I thought it wise to finally get around to writing this post before Chew Restaurant closes its [downtown] doors permanently. Following their New Year’s Eve celebration, the Urban Core fixture will be moving a few miles southwest over to Five Points.

I first visited Chew during Jacksonville’s Downtown Restaurant Week with some co-workers. On that visit, I thought that conceptually everything was good–fresh, local ingredients in creative dishes–but that it just didn’t all pan out (for example: tough, dried-out pork belly chicharrones). I chalked this up to it being restaurant week, during which time the place was churning out the same dishes over & over and maybe not paying as much attention to detail. Since I was still convinced that those details could make something good, Mario and I gave it another try more recently. This visit made for much more exciting dining.

We happened to be famished the evening we stopped in, so I decided an appetizer was in order. Plus, I really wanted to try poutine, a dish I’ve heard much about but never tried. What a great introduction:

Short Rib Poutine

Now nearing its 2 month anniversary, the French Fry Heaven kiosk in the Town Center serves different & delicious varieties of “Angels” (regular fries) and “Saints” (sweet potato fries). Due to a number of restricting regulations in the city, this is about as close to food trucks/street food as we’ll get in Jax for the foreseeable future:

French Fry Heaven

We visited FFH’s soft open and have been back many times since. On our first visit, we tried a flock of three cupid-sized Angels & Saints (you see what they’re doing there?), GarlicParm Angels, French Quarter Angels (Cajun spice & remoulade), and Breakfast Saints (with maple syrup):

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