Geometric colour blocks abut in a cushy patchwork prism of reds, pinks, blues, and grays, each and every segment of cotton cloth bonded to the following by means of impossibly tiny stitches. The duvet gracing the doorway to Nashville’s Audrey was once sewed by means of Andrea Williams, a descendant of a member of the famed Alabama quilting collective, Gee’s Bend.
Status underneath the summary piece, diners would possibly realize the wealthy, earthy perfume of vetiver and the faint chirping of crickets. With those, chef Sean Brock objectives to move his visitors to the woods of Appalachia. “The second one you stroll within the door, I’ve were given your ears and your nostril and your eyes,” says Brock. “I’m slowly creeping you into Appalachia piece by means of piece, and surrounding you with issues that make me really feel at ease and at house.”
Audrey, named after the James Beard Award-winner’s grandmother, opened in 2021. Enthusiasm for Brock’s cooking presentations no signal of waning, however right here, it’s about greater than the meals. Along with Williams’ cover, Brock’s Southern—and specifically Appalachian—artwork assortment additionally comprises works from Butch Anthony, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, and Mose Tolliver. Sharing this assortment with eating place visitors was once a the most important a part of the Audrey plan since day one, when Brock requested the venture’s design workforce to show and light-weight the paintings as even though the eating room have been a museum.
For Brock, who grew up in rural Virginia, Audrey’s immersive and transportive enjoy is the purpose, complementing a regionally-inspired menu peppered with acquainted fare like heirloom grits, pan-fried catfish with turnip vegetables, and hen and dumplings, tweaked and concentrated into finely tuned variations of themselves. The chef has a selected fascination with Sudduth. The twentieth-century Alabaman artist and blues musician painted on outdated doorways, cupboards, and different construction provides, incorporating grass, charcoal, or even berries and mustard into his paints. “Each time I take a look at one among his artwork,” he says, “I believe I will have to be capable of do this with a head of cabbage.”
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