For a late-summer guide to buying better tomatoes, The Kitchn gathered advice from chefs and farmers across the country, and among the voices was Marc Mansour, chef-owner of BEY Mediterranean Kitchen + Bar in Georgia.

His number-one rule has nothing to do with looks.

Honestly, the first thing I do is I smell it! If I pick up a tomato and it doesn't smell like anything, I put it back. People spend too much time looking for the prettiest tomato, but I'd rather have the ugly one that smells incredible.

What Chef Mansour Looks For

• Smell first: if it has no aroma, it has no flavor. Skip the pretty ones that smell like nothing.
• Feel the heft: a good tomato feels heavy for its size and, in Mansour's words, should "have a little give when you squeeze it very, very gently."
• Skip the fridge: Mansour calls refrigeration "the enemy of a good tomato," adding that "it kills the texture and dulls the flavor." Store them on the counter instead.

A Taste of a Lebanese Summer

For Mansour, the best tomato barely needs a recipe. He told The Kitchn about the summers that shaped his palate:

Growing up in Lebanon, every summer we'd go up to the mountains, pick tomatoes from the garden, slice them, drizzle them with olive oil, add a little salt and za'atar, and sit outside for 10 minutes while we ate them. Nobody cared if they were perfectly round. Some were cracked, some were lopsided, but all tasted like summer.

Those memories are the root of a dish he can't get enough of: a thick heirloom tomato slice layered with garlicky toum, sautéed dandelion greens, and crispy onions.

Read the full tomato guide on The Kitchn for every chef and farmer tip.