King Kong $9.50
Fresh juice and lemonade $2-$5
Sandwiches $8-$8.50
Moose $5
For two years of his well-traveled culinary career, Silly Goose co-founder and chef Roderick Bailey served as the private chef for a family in Memphis. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., Bailey had an unlimited budget and no culinary restrictions to abide by while feeding his globetrotting employers and their constant stream of house guests. To hear Bailey tell it, the job was a strenuous and challenging opportunity that allowed him to experiment with the finest ingredients available. He talks about importing fish from the coasts and ordering beef from Lobel's in New York.
What Bailey doesn't mention, and what might be the most valuable takeaway from the experience, is that he had to provide a menu—day in and day out, breakfast lunch and dinner—of foods that could excite the palate without overwhelming the appetite. Compare that challenge to the work of a restaurant chef who's responsible for only the singular meal at hand and who's not present the next morning when the diner wakes up overfed, bloated and cursing the oversized plate from the night before. In fact, our meals at Silly Goose delivered the perfect balance of creativity and volume to leave us energized, looking forward to the next meal—and wishing it could be a meal prepared by Bailey.
Underlying the succinct menu of couscous plates, salads and sandwiches is a pledge to use sustainably produced and minimally manipulated foods, sourced locally whenever possible. That commitment to transparency of ingredients plays out in the unassuming layout of the tiny restaurant, which occupies the space vacated by Fresh Blends juice bar.
A counter laden with fresh fruits and vegetables separates the four four-top tables from the open kitchen, where Bailey & Co.—including co-founder Billy D'Angelo—rely on two George Foreman grills and a panini press for the majority of cooking needs. Local art, including a mural by Jenny and Mike Luckett, adorns the walls. Chalkboards list featured ingredients and daily specials—which on our visits included lemon-and-cracked pepper ice cream, beet salad and cheeses from Kenny's Farmhouse in Kentucky and Noble Springs Dairy in Franklin.
Even the accessories lend a feeling of homey simplicity, with irregular-sized mason jars for glassware and a mismatched array of forks, knives and spoons, such as you might pull out of your own kitchen drawer. At any given minute, Bailey is drizzling a balsamic reduction onto a plate of local cheeses, scooping out a taste of the ice cream du jour or busing empty plates from the tables. The open layout and exposed ingredients leave little mystery about what goes into the dishes. And yet, the food—all of which is priced below $10—is mysteriously good.
Top honors at our tables went to the King Kong, a pairing of five plump seared shrimp with a bed of sesame-tinged couscous laced with raw ginger juice and hints of cumin, coriander and coconut milk. Across the sleek white plate, bits of avocado and fresh mint, roasted cashews and drops of bright sriracha chili sauce added color and texture to the composition.
We also swooned at the Goose Stack, whose humble name undersold the Technicolor layering of sliced tomatoes, diced mango, avocado and creamy goat cheese plated with a generous mound of fluffy greens tossed with ginger-citrus vinaigrette. Bailey delivered the plate with dramatic flourish, removing the stainless steel collar to reveal the perfectly formed column.
Lyle's Surprise layered thin, crisped sheets of salty cappicola with creamy tomme cheese, arugula pesto, basil and crisp slices of shaved fennel on a soft rosemary focaccia. Drizzled with balsamic syrup, the heated sandwich was a delicious blend of sweet and salty, with a faint hint of licorice. Like all eight of the sandwiches and wraps, the Lyle came with a choice of green salad or herbed couscous.
The Roscoe—a BLT by another name—layered thick chewy Benton's bacon, ripe-red tomatoes, crisp cress and arugula on lightly toasted wheat bread smeared with basil aioli. Unlike so many BLTs that crumble apart into separate components, the decadent combination of warm and cold temperatures, crisp and buttery textures and bright and sultry flavors held together in perfect proportion.
While there is no printed kids' menu, server Melissa Mathes was one step ahead of our tiny diners, offering fresh basil lemonade, choice of grilled cheese or crustless PB&J, and a medley of mango, apples and grapes thoughtfully sliced into choke-proof kid-sized bites.
Two outstanding items book-ended our meals: A cheese plate and dessert. When Bailey stepped out of the kitchen to deliver the $12 medley of brie, chèvre, blue and tomme from Tennessee and Kentucky, he listed the provenance of almost every ingredient on the plate, from the sliced winesap apples from McMinnville to the triangles of fluffy focaccia from Provence bakery, where Bailey once worked. When he got to the candied walnuts with cumin, coriander and cinnamon, he apologized that they were not local.
As for the origin of the Moose, a warm double-stacked fudge cake caulked with vanilla whipped cream and flecked with dried cranberries, orange zest and chopped mint: Local or not, it could only have come from the deepest imagination of an inveterate chocoholic. It was a gorgeous tower of decadent sweetness, but, like everything else we encountered at Silly Goose, it was presented with such intelligent restraint that it left us energized by flavor and looking eagerly ahead to our next visit.
Silly Goose serves lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. BYOB allowed.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
