Editor’s note: Due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, most public places in Memphis, including restaurants and bars, have closed for the time being. The Central Station Hotel remains open, taking special precautions to ensure the safety of their guests. The Bishop restaurant offers curbside service only. Eight & Sand is temporarily closed. When the time comes to get out and enjoy the city again, please call locations to confirm their hours of operation.
photo by justin fox burks
The Central Station Hotel revives Downtown’s heartbeat with music, cocktails, and French food.
To experience the full impact of the beautifully renovated Central Station, start at the hotel’s entrance, located on the elevated track where Amtrak’s City of New Orleans passenger train stops every day. The train that connects Chicago, Memphis, and New Orleans — all significant music cities — is a reminder of the building’s storied past when more than 50 trains arrived and departed from the Illinois Central Railroad headquarters.
Enter the building, constructed in 1914, and historic reminders like original terrazzo, terracotta trim, stone colonnades, and heavy oak benches burnished by age mix seamlessly with the contemporary trappings of a boutique hotel, open since October. Musical references abound, as well, thanks in large part to Memphis native McLean Wilson, a principal of the hotel’s Kemmons Wilson development company, who insisted on highlighting the city’s music heritage.
Along with decorative tie-ins like music books and vintage speakers, the hotel’s customized sound system, designed locally by Jim Thompson at EgglestonWorks, is key. So is a collection of 4,000 vinyl records — all Memphis-centric — used for hotel playlists and local and national DJs, explains Chad Weekley, the hotel’s music curator. “There are lots of six degrees of separation in the record collection,” he says, “but the music is all connected to Memphis, some way, somehow.”
Justin Fox Burks
Central Station Bishop
Along with a lounge and live DJ spinning Memphis-centric music, Eight & Sand inside the Central Station Hotel offers a private listening room tucked behind the bar. “The room features a pair of $40,000 speakers from EgglestonWorks and is open to everyone,” says music curator Chad Weekley.
At Bishop, chefs Andrew Ticer and Michael Hudman redefine traditional French food.
The menu at Bishop may seem familiar at first, particularly to eaters of a certain age. Dishes reminiscent of mid-century America’s French food heyday are a comforting reminder of the era’s elegant fare: escargots, beef tartare, and salad Lyonnaise with a perfect poached egg.
But don’t get too comfortable with your memories as you settle into one of the restaurant’s cushy curved banquettes. The food at Bishop is not the coq au vin your mother made for special birthday dinners.
Consider, for example, the grand aioli, the first item on Bishop’s menu of appetizers (country terrine!), tinned seafood (sardines in lemon!), garnishes (lentils!), small plates (fluke quenelle!), and large plates (Bishop burger!). I expect a simple crudité. Instead, I am served a platter with a boiled egg, thick slices of tenderloin, and a wreath of spring’s most colorful bounty: pickled fennel; crunchy leaf lettuce; French breakfast radishes; baby heirloom carrots in purple, yellow, and gold; and fingerling potatoes, lightly blanched and sliced in half. In the middle of the plate sits a bowl of lemon mousseline dusted with dill powder, a softer version of aioli thanks to the addition of whipped cream.
“We wanted to keep some classic French dishes, but do them with our own twist,” explains Ryan Jenniges, executive chef for the AM Enjoy restaurant group headed by chefs Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman.
For Ticer and Hudman, whose Italian cooking traditions ground their other Memphis restaurants, Bishop is an opportunity to return to culinary fundamentals and the four years they spent cooking with Chef José Gutierrez, the former chef at The Peabody’s Chez Philippe. “Andy and Mike always talked about doing a French restaurant, and this was the right opportunity,” Jenniges says.
After eating at Bishop half-a-dozen times, I can say with certainty that this modern brassiere inside Central Station Hotel exudes both taste and exceptional good looks. The meandering corner space painted deep carillion blue is chameleon-like, morphing from a boisterous dining room with views of Earnestine and Hazel’s to a lounge sitting on the restaurant’s other side. In the restaurant’s center, a 12-seat bar and row of booths built for two look out on the iconic Arcade Restaurant, a longtime anchor of South Main.
I discover the booths (a charming place to rendezvous) when I stop by with my husband for late-night bowls of French onion soup, house-made sourdough from pastry chef Kayla Palmer, and escargot, the dish I ate to celebrate my 18th birthday. Bishop’s version is served traditionally in a stoneware plate, but when I scope up an escargot from its buttery persillade, it tastes unique. Later, Jenniges explains why. The texture, or crunch on top, comes from ground ham and chicken gizzards fried crispy and tossed together. “The country ham and gizzards is our Southern play on the dish,” he says.
We skip the menu’s potatoes prepared in four decadent and buttery ways to focus our calories on beverage director Nick Talarico’s stylish list, which moves from sparkling cocktails to a boozy Vesper rendition called Fools Mate. Overall, Talarico designed softer cocktails for Bishop with a European flare using base spirits like brandies and cognacs instead of more familiar bourbons and mescals.
In the Fool’s Mate, for instance, there is no vodka, a typical spirit in a Vesper cocktail along with gin. “Instead, we use an immature brandy, so you get something a little more elegant and fun,” Talarico says. (Pro-hint: Only drink one.)
Located inside the Central Station Hotel. 901-896-0228. Open Monday-Sunday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
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Bishop
French classics with contemporary updates, such as beef tartare and the Grand Aioli crudité plate, shape the dinner and lunch menus at Bishop, the only French restaurant in downtown Memphis.
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Justin Fox Burks
Allison Hultman
Server Allison Hultman
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Justin Fox Burks
Bishop Crudite
Grand Aioli crudité plate
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Justin Fox Burks
Mary Phan
Floor sommelier Mary Phan can suggest a wine pairing for any menu item.
At Eight & Sand, classic cocktails play alongside vinyl and snacks.
Hotel staff refer to the Central Station Hotel lounge, Eight & Sand, as the neighborhood’s living room. Indeed, it has all the accoutrements of a well-appointed millennial apartment: vintage furniture, Jaipur rugs, top-notch sound-system, and classic cocktails like Sazeracs made with absinthe, Prichard’s rum, and Cooper & Kings brandy.
But unlike a family room at home, this charming hangout has no TV. Instead, if you are lucky on a Wednesday night, you’ll find local DJs like Kerri Mahoney-Bomar, a graphic designer for music and film, spinning Memphis-centric music you may not know. On a recent night, Bomar trotted up and down a staircase to the bar’s second-story record library, toting back albums from performers like the late Bobby Marchon, a colorful R&B singer who signed at one time with Stax Records.
“We also play the hits, but we do want to help guests learn things about Memphis music they might not already know,” says the hotel’s music curator, Chad Weekley. “When I play Booker T. and the MG’s cover of the Beatles, people think it’s amazing.”
The bar, named after a railroad term for safe and speedy journey, is located downstairs from the hotel lobby. (Follow the train station’s early neon sign that reads Lower Concourse to Trains 7•8•9•10.) Cocktails like a Paloma or Old Fashioned, along with seasonal riffs on other classics, make sense for the space, says beverage director Nick Talarico. “By highlighting the classics, with a little tweaking here and there, we are able to heighten up technique and craft,” he says. “We also wanted a completely different drinking experience than downstairs at Bishop.”
The bar’s eight snacks, served from 4 to 9 p.m., move from nibbles to hearty fare in more adventuresome ways. Try a plate of Gougeres, a baked French pastry that looks like a Snickerdoodle with a luscious three-cheese filling or a plate of drummies and hot wings dusted with dehydrated celery and served with blue cheese ranch.
Best Bets
French Onion Soup at Bishop: “I worked on that recipe for four months,” says Chef Michael Hudman about Bishop’s must-have soup built with long-simmered beef bone stock, Gruyere and Compte cheese, and sourdough croutons tossed in butter and caramelized onion powder.
Beef Tartare at Bishop: Diced beef instead of ground, a mayonnaise base, and an adorable dollop of sous vide egg yolk shape a magnificent new turn on a longtime French favorite. So. Good.
The Birdie at Eight & Sand: Although Hog & Hominy is closed for now, its fried chicken sandwich, brined in pickle juice and much-loved by me, reappears as The Birdie with spicy Calabrian honey and dill mayo cabbage slaw on a brioche bun.
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photo by justin fox burks
French Onion Soup at Bishop: “I worked on that recipe for four months,” says Chef Michael Hudman about Bishop’s must-have soup built with long-simmered beef bone stock, Gruyere and Compte cheese, and sourdough croutons tossed in butter and caramelized onion powder.
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photo by justin fox burks
Beef Tartare at Bishop: Diced beef instead of ground, a mayonnaise base, and an adorable dollop of sous vide egg yolk shape a magnificent new turn on a longtime French favorite. So. Good.
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photo by justin fox burks
The Birdie at Eight & Sand: Although Hog & Hominy is closed for now, its fried chicken sandwich, brined in pickle juice and much-loved by me, reappears as The Birdie with spicy Calabrian honey and dill mayo cabbage slaw on a brioche bun.
