Sean Brock
Ever since Sean Brock stepped away from the restaurant group that owns his acclaimed Husk Nashville, we’ve been wondering what the brilliant, always-questing chef would do next.
Now we know. Brock is working on an ambitious 10,000-square-foot project in East Nashville,The Wall Street Journal reports. He plans to convert an industrial building into “a complex devoted to the cuisine and culture of the Appalachian region,” the paper says.
“This is the restaurant I want to retire in,” Brock tells the Journal. “For me it’s a clean slate, a new thing to obsess over, a new thing to dedicate the rest of my life to.”
Brock is nationally known for his prior work at restaurants in Nashville (where prior to Husk, in the Aughts, he did a lauded stint at the Capitol Grille) and in Charleston, S.C. The latter location led him to focus on the cuisine of the Lowcountry of South Carolina. But the chef actually grew up in the Appalachian region of Virginia.
Brock’s new restaurant doesn’t yet have a name, but in preparation for construction — which is set to start this spring — he has been doing intense research on Appalachian traditions and food. “My biggest fear is watching the cuisine I grew up with fall by the wayside,” he tells the Journal. “Very little was written down. There was never a recipe book in my grandmother’s house.”
The two-story restaurant isn’t expected to open until next winter — not surprising considering the reported breadth of the project. The ground floor will feature a large casual dining room centered around an open kitchen, with an art gallery aspect: A rotating collection of Appalachian art will adorn the walls. Upstairs there will be a more intimate 26-seat dining space, which will take a “minimalistic approach to exploring what the future of Southern food is,” Chef Brock says.
Brock, who has spoken publicly about his journey of recovery from alcohol addiction in recent years, says the second floor will also include a cocktail bar where drinks will be based on the non-alcoholic drinks he’s been creating and enjoying, with freshly pressed produce; recipes will be “seasoned with alcohol” for his patrons.
The Wall Street Journal doesn’t give an address for the project, but a person involved in the project confirms that it will located at 809 Meridian St. in East Nashville.
That McFerrin Park site is just a stone’s throw from chef Philip Krajeck’s Folk, named Best New Restaurant in the writers' choices in Best of Nashville 2018, setting up a destination-dining area in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.
