Chefs Byres, père et fils, in a long-ago photo
Until recently, I was unaware that we had a scion of culinary royalty cooking here in Nashville. Liam Byres — the chef at Lola, the Sylvan Park tapas restaurant that is part of the same ownership group behind Epice, Santo and Kalamatas — is the son of James Beard Award-winning chef Tim Byres. The elder Byres is best known for his work at Smoke in Dallas, where he elevated live-fire cooking to an art form before departing the restaurant in 2018. While at Smoke, Byres wrote an essential cookbook named after the restaurant, which won him his Beard Award.
Since then, he has continued to be an evangelist for cooking over wood, traveling around the country doing cooking demos and consulting with restaurants along the way. On Wednesday, Jan. 24, his travels will bring him to Nashville, and specifically to Lola at 4401 Murphy Road, for a special tapas dinner cooked along side his son.
Lola is offering two seatings, at 5:30 and 7:30, where diners will enjoy a multicourse dinner of small plates including an opening salvo of seafood pozole followed by a parade of plates ranging from roast oysters to pork chicharrones to flank steak and mushrooms. The meal will conclude with a serving of the family recipe for rosemary-cornmeal cookies.
Prepaid reservations are available on Open Table for $85 per person for parties from one to eight diners, and optional wine and nonalcoholic drink pairing will also be available for an extra charge. Selfishly, I already made my reservations before I told y’all about this, because I didn’t want it to sell out before I could snag a table. Don’t dawdle, or you might not be so lucky!
Puckett's Fried Chicken
In advance of the return of the big Dine Nashville coming up next month, A. Marshall Hospitality has announced that they are bringing their own Restaurant Week back for the third time from Jan. 22 through Jan. 28. Interested diners will have the chance to enjoy discounted meals at any of the dozen AMH restaurants, including Puckett’s Restaurant, Americana Taphouse, Burger Dandy, Deacon’s New South and Scout’s Pub, with a portion of the proceeds going to benefit local Boys & Girls Clubs in the communities that these restaurants call home.
Here’s the lowdown on the specific deals:
Three-course prix fixe lunch and dinner menu for $30 (dine-in only)
Prix fixe lunch and dinner menu for $10 (dine-in only)
Four-course prix fixe dinner menu for two for $200 (dine-in only)
Puckett’s (Chattanooga; Columbia; Cullman, Ala.; Franklin, Murfreesboro, Nashville and Pigeon Forge)
Three-course prix fixe lunch and dinner menu for $25 (dine-in only)
Three-course prix fixe lunch and dinner menu for $30 (dine-in only)
In the official announcement of the weeklong event, founder Andy Marshall shares: “One of our favorite ways to celebrate a new year is by inviting guests through our doors to gather and dine, while giving back to our beloved community partners. For the third year, our family-owned restaurant group will offer delicious food specials, exciting new giveaways and an opportunity to support Boys & Girls Clubs in our communities.”
Those giveaways include a vacation package to Pigeon Forge as the grand prize, plus AMH gift cards for second and third place. You can learn about how to enter from the menu when you take advantage of the deals while dining at any of their restaurants during the week.
