My Dinner with Audrey
Nashville Chef Sean Brock brings his grandmother's Appalachian life to my plate
2022 was a busy year of work-related travel to San Diego, Atlanta, Denver, Portland, and Nashville. I took advantage of my time in these places to try new restaurants or new cuisine. My recent dinner at Audrey in Nashville, the flagship restaurant of Chef Sean Brock, not only delighted my palate but piqued my curiosity about food traditions and the legacy that we share when we share food.
Meeting Audrey
It was a cover story in Food & Wine magazine’s annual Restaurant issue about a completely different notable Nashville restaurant that pointed me towards Audrey. When I’ve sought out others restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs, I’ve often found myself disappointed so I decided this time that I’d go in with minimal information and low expectations.
My journey to the restaurant drew me away from the bright lights and ubiquitous honky tonks found in downtown Nashville, and my arrival at Audrey felt a little like I touched down in an entirely new place.
I’m not someone who usually gushes over restaurant decor, but Audrey’s ambience was simply delightful. Dried herbs and flowers hang from exposed wood rafters, tables ring an open format kitchen, quirky and folk-art style paintings line the walls - all leading to an impression of warm modernity with sleek lines softened by soft textures.
On the restaurant website, Chef Brock describes how Audrey draws its inspiration from his maternal grandmother, her Appalachian roots, and how she helped to develop his approach to food.
“She was the classic Appalachian grandmother. She worked as a butcher and in her father's gristmill, she always kept bees, she had an enormous garden, she had a basement full of preserves, and she was always cooking.
At a very young age, she saw my interest in food, took me under her wing, and started teaching me all the things that she had been taught as a child.
When I was naming this restaurant, the one where I want to spend the rest of my life cooking, naming it after her was an easy choice. I didn't consider anything else.
My idea in designing Audrey was blending the scenes of where I grew up in Appalachia with my passion for a modern Japanese architecture—to make it feel like an Appalachian tobacco barn, but also to be contemporary.”
What I Ate
The plates are designed to be shared with a partner - more intimate than a large family-style platter but more communal than an isolated plate. I selected a few dishes and worked out a reasonable progression and some wine pairings with my server and sommelier.
Jimmy Red Grits with a sorghum cured egg and bay laurel was deemed a “do not miss this” dish by my server and he did not lead me astray! I was mostly excited to try the sorghum-cured egg but I was also delighted to find a truffled sauce layer underneath the grits. What could have been a heavy dish was impossibly light and an awesome introduction to the remaining meal to come.
The North Georgia Candy Roaster was a pit-roasted squash with barley and grapefruit was so good, it nearly made me cry. This dish provided me with the most “perfect bite” of the night and made me think that perhaps I need more roasted squash and fresh grapefruit in my life.
By now, I’m two glasses of wine in and feeling relaxed and grateful. This feeling was compounded by the arrival of two rolls of Salt-Risen Bread and this utterly delightful ball of cultured butter and carrot jam…
Look at this whimsical creation by Audrey’s pastry team! The cultured butter had a nice bite to it tempered by the smooth, slightly sweet carrot jam.
The savory part of my meal concluded with a duo of grilled Lions Mane Mushroom with Cushaw squash and acorns and Field of Dreams Chicken hearth roasted and served with heirloom peanut sauce, Appalachian grapes, and dandelion greens.
For my finale, there was no way that I was going to pass up on the Carolina Gold Rice dessert served as a rice pudding enhanced with bay leaf and infused with toasted rice cream. For more about my obsession with Carolina Gold rice, check out our New Year’s Traditions episode for our discussion about Hoppin’ John.
Leaving Audrey
I left the restaurant feeling really nourished by the namesake Audrey through the care taken by her chef grandson and all of the Audrey staff and I was inspired to think about the food, the way it was prepared and presented, and especially the thoughtful pairing of ingredients into combinations that were new to me yet harmonious and pleasant. I enjoyed imagining a young person in the kitchen learning about food and a family or cultural cuisine.
This is a favorite point of discussion for As We Eat, and one that we intend to explore further in our 2023 season - please stay tuned!
Who are the people in your life who have inspired your approach to food, cooking, and eating? What lessons from your life would you like to pass along to a young chef?
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