Tag: Interim

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

New Cajun Restaurant Opening Soon Downtown in Former DejaVu Space

The restaurant, called Ben-Yay’s, will serve po’boys and other classic Creole dishes, include a coffee bar, and also offer homemade beignets. Additionally, they’re planning to offer a “scoop and serve” lunch special that will include a half po’boy and a cup of soup, such as gumbo, turtle soup, or jambalaya.

Ben-Yay’s will be operated by Tandem Restaurant Partners, which is run by partners Tony Westmoreland, Stephanie Westmoreland and Cullen Kent. They’re known for their work with restaurants like Interim, Growlers, Zinnies, and Mardi Gras.

Ben-Yay’s will open in mid-March at 51 S. Main.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Changes at Interim and Evelyn & Olive.

CREDIT: Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

David Todd, the newish chef of Interim, has a tattoo of a hamburger and hotdog robbing a bank. To him, it means “grub life,” as if to say this path is inevitable. He also has another tattoo of a cat DJing and spinning a pizza, so there’s that too.

But back to that “grub life” thing, Todd says he’s spent the last 22 years (he’s 40) working in various restaurants — both high- and low-end — all around town. He was recommended to the Interim job by the restaurant’s former chef David Krog.

Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

David Todd

“I told [the owners] I absolutely, 100 percent can do this job. They had heard good things,” he says. “We had a conversation about food, my vision of food. It went from there.”

Todd, who’s been at Interim now about three months, says it took some time for his culinary vision to gel, but maturity and sobriety helped him focus on the number one thing for him: flavor.

Todd says he’s got the taste version of photographic memory, so he can match up flavors of things he’s eaten sometimes years apart.

Interim’s new Duck BBQ sandwich

It’s helped him punch up Interim’s menu, with such dishes as the Duck BBQ sandwich, with duck confit, golden raisin barbecue sauce, kale slaw, and a pretzel bun. “It’s Memphis in a nutshell,” he says. “It’s fancy, but it’s barbecue.”

Interim’s new Braised Short Rib

Another Todd original is the Braised Short Rib with sweet potato, carrot puree, haricot vert, honey-thyme demi-glace.

A couple dishes he didn’t touch were the Mac & Cheese Casserole and the Crispy Gulf Oysters. That was part of the owner’s edict to stabilize and reconnect. Meaning, Todd brought consistency to the restaurant. For example, that beloved Mac & Cheese did not have a set recipe. He created one. As far as reconnecting, Todd vowed to make his existing customers happy, while energizing his new customers.

He also had to connect with his new staff. He was well aware he was the third chef at Interim in a year. “You have to treat people with respect, put in the hours,” he says.

One staffer he turned to was pastry chef Franck Oysel, whom he calls Interim’s biggest asset and a great sounding board. Todd consulted with Oysel on the menu. Oysel dissuaded him from certain items and convinced him to bring back mussels. Todd’s flourish was to serve those mussels in a coconut curry.

Todd is giving his all into this latest gig. “For me,” he says, “it’s like cracking my chest open and putting my heart out there.”

Interim, 5040 Sanderlin, (818-0821), interimrestaurant.com

When Wayne Lumsden transferred from New York to Memphis for his job, he really didn’t know too much about the city. In fact, he was expecting mountains. But, soon enough, Lumsden, a Jamaican native, settled in and founded the Caribbean Association of Memphis.

His fellow Jamaicans like the dishes at Evelyn & Olive, though they felt they could use some tuning up. That’s what Lumsden has been doing since he took over ownership at the restaurant from Tony Hall and Vicki Newsum in June. He owns the restaurant with his wife, Caroline.

Fans (like me) shouldn’t worry too much. The menu is the same. That terrific Rasta Pasta is still there, as are the popular oxtails and grilled jerk shrimp. Lumsden defines the menu as “American/Jamaican.”

Lumsden says he’s been tweaking the spices and working on the method of cooking to make the meals a bit more authentic. He says Jamaican cooking is mostly stovetop. “It’s stuff we ate as a kid,” he says.

Some of the true Jamaican fare he plans on offering soon: coconut steamed salmon and Caribbean fried chicken. For winter, he’s really going to up the game. “You wouldn’t believe,” he says, as he describes soups with chicken feet and goat’s head.

Lumsden says he’s got a regular clientele from the Evelyn & Olive regulars; he’d like to build on that. He’s using the restaurant’s original menu, making it more authentic. “Your favorite things got better,” he says.

Evelyn & Olive, 630 Madison, (748-5422) evelynandolive.com

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Next Door’s Zach Thomason on sobering up and buckling down on cooking

CREDIT: Andres Velasquez

Zach Thomason knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Sort of.

“When I was seven years old, I told my dad, ‘I want to be a Northern Italian chef, a rock star, or a doctor,'” says Thomason, 31.

Cooking was appealing. “It looked like magic. There was that science. It just popped out of a pan. I put in these ingredients, and it just developed into something really cool.”

Thomason, now a chef at Next Door Eatery, wanted to go to cooking school, but his dad nixed the idea. So, Thomason studied creative writing at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. He and his brother, Ben. who lived with him, worked in the kitchen at a local restaurant.

One night, Thomason covered a shift for his brother. “I was sending him these texts like, ‘Where are you? I’ve got stuff at school to do. This is ridiculous.’ I’m starting to freak out and there’s just something going on in my stomach that said, ‘Something’s off.'”

He began calling hospitals. “I finally got in touch with the Police Department and I said, ‘Sir, is Ben Thomason in your custody?’ He says, ‘Yes, sir, he is.’ And I say, ‘Well, may I speak to him?’ He said, ‘No, sir, you can’t.’ I said, ‘Well, has he been arrested?’ He said, ‘No, sir.’ I said, ‘Well, if he hasn’t been arrested and he’s in your custody I have the right to speak to him.’ He said, ‘Son, your brother is dead.'”

Thomason was stunned. “My brother borrowed my car in order to go get some dope. And on his way back, he flipped the car over the interstate and killed himself.”

He grabbed a bottle of Jameson from the bar. “My knee-jerk reaction at the time was to drink. I took it to the back dock, and it was on. It was not pretty, and it continued for a good while to come.”

Thomason continued to work at the restaurant. “I learned how to do the dance in the kitchen at that place. There is a dance when everything is working right. It’s this orchestrated movement. There’s no bumping into each other. You know what everyone is doing. It’s really beautiful.”

But, he said, “Problem was I learned this dance and I learned how to work drunk.”

He hopped around restaurants in different cities. “I think it started out as this desire to fill my brother’s shoes because he seemed to be going in this direction at a young age.”

But he “grew really passionate about it.”

Thomason went through homeless periods. “Living out of the back of a car, losing the car, living in a tent in Nashville.”

He felt “destined for death. But there was something — God, whatever, the great cosmic muffin in the sky — deemed there’s something better for me out there than what I was doing.”

Thomason went into recovery and, with his fiance, moved to Memphis. David Krog, who was executive chef at Interim, said he’d give him a job if he remained sober for six months.

“That kitchen was run as ‘We are good people first, and that’s how we are going to behave. As good people and caring people.’ I’d grown used to seeing these very cut-throat environments and sabotaging and backstabbing. I was only six months sober after years and years of drug abuse. My hands still shook. I had these people who were willing to be nurturing. They were probably getting very frustrated with me, but they nurtured me to a point where I can do things now. I can take care of myself.”

After Krog left the restaurant, Thomason went to work at the Gray Canary. He moved to Next Door, so he could work a daytime shift to spend more time with his fiance and her daughter.

“Eventually, I could want to open a pizza place. But, at the same token, I really am an artist. David has been teaching us how to do this tweezer food and make things very pretty. One day, whether it be with him or on my own, I would like to be a part of opening a restaurant that is geared toward very, very small, tight, pretty palate-encompassing plates.”

Wherever he lands, Thomason wants the kitchen to be like Interim’s when he worked there. “Be a part of a kitchen again where there is this genuine sense of care that we have for one another. It was really astonishing the way that everyone treated one another and was connected with one another. I don’t even see it outside in the real world on a normal basis let alone in a high-intensity kitchen. If I can manage to be a part of something like that again, I would do that in a heartbeat.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

The Sweet Life of Interim’s pastry chef Franck Oysel

The first thing chef Franck Oysel bought when he moved to Memphis from France four years ago had nothing to do with food.

“When you’re born in France, you have a few things you would love to have one day,” says Oysel (pronounced “Wah-ZELL”), 33.

He bought a pair of goat leather Lucchese cowboy boots. “It was my first thing I wanted to have here because I always saw that on TV.”

Next on the list was, he says, to “test drive a Mustang. That’s what I did, too. Little steps you have in your head and you want to do it.”

Oysel, executive pastry chef at Interim restaurant, said moving to Memphis wasn’t part of his game plan when he made his first pastry — a croquembouche: a puff pastry with caramelized pastry cream on top — when he was 10 years old. His father, a chef at a fine dining restaurant in Oysel’s hometown of Lons-le-Saunier, France, helped him make the mousse for a wedding.

Oysel knew he wanted to be a pastry chef because making pastries was “more artistic.”

“I think it’s more technical to do pastry than to do food,” he says. “I just like the complexity of molecules and all this.”

He went to culinary school at Besancon and C.F.A.I. de Gevingey, where he was first in his class all four years. “I graduated in pastries, in chocolate, in ice cream, bakery, and candies.”

After he graduated, Oysel got jobs as a master pastry chef, a master chocolatier, and a baker. “I learned to make bread, brioche, croissants.”

Oysel planned to eventually open his own pastry shop in France, but he met his future wife, the former Hanna Kate Gordon, who is from Memphis. “She was an English teacher in my town.”

They met when they were exchange students. “She taught us to speak English, and we taught her to make pastries.”

Oysel made the first move. He said, “Do you want to drink something with me?”

He proposed six months later. “It was fast because I knew it. I knew she was the right one.”

They decided to move to America. “I like challenge, you know? I told Hanna, ‘You know, I think it’s time for a change.'”

He said, “Let’s start a new life in Memphis.”

Oysel learned to speak English by watching TV shows — everything from children’s programs to police dramas.

He and Hanna were married in Memphis. Oysel made a puff pastry French wedding cake — two hearts shaped like the countries of France and America.

Oysel went to work as a pastry chef for Jose Gutierrez at River Oaks restaurant. He also worked at the same time as pastry chef at Interim.

Working in an American kitchen was “very hard because I needed to learn everything. New product, new atmosphere, humidity.”

He was given free rein to make what he wanted. “I could go back to the French pastries, and it made me feel better.”

Oysel also made American pastries, including pecan pie and cheesecake, but he made them his way. He substituted honey for corn syrup and changed the quantity of pecans in his pecan pie.

Like he does now, Oysel ordered butter, chocolate, and other ingredients from France instead of in the United States. “It’s very hard to find the same quality. It’s very expensive, but the quality is awesome.”

Oysel and Hanna now are the parents of a seven-month-old daughter, Emelia. Oysel still keeps his house in France, but he doesn’t plan on moving back. “I don’t think I want to go back to France. I told my wife it’s easier here.”

He plans to open his own pastry shop in two years or sooner in Memphis. He already has the name — The Sweet Life. And he knows the location, which is in East Memphis. “I would do pastries, a little bit of bread. I would do croissants, chocolate. And I want to do lunch.

“Four years I’m here. Now, I can speak English. I can write. I can do stuff now. I can order my own product. Now, it’s time for me to open something.”

Oysel doesn’t plan on working his way up to opening a chain of pastry shops. “If there are 20 people coming into my shop and 20 people are happy, I’m done. I have enough. I’m not a 2 million-a-day guy. I don’t want that. I like quality. I like family. I like a small place. I want to have enough money to have a life, but I don’t want to open 20 shops to make $20 million.

“I want to know my people. I want to sit down and talk. And not be stressful.”

He likes to make people happy. “When you change your tire on your car, it does not make you happy. When you go to the lawyer, that doesn’t make you happy.”

Pastries, he says, “make you happy.”

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Krog leaves Interim

Chef David Krog leaves Interim Restaurant.

David Krog has left Interim Restaurant, where he was executive chef, to pursue other interests.
Krog, 43, who was executive chef at the restaurant for two years, opened the old Madidi restaurant in Clarksdale. He also worked with chefs Erling Jensen and Jason Severs during his 25 year culinary career. Krog was the subject of a July 2017 Flyer cover story.
As for plans, Krog said opening his own restaurant could happen in the foreseeable future.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Interim Under New Ownership

CREDIT: Interim, Facebook

Interim, Facebook

Interim Restaurant & Bar has a new owner.

Tony Westmoreland and Nick Scott, the owners of Alchemy Memphis, and Ed and Brittany Cabigao, the owners of South of Beale and Zaka Bowl, bought Interim Restaurant & Bar from Eat Here Brands, the owners of Babalu.

David Krog will remain as executive chef. Krog’s culinary career includes working at Erling Jensen: the Restaurant and The Tennessean. He also opened the old Madidi restaurant in Clarksdale.

Said Krog: “I’m grateful to Eat Here Brands and excited about the next chapter. And the breath of fresh air from this local group.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

New chefs at Folk’s Folly, Interim, and Bounty.

When one chef leaves, another steps in to take his or her place, bringing his or her experience, enterprise, and general tenor to the venue. There’s been some diversification in the top brass department across the Memphis restaurant landscape of late. Here’s a round-up of some of the changes, from institutions old and new to new(er) kids on the block.

Max Hussey has cooked Cajun cuisine at Emeril’s New Orleans and barbecue in San Francisco (where he won a Top 30 BBQ Restaurants in the Country designation) and even studied Indian cuisine under an Awa (grandmother).

He was imported to Memphis in 2015 to steer the ship at eighty3 in the Madison Hotel but found himself restless enough to make the transition to what he heard was the legendary Folk’s Folly. Eventually.

“When the position first opened [at Folk’s Folly], I balked,” Hussey says. “I felt like I still had work to do at the Madison.”

Moving on up — Max Hussey is the executive chef at Folk’s Folly.

The second time he had the chance, though, he definitely jumped.

“They’ve had servers working there for 36 years and line cooks for 22,” he says. “Nobody has that kind of longevity in the restaurant industry. There must be something to it.”

He’s been able to do things like make watermelon or pumpkin caviar as a garnish or add black cardamom to the collard greens.

“I do love being creative,” he says. “I enjoy bringing new techniques and products and different styles to the weekly specials.”

Dave Krog made a return to Interim, but this time a bit further up in the kitchen hierarchy. He started out as sous chef at the sleek and elegant eatery, leaving in the fall of 2015 for the Terrace at River Inn. He’s been executive chef at the nine-year-old restaurant — which takes its name from serving as an interim restaurant after Wally Joe closed shop in the space in 2007 and Jackson Kramer took the helm — since this spring.

Since taking over, Krog has started his own wine dinner, getting to play with limited-release products from local vendors once a month and serving the specialities to 16 lucky gastronomes in the restaurant’s private dining room.

“I did that immediately,” Krog says. “It offers a challenge to me and the staff, and I get a chance to serve something you can’t get at every restaurant.”

His goals are to “continue to elevate the food in the building” with “the best kitchen in town” and keep his vendors as close to home as possible.

Speaking of Interim. Kramer left the space on Sanderlin in 2014 to open Bounty on Broad. More recently, he left Memphis to pursue his culinary dreams in the PNW and while at it, leaving a chance for Russell Casey to put his spin on the entirely gluten-free restaurant.

In addition to adding patio seating, Saturday brunch, and a bar menu, Casey has put a duck duo on the menu, with seared duck breast, confit leg, and homemade sweet potato pudding. They’re unveiling their new menu this week, and soon will be baking their own gluten-free bread, which will add more choices to the brunch items.

“Russ was available, and the owner was connected to him, so it was kind of serendipitous,” Bounty manager Severin Allgood says.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Guess Where I’m Eating Contest 78

Isn’t she a beauty? 

The first person to correctly ID the dish and where I’m eating wins a fabulous prize. 

To enter, submit your answer to me via email at ellis@memphisflyer.com. 

The answer to GWIE 77 is the cheese plate at Interim, and the winner is … Catherine Edgerton!

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Gotta Try This: Interim’s new Seared Ahi Tuna with Peach & Arugula Slaw

Seared ahi tuna with peach and arugula slaw on a bed of beet orzo

  • Seared ahi tuna with peach and arugula slaw on a bed of beet orzo

Food pics are a dime a dozen, and at this point we’re pretty jaded. What’s that, you say? A photo of a life-changing yellow pukka curry from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver? Yawn. Yet another garden-fresh watermelon salad from Real Simple editor Sarah Copeland? Wake me when it’s over.

But once in a while, a food pic comes along that really gets our attention. That’s what happened on Wednesday night, when Interim Restaurant and Bar posted this photo on their Facebook feed. It shows a forthcoming menu item, the house-cured gravlax on German rye bread ($12).

I mean, come on, right? I had to try it.

Salmon Gravlax

  • Salmon Gravlax

Gravlax is a Scandinavian dish that consists of salmon that has been dry-cured with a mixture of salt, sugar, and fresh herbs. At Interim, they serve it over arugula, with crème fraiche and capers. It’s a thrilling flavor combination, and the salmon is so good that they could have served it by itself, alone on a plate. If you order the gravlax, be sure to nibble on a bit of the fish without the fixins. Yum.

But what really stood out was the seafood special: seared ahi tuna with peach and arugula slaw on a bed of beet orzo (market price, usually about $30). Chef Jason Dallas, formerly of Chez Philippe, developed it together with sous chefs Sepand Mazahery and Ysaac Ramirez.

The orzo is rich and hearty, picking up earthy undertones from the beets. The slaw is sweet and a little spicy. And in between, the fish is just terrific. It’s wild-caught, sushi-grade tuna from the Gulf of Mexico, and it tastes like it just came out of the water.

And as a matter of fact, did just come out of the water. Chef Dallas handed me the tracking tags from Gulf Wild, a Florida company that works with Gulf fishermen to ensure sustainability, accountability, and freshness. By using a tracking number, I was able to determine that the tuna I was eating had been caught earlier in the week by fisherman Robert Carter, aboard his vessel the Blackjack 1.

Now that’s pretty cool. If you’re looking for a good example of what Memphis chefs are capable of, you could do worse than to start here.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Locavoracious

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

Over the past few years, the food world has been abuzz with talk of eating locally and seasonally. For Memphians, translating this movement into practice has become so convenient that excuses for not eating locally and seasonally are like the croissant bread pudding placed before me at my recent visit to Interim. That is to say, the excuses have disappeared.

Dinner at Interim is one way you can eat local foods that follow the seasons. Chef Josh Belenchia and staff do a complete overhaul of the menu four times a year (that’s one change for each season). Depending on availability, as much as 50 percent of their produce comes from local farmers markets. And it tastes good. I stopped in to sample the newest menu changes recently and had smoked salmon cakes served with fennel-apple slaw and citrus reduction and trigger fish with parsnip purée, braised fennel, roasted Brussels sprouts (my favorite), and citrus brown butter.

My companions also sampled some seasonal fare, including an incredibly tender pork shank served with locally made Delta Grind gouda grits, collard greens and whole-grain mustard jus, and the Springer Mountain chicken breast with caramelized onions, bacon, sweet potatoes, and Swiss chard.

Some staples are always on the menu, like Interim’s wildly popular burger made with beef from Neola Farms, located 30 minutes north of Memphis in Brighton, Tennessee. (The open kitchen at Interim offered a perfect vantage to see just how many Neola Farms burgers were coming off the grill. Answer: a lot.)

Meanwhile, new menu items were peppering the surrounding tables during my visit: sweet potato soup with crème fraîche and toasted hazelnuts, scallop puttanesca, steak of the day with Parmesan-truffle fries, sautéed garlic spinach and wild huckleberry sauce, and a pear mousse cake with spiced devil’s food cake, pear panna cotta, and pear mousse amaretto sauce.

Interim is proof that eating local, seasonal food doesn’t have to mean cooking it yourself.

Interim, 5040 Sanderlin (818-0821),

interimrestaurant.com

Of course, if you like to cook, Miss Cordelia’s grocery in Harbor Town carries a wide range of local foods to work with: herbs from Millstone Gardens in Hernando, McCarter Coffee from the Millington micro-roaster, honey by Robert Hodum from Collierville, and Bonnie Blue Cheeses from Waynesboro.

What you might not know is that Miss Cordelia’s also pairs up with local restaurants to make some of their foods more readily available. For instance, Las Delicias, known for its fresh Mexican dishes, chunky guacamole, and homemade tortillas, now sells their homemade corn chips at the Harbor Town market. And the sushi at Miss Cordelia’s? “Most people don’t realize that it comes from Umai,” says executive chef David Thornton.

Out of all Miss Cordelia’s local items, Thornton says Isa’s Cakes — made by Isaura Amill, originally from Puerto Rico — and the products from Big Ono Bake Shop on Front sell the best. Big Ono brings in fresh pastries, breads, and cupcakes every day, and since the bakery itself closes at 3 p.m., Miss Cordelia’s is the only place to find their fresh baked goods in the afternoon.

Miss Cordelia’s, 737 Harbor Bend (526-4772), misscordelias.com

Another local treat you might spy at the grocery store is a bag of Makeda’s homemade cookies. Ten local Kroger stores carry the brand, and you can always pick up a dozen at one of the three Makeda’s Bakery locations. The business was founded in 1999 by Pamela and Maurice Hill and four other family members and was named after their niece Makeda, who passed away from leukemia in 1997.

In addition to Kroger, Makeda’s cookies can be found at area restaurants such as Soulsville Grill on Shelby Drive and D’bo’s Wings n’ More in Cordova.

What’s their secret? “The premium ingredients,” Pamela Hill says: “100 percent butter and a lot of love.” The butter cookies are the number-one seller, but the bakery sells 16 types of cookies, including chocolate pecan, iced oatmeal, chocolate chip, macadamia nut, sugar, and peanut butter.