Summer House

After a mercurial past as a chicken salad-mongering tearoom, a butter-soaked meat-and-three and a hyper-refined French restaurant—among other former personalities—the twee cottage at Bandywood’s bend in the road has settled into its identity as Firefly Grille. And, finally, the place is glowing.

A couple of years into the business, Cole—a veteran of Washington D.C.’s restaurant scene whose father grew up on Deer Park Drive—threw in the white tablecloth. In 2004 he recast the clapboard cottage as Firefly Grille, with a flopsy-mopsy decor of family photos, memorabilia, whatnots, Chinese paper lanterns, unseasonal Christmas ornaments, black ceilings, dark walls and graffiti-style embellishments—all of which would seem more at home in the teen-friendly basement of a gracious dwelling in 37215/05 than on its main floor.

Since that segue from fine to casual dining—which was about as abrupt as if the PC guy suddenly traded wardrobes with the Mac guy—Firefly has grown into its laid-back self. The self-consciously haphazard T-shirts, Hatch show prints and other Nashvilliana that dot the walls have become less contrived with age, and Firefly has become the comfortable, quirky neighborhood restaurant that it always wanted to be.

It’s a transformation that owes a lot to chef Kristen Gregory, who joined the kitchen team in 2006 and officially took the reins in November 2007. A former protégé of Wolfgang Puck in Los Angeles and a veteran of Saffire, Margot Cafe and Layl’a Rul, Gregory designs deceptively straightforward lunch and dinner menus whose simplicity relies on her laborious commitment to fresh, homemade and seasonal products.

Take Firefly’s crab cakes, for example. Since its inception, the restaurant has offered crab cakes on its rotating chalkboard menu, but only recently have they become something worth talking about. Proving the adage that less is more, Gregory stripped out the convoluted fillers (including artichokes hearts, onions, bread crumbs, eggs and Worcestershire) and relaunched a cake made with—wait for it—crab. Deep-fried with a light layer of panko bread crumbs, the golden patties deliver sweet lumps of seafood, punctuated only by an occasional telltale shard of shell. She serves two cakes on a vibrant salad—baby greens with fresh hunks of radish, red pepper, cucumber and goat cheese, tossed in a light balsamic vinaigrette—or as an entrée with lemon aioli for dipping.

Even more pronounced than the reinvention of the crab cake is the addition of house-baked bread. Sous chef Amy Willis, who also handles the desserts, bakes fresh herb focaccia and polenta herb loaf that accompany soups, the artisan cheese plate and other items. Shaped like soft, yeasty biscotti, the buttered and grilled fingers of focaccia that accompanied our soup were so delicious that we actually asked to take the leftovers home.

For painstaking attention to simple details, look no further than the smoked turkey sandwich, a commonplace meal made outstanding with tender brined meat smoked in-house, sliced thinly and served on soft grilled sourdough with bacon, avocado, sprouts, arugula, gouda and basil mayo. We also particularly enjoyed the beef kabob with filet tips marinated in paprika, cayenne, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, fennel and garam masala. (The earthy blend of spices also flavors the Moroccan shrimp on the dinner menu.) Gregory plated the tender hunks of beef with perfectly cooked basmati rice, delicate grilled asparagus, warm tomato salsa with kalamata olives and capers, and a cool counterpoint of cucumber-yogurt relish flecked with bits of Italian parsley and mint.

Among the chalkboard items, we loved the fried oyster appetizer. A dozen plump oysters, lightly dredged in cornmeal, came with a dip of spicy remoulade, which also accented the po’ boy generously loaded with cornmeal-dusted shrimp on soft French bread.

Less successful was the tempura-fried lobster. Presented playfully in a stand-up martini glass, the piping-hot nuggets were slightly greasy and did little to showcase the sweet flavor of lobster. The scallop salad was also disappointing. Plated on a bountiful tussle of mizuna, with shredded cabbage, carrots, scallions, white and black sesame seeds and crunchy wasabi peas, the medium-sized caramelized scallops were over-cooked to a rubbery consistency.