Maybe it’s based on proximity, but I feel like Chattanooga gets compared to Atlanta — often and unfairly.
I admit sometimes I even make the comparison without realizing it. Outside of a connection to Coca-Cola and the R&B singer Usher (Chattanooga locals say Atlanta stole him from them), the two cities are very much on opposite ends of the spectrum.
But for the sake of this column, I will compare Atlanta’s Buford Highway to Chattanooga’s Lee Highway. Buford Highway stretches 30 miles from Atlanta’s Midtown through places like Doraville, Duluth and Suwanee before ending in the actual city of Buford, Georgia. In 2015 Andrew Knowlton wrote a piece for Bon Appetit magazine titled, “Eat the World (Yes, the Entire World) Along Atlanta’s Buford Highway.”
Knowlton starts off: “Everything I know about ethnic food, I learned on Atlanta’s Buford Highway.”
Four years later, Stephanie Toone from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution described the highway as “the cornucopia of rich, authentic ethnic fare.” The article also said there are over 20 countries represented in the form of restaurants along the highway — from Venezuelan food at Natarica to Kategna where there’s Doro Wat and everything else we love about Ethiopian food.