Taste the New South: Inside Mississippi’s culinary renaissance

Mississippi may be best known as the birthplace of the blues, but there’s plenty more to sink your teeth into, and food is fast becoming another reason to visit. Across Jackson, Oxford, Tupelo, and the Gulf Coast, chefs, farmers, and food producers are finding fresh ways to showcase the flavours that have long defined the state.

And now the rest of the world is taking note, with Mississippi making its MICHELIN Guide debut in 2025—ten restaurants received Bib Gourmand or Recommended recognition. Proof, if you needed it, that there’s plenty going on beyond the classics.

Start in Jackson, where chef Hunter Evans has put his grandmother at the heart of Elvie’s. He opened the Belhaven restaurant in 2020, naming it after May Elvieretta Good, whose cooking was a big influence on his own. The menu draws on local farm produce and Gulf seafood, earning Elvie’s a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand in 2025.

Just around the street, Pulito Osteria also picked up a MICHELIN-Recommended nod, with handmade pasta and Italian cooking built around Mississippi ingredients. Then there’s Saltine, an oyster bar and restaurant where Cajun and Southern classics share the menu with Gulf oysters, fried catfish, and shrimp po'boys. Or drop into Hal & Mal’s, a Jackson institution serving regional favourites like shrimp and grits alongside live music and a bar scene that has brought people together since the 1980s.

William Faulkner called Oxford home, and the town has been inspiring writers ever since. But there’s another reason to stick around: the food. Here, Southern stalwarts sit side by side with newer spots, so there’s plenty to tuck into.

MICHELIN-Recommended City Grocery has been a firm fixture since chef John Currence opened its doors in 1992, and current Chef de Cuisine Jon ‘JD’ Davis was crowned Mississippi’s 2025 ‘King of Seafood’. The restaurant serves a seasonal menu of dishes like grilled Gulf fish and shrimp and grits.

Ajax Diner is another local favourite, dishing up chicken and dumplings, fried catfish, Mississippi pot roast, meatloaf, and country-fried steaks alongside burgers and po’boys. Its ruby-red vinyl booths and walls covered in diners’ signatures add to the old-school vibe, and it’s been named Oxford’s best plate lunch every year since it opened.

More recent additions include Sola Oxford, with a rotating menu of small plates, seafood, pasta, and creative entrées inspired by the Mediterranean, South Pacific, and Gulf Coast. Saint Leo is also a great shout for wood-fired pizzas and Italian dishes.

Up north, Tupelo gave the world Elvis, but there’s plenty more here to make your taste buds sing. The city is renowned for restaurants that put regional produce front and centre, with chefs finding new ways to serve up Southern favourites.

Forklift is one to have firmly on your radar, championing local ingredients through a menu that flits between Southern and Creole classics, with craft cocktails to match.

Over at Neon Pig, the old-school butcher shop, never-frozen seafood market, and food bar does things its own way. Whole animals are butchered in-house, meats are cured on-site, and fresh seafood arrives three times a week.

If you want something to wash it all down with, Queen’s Reward Meadery is Mississippi’s first and only meadery, making small-batch meads that you can sample in its tasting room.

Few places rival Mississippi for seafood, especially along its 62-mile Gulf Coast, where shrimp, oysters, and fresh fish are part of everyday life.

At MICHELIN-Recommended White Pillars in Biloxi, chef Austin Sumrall makes the most of Gulf seafood, heritage grains, and ingredients foraged along the coast, plating up seasonal dishes in a restored 1905 mansion. He was even crowned King of American Seafood after winning the Great American Seafood Cook-Off in 2021.

For a taste of the Coast’s long-standing seafood culture, Thorny Oyster in Bay St. Louis is the place to be, having served hungry diners in Biloxi for more than 50 years. Meanwhile, Taranto’s Crawfish, Poboys & Seafood started out as a seafood market selling fresh, Gulf-caught seafood.

Over in Ocean Springs, Vestige takes things in another direction, with husband-and-wife chefs Alex Perry and Kumi Omori combining local produce and Gulf seafood with Japanese ingredients and techniques. The restaurant works with small-scale, regenerative farmers and sustainable seafood suppliers, earning a MICHELIN Recommendation in 2025.

From catfish and cornbread to Gulf oysters and modern tasting menus, Mississippi’s food scene is reason enough to visit. So come hungry and start planning your trip to taste the Magnolia State for yourself. Visit visitmississippi.org