A few weeks ago, I traveled to Atlanta to attend my nephew’s bris. It was a short trip, but I packed a lot in (and on). One of the best casual kosher restaurants I’ve been to in a while is Fuego Mundo located in Atlanta, Georgia.
I first heard about Fuego Mundo when someone nominated it for a Best of Kosher Award. I looked it up and saw that its advertisement as: “A healthy taste of South America”. With grass fed beef and a wood fire grill I knew it wasn’t going to be hard to convince the rest of our family to give it a try. On Saturday night, you can even catch live music!
My first thought when I arrived was: is this place really kosher? It is in a shopping plaza and if I wasn’t looking for a kosher restaurant, I would have passed right by. Owners Masha Hleap-Hershkovitz and her husband Udi Hershkovitz opened the restaurant about two years ago as a non-kosher restaurant offering quality food with a Latin American twist. A few years later they converted it to a kosher restaurant. The owner, Masha, said “from the start most of the menu was dairy and gluten free. In terms of nutrition, one of the worse combinations for your digestive system is combining dairy with meat, so I was happy to find a fusion of Nutrition with Kosher eating, as both are important to me.” After they opened they immediately gained a nice following especially for lunch, but found that based on their location dinner, was slow. The area they are in has a growing Orthodox community and not many glatt kosher restaurants to serve them. They determined that going kosher would benefit them an the local community and so far everyone is happy.
My friends Jay and Dori just came back from visiting family in Georgia and have been raving about Fuego Mundo. Dori said, “I had one of the best steaks of my life there.” Jay said, “the wings are the best.”
My family and I shared the Wild Colombian Hotdog – a hot dog with chicken breast, homemade potato straws and pineapple glaze. I never would normally order a hot dog, but this one was about as far from Coney Island as you can get. We tried the Tres Tapas Specials, a way to mix and match three small plates of your choice, we went with Plantain Chips and Salsa, Baked Beef Pastelito and Spicy Beef and Veal Sausages. It was all excellent and you can really taste the wood fired flavor.
Our favorite dish was the Churasco Steak Salad, an amazing way to get a carnivore to try a salad. Finally, for dessert we needed just a touch of sweet and had to try Plantain Smore’s, a fried plantain with toasted marshmallow fluff and chocolate chips on top.
We had an awesome time at Fuego Mundo! If you want S’More, see you in Atlanta! For now, but Masha says, “We are hoping to grow the concept to more cities and make it appealing to Kosher and Non-Kosher consumers alike, we welcome a multi-cultural following. We are very unique and even before we went Kosher we were the first of its kind restaurant in the USA. We continue to strive to be the best authentic South American restaurant in American, that is also Healthy & Kosher, and with great service in a casual & friendly world-class environment… a place to enjoy good food and good times.
Photo Credit: Fuego Mundo
So thrilled to read your article on Fuego Mundo. It was indeed an amazing kosher dining experience – we went 3 times in the one week we were in Atlanta. I have to also mention the french fries were spectacular!