One of Nashville’s most talented—and certainly most experimental—chefs, Sean Brock, has moved his kitchen laboratory from the Capitol Grille in the Hermitage Hotel to McCrady’s Restaurant in Charleston, S.C., where he will serve as executive chef. It’s a homecoming for the 27-year-old wunderkind, who graduated with honors from that city’s famed culinary school, Johnson & Wales, before matriculating to the Peninsula Grille, where he spent two years under highly respected chef Robert Carter. Brock then moved to Richmond, Va., as sous chef under Walter Bundy at the Five Diamond Jefferson Hotel’s restaurant, Lemaire. When the Jefferson’s owners purchased the Hermitage, investing $20 million in a yearlong renovation with the intent of earning an equal number of precious stones, they simultaneously invested a great deal of faith in the then-24-year-old Brock, naming him executive chef for the hotel and restaurant, responsible for three meals a day in the Capitol Grille, room service and banquets. The menu Brock introduced on Valentine’s 2003 had a decidedly regional bent (his formative cooking years were spent at his grandmother’s elbow in her farm kitchen in Virginia), executed with classic technique. Upscale Southern is hardly revolutionary, but Brock’s food was notable for its obsessive attention to detail, sublime flavors, flawless execution and stunning presentation. About a year into his tenure at Capitol Grille, Brock began to indulge his keen interest in the cutting-edge school of culinary constructivism, led by Spain’s Ferran Adrià of El Bulli. While the Capitol Grille menu still leaned heavily on elegant comfort fare, he began relying more often on the sous vide cooking technique, and little surprises began popping up on the dinner menu: broth became air, ice cream was hot, hot became cold, and Vidalia onions turned into sheer tasting strips. Brock began doing a multi-course chef’s tasting menu that spotlighted his successful experiments, with the ultimate showcase of a 30-course culinary moonwalk he introduced early in 2005. Inevitably, the grind of the daily meetings, the demands of dozens of brides and the confines of hotel cooking made Brock restless. And then there was the siren song of Charleston. “Sometimes you have to leave a place to find out how much you miss it. Charleston is such an incredible city—the weather, the beach, the architecture and an amazing restaurant city,” he says. “Thanks to the school, there is so much talent there. Diners are so educated about food and really eager to try new things. That makes it fun. Working in a hotel, you don’t really feel like people are coming to eat your food as you do in a stand-alone restaurant.” And though fiancé Tonya Combs, whom he met in Charleston, had come with him to Nashville, her heart was also back on the mid-Atlantic Coast, and she enthusiastically supported a move. About a year ago, Brock began putting out feelers among his chef friends in Charleston; an opening for executive chef at McCrady’s, one of the city’s finest and oldest restaurants, set the wheels in motion. “McCrady’s was one of my favorite restaurants there,” Brock says. “I felt like it would be a dream come true to not only be back in Charleston, but at that restaurant. I knew it was right.” On March 28, with the rest of the contents of their Germantown house packed up and sent on, Brock made one last stop at the Capitol Grille to get his knives and say goodbye to his staff. He started at McCrady’s on April 3; the restaurant closed for four days while Brock led the staff through the new menu, which it debuted on Friday, April 7. Check it out at www.mccradysrestaurant.com . The Capitol Grille remains in excellent hands, with the promotion of chef de cuisine Tyler Brown to executive chef. Brown preceded Brock at Johnson & Wales; his post-graduation path took him to Greenville, then to Beaver Creek in Colorado. A review of Peninsula Grille his mother sent him lured him back to Charleston, and it was in that kitchen that the two young chefs’ paths first crossed and they became close friends. A couple years later, Brock moved on to Lemaire in Richmond, and Brown went to the exclusive Fearrington House Country Inn in Chapel Hill, N.C. In September 2003, Brock persuaded Brown to join him in Nashville. Brown says he was also considering going back to Charleston, but when his fiancé was accepted into graduate school at Vanderbilt and he was offered Brock’s position, they decided to stay. He has already introduced a new spring menu, which remains focused on regional and seasonal, noting that because of their common backgrounds, his and Brock’s styles are quite similar. “It is very much a team effort in the kitchen here; everyone has always been encouraged to contribute to the menu. We get together and throw out ideas, try new things. We have such an incredible, talented staff, we don’t want them to feel like we are always telling them what to do. We want them to have ownership in the menu. We will still be doing a chef’s tasting menu in addition to the set menu. As far as molecular gastronomy goes,” he adds with a laugh, “I don’t want to lose sight of that, because it’s a lot of fun, but there will not be such a focus on it as before.” Kettle’s on In December 2004, the owners of The Copper Kettle on Granny White Pike awakened to a nightmare: a late-night fire had so damaged their restaurant that it would have to close. The disaster was equally bad news for the clientele who had grown deeply attached to the delightful neighborhood café in the small strip center across from David Lipscomb. The foursome—Lana and John Robb and Jill and chef Sean Begin—moved their busy catering operation to an empty space in the Bellevue Mall, where hungry and curious passersby eventually persuaded them to open it as a restaurant. The sorely underserved area embraced their Copper Kettle, but the owners longed to be home again, and in a smaller space. Repairs and renovation took considerably longer than anticipated, but on April 6 the original Kettle re-opened with a slightly revised layout and a more polished—but still cozy—look. The simple menu of sandwiches, wraps and salads hits the spot for light lunchers, while the home-cooked meat-and-three repertoire satisfies hearty appetites. Diners can count on fried chicken Mondays, meatloaf Tuesdays, coconut chicken replacing pork chop Wednesdays, pot roast Thursdays and seafood Fridays, plus a different chef’s choice entrée every day. The Kettle is closed Saturdays, which only heightens the anticipation for their superb Sunday brunch buffet, one of Nashville’s most popular—and reasonable—at $15.99 per person (children 6-10 $6.99, 5 and under free.) The Copper Kettle is at 4004 Granny White Pike, 383-7242. Open Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Sunday brunch 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Eat to live Dining Out For Life stages its fourth annual fundraiser for Nashville CARES on Tuesday, April 25. More than 60 local restaurants are on board this year, committed to donating at least 20 percent of the day’s proceeds to the nonprofit AIDS awareness and support organization that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Hosts are assigned to each restaurant and asked to invite friends and colleagues to dine out on that evening, though invitations are not required to grab a table at your favorite eatery. Every restaurant on board is independently owned; try out some new additions to the list since last year’s event—The Grape, Back to Cuba, Cabana, Red, The Italian Market, Sambuca and Watermark—or revisit favorites like Margot, Acorn, Caffe Nonna, Mirror, Park Café, Zola, mAmbu, tayst and Yellow Porch. For more information and a complete listing of restaurants, log on to www.diningoutforlife. com and click on Nashville. Taste test On Monday, April 24, Bosco’s Brewery in Hillsboro Village hosts another of their popular Brewmaster’s Dinners. The menu will feature items frequently prepared with beer, with each of the five courses served with a complementary brew. Witty and knowledgeable brewmaster Fred Scheer will be on hand to talk about cooking with beer and matching the flavor of particular styles of beer with food. The cost of the dinner is $50; reservations required at 385-0050. L’Eté du Vin, the annual wine-based fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, begins its 2006 slate of events with the Premiere Tasting on Friday, April 28. A dozen wines will be poured for this tutorial, taking place at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel from 6-7:30 p.m. Reservations are $70 per person and can be made by calling 329-1760 or visiting www.nashvillewineauction.com , where all the events are described. Also on April 28, Fleming’s Steakhouse presents The American vs. European Wine Dinner: A Taste of Two Continents. Travel abroad without leaving West End as the four-course dinner unfolds: passport stamps include Ireland, Italy and Spain, with two courses—salad and dessert—American-made. The evening begins at 6:30 p.m.; reservations, $85 per person, can be made by calling 342-0131.
