Chef Bella Jones is inspired about telling African-American history through food and the area’s Southern cuisine. The chef and food curator is poised to open a new Atlanta restaurant, Liz and Leon’s, in fall 2023.
When the doors open, the eatery hopes to become on of Atlanta’s best black-owned restaurants.
Chef Bella Jones Set To Open Liz & Leon’s In Downtown Atlanta
Jones, whose writings frequently matches the ancestral roots of today’s American palate to African ingredients, says her history in the kitchen is a birthright of sorts.
“I always knew that I wanted to be a Chef!” Jones wrote recently on Instagram. “I was 9 years old when Grandma let me help in the kitchen! I was so happy doing the little things grandma let me do, like pick the greens, mix the cake ingredients to her lemon cake with chocolate icing! I was overjoyed when I graduated to helping with seasoning the chicken! My heart sung when my mother taught me how to make my families Sweet Potato Recipe! I didn’t know it then, but everything my Grandmother taught me had generations of my grandmothers spirits wrapped in every recipe!”
Liz and Leon’s will be located along Hotel Row, a string of commercial buildings that served as the city’s original business district framed by developed by famed architects Samuel Inman and Walker P. Inman.
The structures’ history will only enhance the charm that Liz & Leon’s will bring to downtown. As for Jones, a natural born storyteller, we can look forward to her seasoned tails of family and food and most of all, how tastefully delicious it all is.
“From My Grandmothers Venus & Eliza on the Plantation to my kitchen today, food is what kept my family together,” Jones writes. “It’s how they survived the trials & tribulations of enslavement, what kept them when they left the horrid conditions of Mississippi & migrated to Chicago’s South Side, as they fought for their rights to better education, the right to vote & everything else we take for granted today! I don’t remember a moment in my life with my family that didn’t involve food & so this was ALWAYS MY DESTINY!”
Final Word
If you like barbecue, see our list of the Best Atlanta BBQ Restaurants. As for eateries below I-20, these Southside Atlanta restaurants have developed quite a following.
The craze hasn’t escaped metro Atlanta’s food and drink scene, which has seen a bar explosion in recent years.
Got an event or know of something opening in and around Atlanta? Holla: CJ@AtlantaFi.com. See what’s poppin’ in the ATL! Subscribe to our news alerts here, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
