The new year is off to an exceptionally good start for Memphis Chefs Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman. The chef’s recent nomination as semi-finalists for a James Beard Best Chef award follows a local win as Best Chefs in Memphis by Memphis magazine readers. Even more fun for fans like me is the opening three weeks ago of The Gray Canary, the chef’s fifth restaurant in Memphis located in the Old Dominick Distillery building on downtown’s Front Street.
To celebrate the new restaurant and its menu of wood-fired cooking, the chefs are hosting a grand opening party Feb. 20 to benefit the Southern Foodways Alliance, and SFA director John T. Edge will be among the party’s guests. Tickets for the fundraiser, which includes oysters, champagne and a five-course dinner, are available here.
In the kitchen, an impressive lineup of visiting chefs will join the local team, including John Currence from City Grocery in Oxford, Ryan Prewitt from Peche in New Orleans, Mike Lata from FIG in Charleston, Cassidee Dabney from the Barn at Blackberry Farm, and Tien Ho from Whole Foods.
The menu will feature dishes from the kitchen’s open hearth, a restaurant concept explained by Ticer and Hudman in a tour of The Gray Canary before it opened earlier this month. During the interview, Ticer unfolded a small sketch he drew of a chicken and a leek. The drawing is one of the chefs’ inspiration for technique-driven cooking over fire and wood.
“We can tie up leeks in the morning and have a smoldering fire for a few hours,” Hudman said. “And then when we walk by, we can occasionally brush them with chicken fat. It’s going to be so much fun.”
During the interview, the chefs also talked about the restaurant’s beautiful renovated space and their decision to eliminate pasta from the restaurant’s menu.
1 of 5
Photos by Emilee Robinson
2 of 5
Photos by Emilee Robinson
3 of 5
Photos by Emilee Robinson
4 of 5
Photos by Emilee Robinson
5 of 5
Photos by Emilee Robinson
Memphis magazine: Is walking away from the pasta liberating?
Hudman: For sure. We’ve been trying to do this concept since Hog & Hominy opened, but never found the right space until now. I think not having to be totally Italian will be fun. We will have a lot of Italian influences, obviously. But anything that cooks over fire, we will try.
MM: Ysaac Ramirez is the restaurant’s chef de cuisine. Where did he come from?Hudman: He’s been with us a long time. He started with us at Andrew Michael. Then he was at Interim for a while. Then he was with us again at Hog and Hominy, then to New Orleans. So, he’s coming back home and we are very happy it all worked out.
MM: Do you worry about another new restaurant hurting business at your other restaurants?
Hudman: No, as long as we stay true to doing the best we can with each restaurant. They all have different vibes, different atmospheres. The Gray Canary has the ability to be like chameleon. Whatever you want it to be, it can be, and this is very exciting for us.
MM: Tell me more about the food.
Ticer: The most exciting thing is we will use the fire for many cooking techniques, for flavor, heat, smoke, and char.
Hudman: For instance, one dish we played around with for a wine dinner at Porcellino’s was kohlrabi. We took the kohlrabi, threw it in the charcoal of the pizza oven and let it totally burn on the outside. The we cooled it, peeled it, and used the vegetable inside.
Ticer: It had this amazing taste that was more than a smoked vegetable. It was combined taste, a little more charred with a grilled flavor.
MM: Both of you sound enamored with vegetables.
Ticer: We will certainly have meat, leg of lamb, pork collars. But The Gray Canary is certainly our heaviest vegetable focus, and once those vegetables kiss the hearth in some way, you aren’t going to miss the meat at all.
(Editor's Note: Look for a complete review of the Gray Canary in the March issue of Memphis magazine.)
