Caroline Galzin points to the future home of Enrico
Even since their sudden departure from 51st Kitchen & Bar, Tony and Caroline Galzin have been the subject of much interest as they work on opening their next concept, Nicky’s Coal Fired. It's currently under construction in the new Stocking 51 project, an old hosiery mill at 51st Avenue North and Centennial Boulevard being redeveloped as mixed-use retail, and the Galzins were kind enough to invite me in for a hard-hat tour recently. Their enthusiasm for the new project is palpable, and given their already engaging personalities, that enthusiasm will likely rub off on anyone who asks them about Nicky’s, named after Tony’s little brother.
“Our experience at 51st demonstrated to us that Nashville was looking for straight-up Italian food,” explains Tony. After their playful Halloween goof of turning the sleek environs of 51st into an old-school Italian ristorante, with checkered tablecloths and basket bottles of chianti, people kept asking when they were going to make spaghetti and meatballs again. “Sometimes, you like to occasionally get exactly what you expect,” Tony says. “You don’t always have to muddy it up, so we decided to go straight ahead with Italian.” They do plan to work with Porter Road Butcher for a single nightly steak option, but besides that, diners can expect a menu revolving around coal-fired pizzas, pastas made in house, and an extensive charcuterie program and some antipasto dishes for sharing. Tony has quite a reputation for his pastry work, so desserts will also be highlights, including gelato and sorbet options (such as affogato), plus Italian soda floats.
The restaurant will seat around 100 diners in various locations, including an area of high-top tables for socializing, a main dining room and multiple outdoor spaces. But the real centerpiece of Nicky’s will be the 8,000-pound coal-fired oven that is being custom-built in California. The huge oven (10 by 10 by 6 feet) is named Enrico after Tony’s great-grandfather in a connection to the Italian heritage that the Galzins seek to exalt. Coal ovens have been an East Coast thing for a while now, but the Galzins encountered them on visits to Chicago.
Tony says, “I think they make the best pizza, with just the perfect amount of char and cleaner flavors than wood or gas. They take slightly longer to cook than Napoli-style pies, but they create a great hybrid between VPN (Verace Pizza Napoletana) with it’s charred, chewy slightly fermented crust, and the huge foldable slices of a New York-style pizza.”
That slightly longer cook time is by no means slow, with a planned cook time of less than five minutes. The oven will have two windows, one for pizzas flying in and out of the heat and the other dedicated to other menu items liked baked pastas, fish and steak. The clean-burning anthracite coal has a high carbon content and low smoke, and it’s actually cheaper to use than natural gas. The fuel source does require more oxygen to burn, so the stove will have a complex system of electric bellows to regulate the airflow.
As the restaurant build-out continues in preparation for an opening later this fall, the Galzins have been experimenting with various dough recipes and cooking techniques using a Big Green Egg kamado grill as a stand-in for the coal oven. Galzin explains his goals: “I want the crust to have a little sag at the tip, not to be a cracker crust. I like the flavor of coal better than wood, plus so many folks are already doing a great job with wood-fired oven in Nashville. We don’t want to try to improve on what people are already doing. We want to do our own thing and do it well!”
Soon enough, we’ll all know if they are. I’m betting on Nicky to impress come November.
