There is one telling difference between a good restaurant and a great one: whether there is any love in the food. The thing that depresses me most as a diner is to go to a new establishment — oftentimes one with a design recipe that includes Riedel glasses, fine linen, silver and so on — only to sit before food that lacks passion, perspective or philosophy.
Such is not the case at Nashville's Cochon Butcher, where my party and I took a Southern food tour from snout to tail. At a butcher-cum-sandwich shop, you say? Yes — and there is plenty of love spread around its humble Germantown space.
The eatery is a sister restaurant to the original Cochon Butcher in New Orleans, the backyard appendage to chef Donald Link's acclaimed restaurant Cochon. Known by many in the food world as "the swine king," Link was one of the first advocates of utilizing the whole pig and nothing but the pig. Earlier this year the James Beard Award-winning chef and his business partner, Stephen Stryjewski, hired executive chef Levon Wallace to preach their evangel of pork at their new Nashville outpost.
A graduate of San Francisco's California Culinary Academy, the California-born Wallace served as executive chef for a couple of boutique hotel chains before landing the top job at Proof on Main in Louisville's 21c Museum Hotel in 2012. Wallace spent the years since immersing himself in Southern food and foodways while seeking a move to Middle Tennessee. (He and his wife had earlier bought a house in Hendersonville and planned to move here permanently with their family once the right position came up.) Not surprisingly, he and Link became fast compatriots, and the result is Nashville's Butcher.
To create the space, Link and Stryjewski worked with Fresh Hospitality group's Matt Bodnar, whose Fresh Capital Group purchased the former Peafowl Theatre building (circa 1915) on Fourth Avenue. That became the Germantown Market where Butcher is located, just down the block from the new Sounds stadium, First Tennessee Park. Thankfully, the original tile with the theater's name is preserved inside Cochon Butcher.
That said, this isn't a restaurant you leave savoring the decor. Come hungry to Nashville's Cochon Butcher — and early, as there are no reservations — and make sure to bring your meat-eating friends. (You can all wave to your vegan buddies at the juicery next door.) You will want to sample as much of Cochon's porcine nirvana as possible, as I did recently with my good friends J, K and L.
We ordered at the counter from the long list of sandwiches and small plates listed on the blackboard before proceeding to the well-curated bar to snag a Sazerac — "perfume for the mouth," my friend L pronounced. A short wait gave us a chance to look over the many craft ales, our favorite being Stillwater Artisanal's Love & Regret Saison Ale, brewed with botanicals including heather, dandelion, lavender and chamomile.
There's that word again: "artisanal." But Cochon Butcher's dedication to sourcing local products, the craft of butchery and everything-from-scratch cooking defines the term. You can appreciate the sweat equity that's gone into the Cajun-flavored pork, sausages and terrines; the house-made sliced meats (duck, beef and smoked turkey too); the jambalaya and gumbo; and assorted side dishes. Here you can enjoy food with a depth of flavor, skill and technique, as in a great upscale restaurant — Link himself was on hand in early weeks — but at a much more affordable price point, with sandwiches and small plates respectively averaging $6 and $12.
Start with the charcuterie plate, served with rosemary-and-salt-spiked house-made crackers (praise the lard), whole-grain mustard, crisp bread-and-butter pickles and a perky chow-chow. The salami, mortadella (minus chunks of fatback) and duck pastrami are thinly sliced, with just enough salt to allow the rich flavors through.
The tastiest bits, however, are the terrines. Wallace's headcheese converted all but one of my friends to the whole-hog experience. Brined for five days, simmered for 12 hours until the head meat melts off — no eyeballs and brains, people — the succulent shreds are then folded into the reduced gelatinous broth, along with chopped green onions and parsley, before it is chilled in a terrine mold. The result feels like a savory mousse in your mouth — clearly this is one of Wallace's labors of love.
The country terrine of pork and chicken liver is also light in texture but deep in flavor. Pork Rillon, made with cured pork belly, combined with whole grain mustard, pickles and herbs keeps it lean and delicate.
Cochon Butcher works with the Fatback Collective, the group of farmers, chefs and writers sponsored by Birmingham-based barbecue chain Jim 'N Nick's. Its ranks include Link as well as Nashville pitmaster Pat Martin, South Carolina barbecue eminence Rodney Scott and Husk founder Sean Brock; its farmers raise Berkshire hogs (mostly from Alabama) to exacting ethical and culinary standards — humane treatment, specific feed. Unlike supermarket pork, Berkshire meat is heavily marbled and has darker meat and a richer pork flavor.
"The Berkshire breed yields well for our many uses," Wallace tells the Scene. "And we want to make sure they're happy, they eat well and they live well."
They certainly ensure that you'll eat well. You may not be impressed by the sound of the Buckboard Bacon Melt ($11), but you will be missing out if you pass. The molasses-cured artisanal bacon is served between grilled white bread with melted Swiss and braised collard greens sprinkled with pepper vinegar. It's like pot likker in a sandwich. The Cubano ($10) too is unusually high Fidel. The iconic pressed sandwich has the smoked pork ham, Swiss and pickled banana peppers you'd expect, but is slathered with a medium-spicy salsa verde of minced cilantro and jalapeños.
Other standouts included the Duck Pastrami Sliders, white bread grilled in butter with sumptuous bites of pastrami and cheese inside. Le Pig Mac ("two all-pork patties special sauce lettuce American cheese pickle & onion on a sesame bun") is a pepperoncini-speckled riff on Mickey D's. Daily specials feature small dishes; we opted for the roast pork with salsa verde, served with seared okra spears. It's one of the best dishes I've had this season.
Our server encouraged us to try the marinated Brussels sprouts, rapidly approaching kale-salad ubiquity on restaurant menus. Sprouts fresh from the stalk preserve the sugars and rank as a must-order in my book; Cochon Butcher's are seared before marinating, which should have been delightful. On this evening, however, they were all but charred, which made them bitter — a rare off note in a mostly splendid meal.
If you have room for dessert, definitely order the bacon pralines. The NOLA specialty is what you expect but with crisp pieces of bacon incorporated (something else for the holiday table). A classic layered chocolate cake was worth the $8 a slice, as was a buttermilk lemon pie wedge with one of the flakiest crusts I've had outside of my mother's kitchen. A Southern hummingbird cake was dry and lacked either banana or pineapple, but I'm told it came from an outside bakery and desserts are transitioning to completely in-house for quality control.
Saving the best for last, there's the Cochon Muffaletta. Made locally by a New Orleans-trained baker (as is all the bread), the sesame-seed bun is warm and pillowy on the inside, golden brown on the outside. When combined with the kitchen's finely minced olive salad, the warmed mortadella, salami and ham, and the slightly melted provolone, it brokers a damn near perfect marriage of flavors and textures. Muffaletta purists may whine that the signature NOLA sandwich should be served cool or room temp, as tradition dictates. Honestly, I cannot imagine eating it any other way.
There's a butcher counter where you can purchase Cajun sausages, sliced meats, terrines and Kurobuta bacon, the pork equivalent of Kobe beef. You can also order suckling pigs and Cajun turduckens for the holidays. Cochon Butcher also sells its branded pickles, chow-chow and other takeaway foods and gift items such as a signature leather-trimmed apron ($90) now on my Christmas list.
Modern wood and metal tables and chairs are arranged outdoors; the metal stools painted orange really pop next to the bar. Truth be told, it can get a mite loud from street traffic and all the happy eaters. But that won't distract you from the food. Plans are in place to enclose the outdoor patio for the cold months, so large parties can still be accommodated through winter. Lucky us — if that means Cochon Butcher's love is here to stay.
Cochon Butcher Nashville is open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com
