Philip Krajeck’s Junior Impresses on Dickerson Pike | Eating Evaluations

Three weeks after dinner at Junior — Philip Krajeck’s considerate new restaurant in a single part of a former Piggly Wiggly on the quickly evolving Dickerson Street — I used to be nonetheless pondering of even the smallest parts of the meal. The crunch of the shell of the barbajuan giving solution to a whipped puree of nutty futsu squash inside, the sliver of melted tomme brûlée cheese on high and a bit pile of halved silky olives. What are these, and the place can I get extra?

The whisper of floral notes within the blossom butter, strewn with contemporary flower petals and creamed with dried specks of the identical, to unfold on a thick slice of heat, crusty porridge bread (by baker Wesley Barrington), served by the half-loaf. 

The self-discipline and precision of the sliced, minced chives — every teeny hole circle the identical dimension and no greater than a pin head — that remained within the pool of sauce beneath the seared and charred plank of untamed cobia. Kudos to whoever stood that day within the kitchen, bent over a chopping board, knife in hand, laser-focused to execute that job.

These luscious olives once more, peeking from the bowl of spaghetti, so irresistible that after all of us had a twirl or two, I unabashedly poked the tines of my fork via the remaining thick strands of pasta to search out every salty delectable orb, fortunately spearing an anchovy as effectively. (The petite Taggiasca olives are grown within the Liguria area of northwestern Italy.)

No job is simply too insignificant a contribution or unworthy of one hundred pc effort, to the achievement of the entire — that’s the message I noticed from all of that.

Which ends up in what I consider is probably the most memorable and spectacular dish on the Junior menu — the pâté en croûte. A French basic, its easiest description is a loaf of pâté, backside and sides wrapped in pastry dough, baked, topped with a layer of gelée, chilled, sliced and served room temperature with some sort of condiment.

“The pâté en croûte is loads of work and takes a number of days,” Krajeck says. “It’s all Brian.” (The slice that  I … er, we devoured — Iberico pork, chestnuts and mushroom — can be Will Lovell, who cooked at Rolf earlier than leaving to lift one hundred pc Iberico hogs at Lovell Farm.)

Brian Mejia is the chef, and like everybody at Junior — front- and back-of-house, besides for 2 dishwashers — he was mined from both People or Rolf and Daughters, Krajeck’s two different stellar eating places. Explaining his choice to open a 3rd, Krajeck says he needed to provide veteran workers alternatives for progress, or just a brand new viewpoint.

Mejia began at Rolf and Daughters in Germantown as a younger, curious and hardworking cook dinner whose expertise caught Krajeck’s consideration. He was there six years earlier than spending time cooking in Mexico Metropolis, Paris and, most lately, at Café Frieda in Berlin as chef. He returned to Nashville to open Junior, which leans much more towards France than Italy, although diners may also discover touches of Mejia’s Mexican tradition in issues just like the small-bite tostada made with Farm & Sparrow polenta. 

Mejia labored carefully with Mark Bolton — former chef at Rolf and now culinary director of the trifecta — to develop the Junior menu. Krajeck notes that it’s nonetheless, and sure will all the time be, a piece in progress.  

The essential construction will stay secure, main with a trio of particular person one- or two-bite objects — a pristine oyster in mignonette, the barbajuan and tostada, plus the pâté en croute. A quartet of small plates; that is the place the pasta, or probably rice, resides. A inexperienced salad of native lettuces and a few sort of vegetable casserole served in its cooking vessel. On our evening, it was fioretto (flowering) cauliflower with a truffle gratin. 

We had two of the three entrée-sized protein plates — really helpful for sharing — that declare a bit of the menu, and can probably signify fish, fowl and beef. Pork may make an occasional cameo. The fish is prone to change nightly; on our go to, it was that cobia, with a crackly cap, the flesh of the white fish barely candy, agency sufficient to swirl slices via the porcini cream. 

The Amish hen, generally listed as golden hen, is main the cost to raise members of the chicken household to the vaunted place Krajeck thinks they deserve. “In America, poultry is undervalued,” he says. “However in different international locations, the appreciation for excellent heritage breeds of guinea hens, pullet breast, pigeons and pheasant may be very excessive.”

Previous to opening, Mejia took highway journeys via Kentucky looking for heritage golden chickens, whose pleased, free-range lives account partly for his or her very excessive fats content material. Earlier than the half-chicken arrives at your desk — the breast sliced and darkish meat on the bone, glistening with the wealthy albufera sauce constructed from rendered fats and broth, piled with entire chanterelle mushrooms — it has additionally spent a number of days being prepped. 

Although the menu shall be malleable, the foundational ethos the meals at Junior is constructed upon doesn’t waver from its reliance and alliance with native agriculture. “You’ll be able to’t make good meals or have restaurant with out good farms,” Krajeck says. “Small farms go hand-in-hand with small, impartial eating places. They’re symbiotic, they help one another and push one another.”

That devotion to agriculture extends to the wine listing, chosen by Billy Smith. The previous assistant wine director at The 4 Horsemen in Brooklyn was coaxed to relocate to Nashville and tackle the lead function for Krajeck’s eating places, adhering to the identical values because the meals.

The wine even claims its personal station in opposition to a far wall, a purple lacquered platform set with a bright-green lamp on one nook and gleaming silver bottle bowl on the opposite; Junior’s elegant stemware is displayed on recessed built-in cabinets. That outlined house is one in all many eye-catching designs and parts that seamlessly type Junior’s refined, refined but playful inside, by Third Man Information inventive director Jordan Williams.

Most compelling is the sculptural ceiling; one aspect carved inward, the opposite outward in order that if folded collectively, they might lock right into a flat field. The objective — there and all through the small room — was to keep away from direct overhead gentle. The house’s 50 seats are distributed on the horny, come-hither fundamental bar, a leather-based upholstered banquette alongside one wall and 4 spherical tables, positioned with a view of the open kitchen. All tables are draped in high quality white linen, centered by inexperienced glass votives; cutlery and china are weighty and basic. Splashes of sensible shade and arresting graphics pop up within the corridor and restrooms. Service was impeccable the evening we dined — swish, assured, informative and respectful of our house.

The room’s aesthetic kinds the dazzling first impression of Junior, however the general feeling that lingers after the expertise is one in all easy, pure pleasure, derived from all of the folks — from farm to kitchen to desk — who take monumental delight in what they do, and nice pleasure in sharing it.