It’s a couple of weeks later than normal, but tomato salad season has finally arrived at Birmingham’s Hot and Hot Fish Club.

The iconic Hot and Hot Tomato Salad, which has been featured on the Alabama Tourism Department’s list of “100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama Before You Die,” will be available starting Wednesday, May 15, at the restaurant, which is in Birmingham’s Pepper Place entertainment district.

Typically, the tomato salad arrives on or around May 1 each year, and longtime Hot and Hot customers mark their calendars in anticipation of its arrival.

One year, it debuted as early as April 18, and last year, it was on April 26.

This year, though, Hot and Hot executive chef Chris Hastings didn’t find tomatoes to his liking until a Monday morning visit to his wholesale tomato supplier at the Alabama Farmers Market on Finley Avenue.

“They definitely weren’t here early this year,” the James Beard Award-winning chef says. “Now, they’re just getting right, though, and the timing is logical because the peas are starting to show up, the corn’s delicious, and the okra is super high quality. So it’s on.”

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The salad features thick slices of tomato tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette and stacked one on top of the other. The tomatoes are garnished with lady peas, peaches-and-cream corn, and fried Chilton County okra; crowned with Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon; and then drizzled with a chive aioli.

It has been a signature dish at Hot and Hot Fish Club since Hastings and his wife and co-owner, Idie Hastings, opened their restaurant in its original location just off Highland Avenue in 1995.

The tomato salad is also available as an entrée that features two stacks of tomatoes served with Alabama Gulf shrimp from Bayou La Batre, a dish that Hastings added to the Hot and Hot menu in 2014.

Over the past couple of weeks, while he searched for the perfect tomatoes for his most famous dish, Hastings says he’s been hearing from customers who’ve wondered where’s their tomato salad.

“Every day,” he says. “Every day, it’s like, ‘What the heck, chef? Where are the tomatoes? We’re ready. We need our tomato salad.’

“I’m like, ‘Hey guys, you know the drill. I’m not going to cut and serve a tomato if it’s not up to my standards and your standards.’ I mean, if the tomato’s not perfect, it’s no.’”

The early-season tomatoes are shipped here from growers in Ruskin, Fla., Hastings says, but once tomato season arrives in Alabama this summer, he will get heirlooms from local farmers, including Trent Boyd of Boyd Harvest Farm in Cullman County.

Both the traditional Hot and Hot Tomato Salad and the Hot and Hot Tomato Salad with Bayou La Batre Shrimp will be available at Hot and Hot through the end of September.

After that, it’s wait until tomato salad season comes around again next year.

Hot and Hot Fish Club is at 2901 Second Ave. South in Birmingham. The phone is 205-933-5474. Dinner hours are 5 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. For reservations and more information, go here.