Chefs Kim Totzke and Laura Wilson met sitting at a bar in East Nashville. They consummated their culinary relationship in a kitchen in Brentwood, and since Oct. 6 they have been cohabitating at Ombi Restaurant on Elliston Place. After parallel and peripatetic professional journeys over the past year, Totzke and Wilson have found a happy—and gorgeous—place to light, at a restaurant that has struggled to snag an audience since opening in spring 2005. Totzke’s tenure in Nashville began in 1992 at Cakewalk Café, and her subsequent professional path wound through the kitchens of several independent restaurants—Belle Meade Brasserie, Dancing Bear, Bound’ry, Fido and Zola among them—before she took over The Yellow Porch in 2001. That role segued into the position of executive chef over all of Katie and Gep Nelson’s properties—the Porch, Flying Horse, Cross Corners and Wild Iris. Totzke first encountered Wilson at Margot Café. Both East Nashville residents, each had stopped in for a solo dinner at the bar. Conversation arrived at the subject of food: they shared not only a passion for cooking but the experience of being female cooks in the male-dominated hurly-burly of restaurant kitchens. Totzke installed Wilson, who had worked at F. Scott’s, in the kitchen at Wild Iris, located in an unassuming strip mall on Franklin Road. In 2005, Totzke struck out solo, committing to restaurant space in the planned redevelopment of the ’40s-era strip center once anchored by the Melrose Theater and Melrose Lanes. For nearly a year, as legalities delayed the start of construction, she worked on her business model and menu, using family and friends as tasters. Ultimately, the project failed to launch, and this spring, she severed ties with the leaseholder and contemplated her next move. When Totzke and Wilson tentatively planned a joint venture, the first step was to bid on the East Nashville building that for three years housed Chapel Bistro. They lost out to Park Café’s Willy and Yvette Thomas, who opened Eastland Café there in the fall. In June, Wild Boar owner Brett Allen—who had just declared bankruptcy for his restaurant—placed a 911 call to the duo, persuading them to attempt a resuscitation. Though critically successful, their time there was little more than a blip on their résumés, as federal agents padlocked the front door just two weeks after they arrived. Wilson took a position at Watermark, while Totzke took her knife kit and menus home, a chef without a restaurant. Meanwhile, on Elliston Place, there languished a restaurant without a chef, or at least one that could hold her own with the dazzling space, designed by Patrick Avice du Buisson and reputed to have set the owners back more than $1 million to build out. The ambiguous hybrid concept—a franchise of the breakfast chain Le Peep by day and a contemporary restaurant/bar by night—was suffering a severe identity crisis, at least among those who even knew it existed. This fall, Ombi owners approached Totzke about taking on another rescue attempt. Several meetings later, they struck a deal: Le Peep was out, Wilson was in, and she and Totzke were in complete control of the menu and staffing. On Oct. 1, Le Peep/Ombi closed, re-opening a week later as Ombi. Since then, Totzke has been at the front door, greeting and seating customers, overseeing service on the floor and working with bar manager Terrell Raley on beverages. Wilson’s head, covered in a bandana, bobs and weaves above the copper-clad chef bar that fronts the open kitchen. Though Wilson is the hands-on chef, the menu is a culinary collaboration between the partners, built upon bistro basics that lean French, particularly among the 10 entrées. Several of the starters, on the other hand, take on flavors from other regions. A bowl of steamed mussels, for example, has an Indian cast, in a broth perfumed and enlivened by red curry, a welcome change from the classic white wine and garlic. Croquettes come two ways: New Orleans-style, replete with crawfish and served with a luscious beurre blanc, or by way of New Delhi, interpreted as potato samosas with tamarind sauce. Wilson’s delectable cornmeal-crusted oysters are a textural triumph, a simultaneous arrival of crunch and smooth on the tongue. Duck confit, goat cheese and caramelized onion oozing sumptuously from a quesadilla claims the spot for Most Decadent Appetizer, just ahead of the unfurled fan of beef tenderloin carpaccio topped with a runny sunny-side-up egg and served with aioli. The richness of the pan-seared foie gras is balanced by the tang of sliced green apples on a puddle of hard cider reduction. A special one night that deserves a permanent spot was fried chicken livers seeping fat onto a nest of baby greens. Less sinful selections can be made from a trio of salads—mâche and fennel with olives in an orange-pepper vinaigrette, crisp romaine hearts in a bold garlic anchovy dressing, and mesclun greens with applewood smoked bacon, chèvre and red wine shallot vinaigrette. Bistros are essentially the meat-and-threes of French dining, with simple menus of comfort classics much like your mother would cook for family dinner if you were raised in Paris. In that city, meat and potatoes translates to steaks frites, which usually means hanger steak, a frequently overlooked cut that packs more flavor in its unassuming size than typical steakhouse sides of beef. Ombi’s is served sliced and plated with a tangle of perfectly crisped and salted matchstick pommes frites. Roast chicken is a culinary cliché in bistro cooking, for the same reason that certain phrases attain that status—nothing else makes a statement so well or simply. Wilson’s has the buttery, crackly skin that home cooks strive—most often in vain—to achieve; the half-bird roosts beside mashed potatoes drooling bacon-bourbon-mustard jus. The other white meat appears in a moist and flavorful tenderloin, strewn with toasted pumpkin seeds and nestled up to a mound of cream-and-butter-infused polenta. The ubiquitous salmon filet achieves some interest thanks to an earthy bed of lentils and an intense tomato conserve that paints the top of the fish. Seafood paella offers another catch for pescatarians, while duck waddles to the plate in the form of a breast with roasted fall vegetables and pomegranate molasses. I cannot be the only Totzke fan who misses her lamb and white bean cassoulet from Yellow Porch; I would celebrate its return on this menu. Desserts are made on premises and change frequently, but count on something chocolate, something fruity, something creamy and something cold. Or do as the French do and close with a cheese plate and a dessert wine. A foie gras-stuffed burger and omelet appear on the dinner, brunch, lunch and late-night menus, the last of which is available Friday and Saturday from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. and includes pommes frites, truffle-oil popcorn and French onion soup. A tasting dinner at the chef’s bar presents eight courses with seven beverages—a cocktail and six pours of paired wines—for $75 per person. Hoyt Hill of Village Wines oversaw the new wine list, and Totzke and Raley—whose class and impeccable manners are an elixir of their own—have fine-tuned a slate of retro cocktails. Like most chefs, Totzke and Wilson still long for a place of their own, but for now, their residency at Ombi fulfills the aesthetic promise of the gorgeous space. More than just a pretty face, by every measure of a restaurant’s mission, Ombi has finally arrived and is ready for its close-up. Ombi is open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Monday through Thursday 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 5 to 11 p.m.; and Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Ciao for now This review concludes nearly 15 years of writing this weekly column for the Nashville Scene. By my calculations, that works out to more than 1,000 meals professionally consumed, and about 1.5 million words that followed. When I began writing this column, the Nashville dining scene was a vastly different landscape. In 1992, there were few chef-driven independent restaurants and even fewer that were chef-owned. Ethnic food choices were minuscule in number and diversity compared to the global table available to adventurous and curious diners today. It has been my great pleasure to witness, chronicle and support that evolution and growth, and I applaud the tireless efforts, dedication and passion of the people who so generously feed this city. I have enjoyed every moment of it, but after 15 years, I am ready to take a break. Though I will continue to contribute reviews, Carrington Fox will take over the weekly duties. I am looking forward to working on more cover stories for the paper, and dining out for fun. Thank you for eating, thank you for reading. It’s been great. Ciao.
