When a Flight Attendant Lands Her Own Restaurant: Twisted Soul in Atlanta
“Think about every time you go on vacation and you try great food,” Guy Fieri muses at the top of this segment. “Or think if you were a flight attendant and you flew all over the world and you got to taste all this incredible food. Think if you took all that information and came back and opened your own restaurant.”
That’s exactly what Deborah VanTrece did. The former flight attendant traded galley cooking for her own kitchen at Twisted Soul in Atlanta, Georgia, bringing what she calls “globally inspired” soul food to the table. As she puts it: “All cultures have a soul food.”
The Southern Seafood Louis Salad
Guy doesn’t often do salads on Triple D, but this one earned his full attention. The Southern Seafood Louis is a riff on the classic crab Louis that “the Southern belles down here used to do at the tea parties,” according to Deborah. Guy’s response? “I’ve never been to a tea party. I’ve been to a kegger.”
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The dish starts with a roasted corn vinaigrette — olive oil, onions, red bell pepper, and fresh corn sautéed together, then blended with apple cider, cilantro, garlic powder, seasoning salt, and onion powder. The seafood gets a gentle poach: shrimp, lobster, and lump crab in water with a little crab boil, kept delicate so nothing overcooks.
But the real twist? Avocado ho cakes. That’s self-rising cornmeal, baking soda, eggs, buttermilk, and avocados — “soul food fused with California,” Deborah explains. They add red pepper, onion, jalapeños, oil, and cilantro. Guy’s verdict after tasting: “That is delicious. It’s refined, it’s balanced. You perfectly cooked the seafood. Avocado ho cake is a perfect compliment.” He even declared it “Too Legit to Quit.”
Southern Marinated Fried Chicken with Sweet Potato Apple Chutney
The fried chicken marinates for 24 hours in seasoning salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper before getting dredged in flour and house seasoning. Deborah’s advice? “Hit it, don’t babysit it” — straight into the cast iron.
The accompanying sweet potato apple chutney features butter, Granny Smith apples, lemon juice, fingerling sweet potatoes, brown sugar, cinnamon, clove, ginger, red peppers, apple cider, golden raisins, and — the pièce de résistance — ginger-infused bourbon.
Then there’s the collard green roll: blanched collard greens stuffed with cooked grains, mustard, collard water, jalapeños, celery salt, red pepper flakes, and paprika, simmered for two to three hours. The dish comes together with mac and cheese and a drizzle of pot liquor.
Guy’s reaction was emphatic: “Congratulations for wrecking collard greens for the rest of my life… I want to order a hundred of these.” He praised the chicken as “good old-fashioned honest fried chicken — skin’s nice and crispy, holds a good crust.”
A Triple D OG Weighs In
Gus from Marietta Diner — a Triple D veteran — showed up to taste the spread. His take on the seafood salad: “The shrimp is excellent. I feel like I’m having dinner with my salad.” A former flight attendant colleague also appeared, revealing that Deborah used to cook for the crew on flights, even buying ducks in London to prepare in the galley.
If you’re into creative Southern cooking with international influences, this segment delivers something different from your standard CRAB CAKE Grilled Cheese or Oxtail Saimin. Deborah’s globe-trotting background shows in every dish.
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