central station hotel restaurant
central station hotel restaurant
Escargot, drenched in garlic and parsley butter, gets crunch from a confetti toss of brunoised and fried chicken gizzards. (Disclosure: Theyre supporters of the Southern Foodways Alliance, which I direct.) Piled like cannonballs at a nineteenth-century fort, a pyramid of pommes dauphine looks goofy and tastes great. Come evening, amid flashes of red and green neon from the neighboring bar Earnestine & Hazels and the nearby Arcade restaurant, I say it conjures a Saturday night in 1970s Memphis, captured by hometown hero photographer William Eggleston. More recently, chef-owned restaurants, set in funky refurbished warehouses, have driven ideas about dining. In the way a great novel can, or travel to another country does, lunch or dinner here picked us up in one place and put us down in another. The mushroom-layered center of a quiche jiggles like it should. All rights reserved. Layer upon layer, the details add up to a chronicle of midcentury Memphis, a celebration of travel, and a reminder of whats possible beneath the roof of a grand hotel. Garden & Gun is a registered trademark. Heres how she makes the store-bought stuff her own, Remote Southern retreats to help you unwind and unplug. (Think of the bits of skin and batter that fall to the bottom of a Popeyes bag and you get close.). Though the dining room is swank, I like the tight lozenge of a bar, where a genuinely diverse crowd of locals gather.J.T.E. The hits keep coming as we progress toward one-bite profiteroles, gorged with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with caramel and chocolate sauces. The bar is a project by Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman, Memphis natives and childhood best friends. Driving home, after spending a weekend in this new hotel in this old space, Blair and I talk of how our time at table transported us. From the lobby of the new Central Station Hotel in downtown Memphis, where travelers once waited for City of New Orleans trains, and where a beaded portrait of soul godfather Isaac Hayes now stands watch, my wife, Blair, and I descend the stairs to Eight & Sand. While Bishop presents like a French fantasy, the food inevitably gestures back to the South. But Bishop is also a singular pleasure. The drink list centers on shout-outs to the cities served by Amtrak, including New Orleans (Sazerac with brandy and rum) and Chicago (old-fashioned with Illinois-distilled Koval bourbon). And a round of digestifs made with cognac and amaro and vermouth. Having taken the trip, we are better for it. When Hog & Hominy, the second of Ticer and Hudmans restaurants, burned in January during a renovation, the boys (as they are widely known) shifted experienced cooks and servers from there to here. Dangled from ceiling pendants, a speaker array broadcasts a greasy playlist that sounds like it was lifted from Dolemite Is My Name. Order mussels steamed in a broth of Chablis and fennel and you get a sidecar of frites for dunking. For the grand aioli, the boys tuck endive leaves and soft-boiled egg halves and bundles of rare tenderloin around a bowl of garlic mayonnaise stirred with a buoyant lemon mousseline. Luxe and indulgent, Bishop is their most beautiful and aspirational yet. Beginning with Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen, Ticer and Hudman have built a small empire of six restaurants here and in New Orleans. Another way is to watch suave Nick Talarico, operations manager for the restaurant group, walk the floor, offering advice to colleagues and chatting up regulars. Bishop, the newest spot from locals Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman, transports dinersand elevates the hotel restaurant. For the salade maison, leaves of soft Bibb in a tomato and Dijon vinaigrette get a shower of panna grata, an Italian cheese-and-breadcrumb mix the boys also use liberally at their other restaurants. Thats one way to explain how Bishop, which formally opened in February, already knows its mind. Above the hotel bar looms a green neon sign that once directed passengers to the lower-concourse tracks. Or listen to ebullient Ryan Radish, the groups lead sommelier, as he talks up a chardonnay from the Jura that tastes of honeydew and hayloft and fresh-turned earth. Combined, those crunchy bits do the work Ritz crackers do in church-basement casserole cooking. Dishes like redfish amandine, and shrimp rmoulade dressed with deviled egg vinaigrette, remind diners that simplicity pays dividends. The Touch Move, with tequila, mezcal, fino sherry, orange, and vanilla. Again, for dunking. With a rib-eye cap, carved into thick slices, we order garnishes. A generation ago, when Gnter Seeger cooked at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta and Louis Osteen ruled at what is now Belmond Charleston Place in South Carolina, the best restaurants in the South did business in grand hotels. Now twelve years into a Memphis run, chef-owner Kelly English recently refreshed his Creole-inspired Restaurant Iris, rededicating the Midtown restaurant to Gulf Coast cooking. Cook twice and dont forget the baking powderchefs spill their secrets for perfectly-cooked wings, With a wringer washer, a faded receipt, and some pandemic inspiration, Maurice Manning delves Bishop may be part of a trend. A Memphis home for Gulf Coast tastes and good conversation. Today, as those chefs face down new economic realities, more independents now cut deals with hotel groups and developers. Now twelve years into a Memphis run, chef-owner Kelly English recently refreshed his Creole-inspired. At lunch, seated in one of the two-person black leather booths that face South Main Street, Blair says Bishop recalls a French railcar barreling north to Paris. into biscuit making of old, How a Texan, her husband, and an adorable Goldendoodle are making a splash in California wine country, Oyster experts from around the South weigh in on their favorite oysters, by state, Even Kelly Fields whips up a box of Jiffy every once in a while. A Lyonnaise salad reminds me of bacon-grease-dressed Appalachian killed lettuce. Inspired by French restaurants in Louisiana and France, the food is correct. They also oversee the hotels room servicewhich delivers croque madames with shoestring fries and tidy chicken sandwiches swabbed with Calabrian honeyand its ground-floor restaurant, Bishop. At Bishop, texture drives taste. The Mornay-creamed spinach benefits from a lid of pecorino frico, fried garlic, and more panna grata. Painted a color that might be green and might be blue and somehow evokes France in the years after World War II when so many Americans discovered the bistros of Lyon and Marseille, the restaurant is a kind of mood ring. 2007-2022 Garden & Gun Magazine LLC. Followed by a slow climb up those neon-washed stairs. Mounted on the wall like objets dart are a reel-to-reel deck and a library of classic albums recorded by Memphis titans.
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