When Southern Living asked a panel of chefs where to find “The Best Biscuits in the South,” one Alabama restaurateur made the list – and he’s willing to share some biscuit secrets.

The state’s biscuit partisans doubtless will have things to say about the inclusion of one, and only one, Alabama venue. But at least the Alabama honoree wasn’t a fluke: Chef Jim Smith of The Hummingbird Way in Mobile says that nailing down his perfect biscuit recipe was “a passion project.”

Smith formerly served as the state’s executive chef. The Troy native is also a veteran of “Top Chef,” was the first Alabama chef to win the Great American Seafood Cook-Off and has served as chairman of the Alabama Seafood Marketing Commission. He opened The Hummingbird Way Oyster Bar about five years ago in Mobile’s Oakleigh Garden District; in 2023, it was among half a dozen Mobile-area venues showcased by Guy Fieri on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”

In the Southern Living roundup, Charleston restaurateur Anthony Marini describes Smith’s biscuits as “flaky and rich [and] served with whipped butter, smoked salt and dark cane syrup,” and adds that “the interplay between the fat, smoke and sweet of each bite is why I visit Mobile.”

Strong praise. Marini also says that The Hummingbird Way is “the ONLY place that I will eat fried seafood and biscuits!”

A word about that: You can get biscuits at The Hummingbird Way, and you can get fried seafood, but they don’t come together. The easiest way to get your hands on these vaunted biscuits is the Biscuit Service ($10) on the appetizer menu; that gets you a few biscuits with the condiments mentioned by Marini. The Oyster Bisque ($18) is presented with “petite biscuits.” In the cooler months, the Chicken Pot Pie comes without a crust, but with a big cheddar garlic biscuit in the middle of the bowl – “comfort food redefined,” as Smith says.

When the biscuit service hits the table, the first surprise is the modest size of the biscuits. They’re not sprawling fist-sized catheads custom-made to sop up butter, egg yolk and gravy. They weren’t designed to sandwich a fried chicken breast. In context, this makes perfect sense: They’re appetizers. You don’t go someplace like The Hummingbird Way to fill up on biscuits. That would just be the highbrow version of gorging on chips at your favorite Mexican restaurant.

The second thing that stands out is the light, crusty crispness of these biscuits. Yes, they’re flaky when you open them up. But you get a little crunch in every bite – and to get that, without overcooking the inside, is a delicate thing to pull off.

That crustiness really benefits the petite biscuits that come in the bisque: They stand up to immersion really well, almost like oyster crackers. That pot pie must really be something.

The third impression is that Smith was onto something with his trifecta of toppings. The inclusion of smoked salt seems odd – have you ever felt the need to put salt on a biscuit? – but it complements the butter in a big way. You’d miss it if it weren’t there.

All in all, it’s not hard to see why Smith’s biscuits were innovative enough to make Southern Living’s short list.

How did Smith come up with his approach? “The first answer is research,” he said.

When he’s delving deep into some culinary project, he said, he’s willing to pore over hundreds of recipes, from old local church cookbooks to the latest online resources. He’s looking for subtle things that pop up repeatedly, what he calls “some real through-lines.” In the case of biscuits, this meant hints about how cold certain ingredients needed to be, fine points of working the dough and so on.

After putting his findings to the test, he offers three key points of advice:

First, make sure your butter is “ice cold.” Smith said he uses a cheese grater to reduce the butter to slivers scattered throughout his biscuit dough.

Second, he said, don’t overwork the dough. Don’t use a rolling pin, just gently press the dough flat by hand. He said he thinks rolling pins squeeze out too much air. “We never fold the dough more than seven times,” Smith said.

The goal here is to promote that flaky layering you want to see when you pull a biscuit apart. The gentle folding sets the stage, and as the small chunks of butter melt away, they leave behind pockets that add to the effect.

Third comes a tip that’s almost esoteric: Don’t twist your cutter as you cut out the biscuits. Press it down, lift it up. Smith said that the twisting motion, which comes naturally to many cooks, burnishes the outside of the biscuit, creating a band of less-fluffy dough that resists spreading outward as the biscuit rises. The giveaway is a “mushroom top,” where the biscuit expands outward above that band.

The Hummingbird Way is almost an oddity among the dozen restaurants named in the story. Right up front, the editors acknowledge a fast-food chain that would have been hard to ignore even if a couple of participating chefs hadn’t brought it up: Popeyes.

The other 11 are independent, non-chain operations. Most are cafés or bakeries where biscuits fit right into breakfast-oriented menus. Four of them have “biscuit” in the name. The Hummingbird Way would be a complete outlier if not for the inclusion of Chef Nina Compton’s Compère Lapin in New Orleans, another outlet that turns classic Southern fare into fine dining.

Small wonder Smith is a fan. “If you’ve never been there, you should go,” he said of Compère Lapin. Compton is a fellow reality TV alumna: She was runner-up in “Top Chef: Kentucky,” in 2013-14, a few years before he was on the show. “Whenever you’re in company with her, it’s a good place to be,” he said.

He finished mid-pack in “Top Chef: Charleston” in 2018-19. The experience introduced him to Carrie Morey, founder of Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit, another biscuit purveyor that made Southern Living’s list.

Smith didn’t offer comment on the inclusion of Popeyes in the Southern Living list – but he was quick to recommend another Alabama chef’s work: “My buddy Rob,” meaning multiple James Beard nominee Rob McDaniel.

McDaniel and his wife, Emily, operate the acclaimed Birmingham restaurant Helen and the newer seafood-focused venue Bayonet, recently picked by Southern Living editors as one of The 20 Best New Restaurants In The South.

Helen is named for McDaniel’s late maternal grandmother, and the famously light angel biscuits he serves there are his version of the ones she used to make.

At The Hummingbird Way, Smith shies away from yeasted breads in favor of “the two Southern quickbreads,” biscuits and cornbread. McDaniel takes an alternate approach, he said.

“They’re very different than the biscuits that we do,” Smith said. “It’s definitely a cross between a dinner roll and a biscuit. It’s a yeasted biscuit, which makes it very different.”

Biscuits like that, or like the ones served at The Hummingbird Way, might be worth a road trip. But if you want “a biscuit purveyor that’s quick, cheap, and very easy to find,” as Southern Living puts it, there’s always Popeyes.