Pano Karatassos is the Corporate Executive Chef for Buckhead Life Restaurant Group in Atlanta — the family-run operation that has put Kyma, Pano's & Paul's, and a half-dozen other Atlanta institutions on the map since the 1970s. His father founded the group. He inherited the kitchens and made them his own.
His weapon in 2019 was lamb pie — a Greek hand pie, layered phyllo over a slow-braised lamb shoulder shredded into a filling of onions, oregano, dill, and a hit of red wine reduced to syrup. The phyllo technique is the show: each sheet brushed with clarified butter, layered ten deep, so the crust shatters into a hundred buttery flakes when the fork goes in.
Bobby's phyllo, per the room, did not shatter. It folded. That is the difference.