Dining
Mike Hanlin, the Pittsburgher who migrated to local waters to open Piranha’s Bar & Grill seven years ago, is now embarking on another downtown project. By December, he hopes to launch The Big Chill in the former location of the Night Owl Café inside the Market Street Emporium.
A onetime high school basketball coach who worked with special-needs kids, Hanlin came to Nashville in 2000 and launched Piranha’s at 113 Second Ave. N. and at another short-lived location on Elliston Place with business partner Kirk Evans. Hanlin has also participated in downtown nightspots Decades and Fuel.
The Big Chill is the first solo restaurant venture for Hanlin, 34, who lives upstairs from the eatery in the 8,000-square-foot building that he’s helping to develop with property owner Gary Bowie. As a downtown merchant and resident, Hanlin hopes to create a place that serves business folks, residents and tourists with quick service as well as a place to linger.
With a menu of breakfast and lunch sandwiches on fresh-baked bread from Savarino’s Cucina, frozen yogurt, gourmet ice cream, smoothies, bread bowls and pastas, The Big Chill combines the best ideas Hanlin has picked up along the way in his restaurant career. Knowing how Hanlin and his Piranha’s partners Evans and Dean Tsouris construct food—Piranha’s is famous for its overflowing sandwiches of meat, cheese, fries and slaw, and the team has just launched a line of build-your-own salads with 40 ingredients—it’s a good bet The Big Chill will deliver a substantial meal. Hanlin says prices will range from $3 to $10.
For now, the renovation of Market Street Emporium will include a New York City-style newsstand in the ground-floor corridor that connects First and Second Avenues. In the future, look for a live-music and songwriters’ venue in the former space of Windows on the Cumberland.
The Big Chill, at 112 Second Ave. N. (phone: 506-9215), is expected to open the first week in December and will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday. The restaurant will initially offer breakfast delivery; delivery service may eventually expand throughout the day.
Finger food
Seble Sebsebie, who previously managed Horn of Africa Ethiopian restaurant on Murfreesboro Road, is opening her own business in midtown. Bethel Ethiopian will open its doors on Nov. 1 in the location of the bygone Ken’s Hibachi Express.
Sebsebie moved to Nashville from Ethiopia eight years ago and has managed Horn of Africa for the last three years. Two weeks ago, she left the business in the hands of Debere Gituhun and has since been readying her new midtown location to unveil a menu of East African injera, firfirs and wats. Sebsebie promises a lunchtime buffet as well as a menu of vegetarian and meat stews, with a colorful array of lentils and greens. The restaurant will offer outdoor seating on the front porch as well as parking in the back.
After a two-week hiatus, during which Gituhun revamped the decor and menu, Horn of Africa will also reopen Nov. 1.
Bethel Ethiopian, at 1909 Division St. (phone: 275-8217), will serve lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Horn of Africa, at 1041 Murfreesboro Road (phone: 366-3468), is open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
Save room for Sky
Thumbing through the gloriously illustrated Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes doesn’t exactly recall a down-home meal at the venerable Loveless Café. But the Alisa Huntsman responsible for Sky High’s intricate confections is the same woman who also dishes up Loveless’ no-nonsense cobblers, pies and Made From Scratch Real Banana Pudding.
Huntsman became the Loveless’ first pastry chef in 2004, when the landmark motel dining room reopened after an extensive overhaul. Now she has teamed up with her food-writer uncle Peter Wynne to produce a cookbook that has more in common with the literature of domestic goddesses Martha Stewart and Nigella Lawson than with the Loveless’ traditional Hams & Jams catalog.
Call it her alter ego, says Huntsman, 43, a mother of two who hails from New Jersey. “I took the creativity I don’t get to use at the Loveless, and I let that go to town,” she says of the hardback book, which retails for $35. An in-depth baker’s manual on everything from crumb coats to sources for baking ingredients and supplies, Sky High is stacked with photographs that make you want to eat the pages.
But don’t expect to see these confections on the Loveless menu, where pies and banana pudding are the traditional—and world-famous—order of the day. “I can’t take the banana pudding, the coconut cream pie or the fudge pie off the menu,” Huntsman says. Occasionally, she slips a Southern coconut or chocolate cola cake into the mix, and she recently offered a Halloween sweet-potato cake. “I can’t get real sophisticated, because it doesn’t match the menu,” she says. “If it’s going to take a whole lot of work to get it on the plate, we don’t have the time.”
The recipes in Sky High—think chai cake with honey-ginger cream and banana cake with praline filling and white-chocolate ganache—clearly require more time than a slice of pie and a scoop of ice cream. But if you’ve got a few hours and want to try your hand at some serious baking, or if you just like to look at pretty pictures of dessert, Sky’s the limit.
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