, mainly sourced from a network of farmers, fishers, and foragers from Alabama and nearby. When asparagus grows, thick stalks are paired with crawfish tails, which reach peak flavor about the same time. The plate cradles shockingly sweet baby beets.

With the grilled quail appetizer, the Beaujolais wine that Noling recommends stands up to the lemony, salty, smoky dark meat. Fried chicken livers on the plate coax soft fruitiness from the red wine. Mint in the accompanying peach salad makes tart-citrus flavors explode in Noling's other recommended wine, Gruner Veltliner.

The expansive wine list reflects Stitt's deep expertise and his passion for sharing lesser-known bottlings and vintners. "I love introducing people to the Austrian Riesling that will change your life," he says.

Vegetables on the menu, some harvested from the Stitts' own Paradise Farm, are as carefully conceived as the meats with which they are paired.

Curried roasted cauliflower compliments the earthy, almost livery flavors of pasture-raised venison in sorghum sauce sourced from Tennessee's Muddy Pond Mill. Even a simple carrot puree grabs your attention and holds it to the end.

Miles and her pastry crew make desserts for all Stitt's restaurants, including Chez Fonfon and Bottega. Winning the Outstanding Pastry Chef award is a team effort, she says.

"Miss Dol," an employee since Highlands opened, became pastry chef in 1988. She is the creative mind behind several desserts, including the much-celebrated, four-layer Coconut Pecan Cake. Moist and rich, it is so popular a customer recently ordered a baker's dozen for a wedding.

It began as an occasional special, but quickly achieved permanence. "Customers started saying how good it was," Miles says, as she gently pats toasted coconut on one of the Chantilly cream-laced cakes. "People kept asking for it."

The food and feel at Highlands Bar and Grill is the synthesis of Stitt's culinary experiences as a child and his explorations as a young adult.

Growing up in Cullman, he ate food fresh from the dirt of his mother's family farm. He milked cows, watched his grandmother churn butter, and fondly recalls picking strawberries and asparagus with her.

His mom had a worldly palate and generous spirit. "My mother brought love and care to the table," he says. "Many say she was best cook in Cullman. She always had an extra place set in case a friend stopped by."

His parents also loved dining out. Stitt recalls going as a nine-year-old to the Four Seasons in New York, where well-dressed waiters finished dishes and flambeed desserts tableside.

"It was like Oz," Stitt recalls, staring off as if reliving the memory. "It was a magical land of excitement, formality, and fun with such exotic food."

While studying philosophy in college in California, Stitt wound up at the groundbreaking haute-Bohemian restaurant in Berkeley, Chez Panisse, working for legends Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower.

Among the first modern restaurants to regularly promote locally produced food, Chez Panisse's greatest influence on Stitt was its chefs' cooking philosophy. "They introduced people to these provincial- and country-French dishes that were well-researched and had cultural and historical origins."

Later, Stitt worked for and soaked up knowledge in France from Richard Olney, one of the world's best food writers and experts in French ingredients, gastronomy, and wine.

Stitt layers those influences at Highlands. But he rejects the label fine dining, which suggests fanciness for fanciness' sake. Highlands has, he says, "a real lightheartedness of spirit." The atmosphere in the main dining room is akin to a dinner party with friends; in the bar it's a cocktail party with the best food and service.

"Eating at Highlands is like wearing your favorite shirt and jacket," Stitt says. "It's good quality and it's sharp. But it makes you feel comfortable."

Details

Highland Bar and Grill | 2011 11th Ave. S. (Five Points South) | 205.939.1400 | Hours: Tues.-Fri. 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m.; Sat. 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. | Reservations open one month in advance | highlandsbarandgrill.com

This story appears in Birmingham magazine's September 2018 issue. Subscribe today!