Justin Fox Burks
On a recent afternoon, with a friend from Boulder in tow, my husband and I decide to show off Memphis, heading downtown to Front Street where Old Dominick Distillery opened in June. We take the 5 p.m. tour and tasting, marvel at the distillery’s magnificent still, and toast one another with bourbon toddy. By the time we walk two blocks to Catherine & Mary’s for dinner, we are jaunty from good cheer and spirits, all Memphis made.
Early for our reservation, we settle into the restaurant’s bar, which stretches alongside the dining room like a perfect front porch, welcoming and well-appointed. Head bartender Colby Jones hands us a menu — 10 craft cocktails strong — and we spot the Dacey, a drink created with Old Dominick vodka for the distillery’s grand opening. “I made the prettiest drink I could and called it the Dacey, after my daughter’s middle name,” Jones explains.
Pretty, indeed, thanks to whole blackberries juiced by ice vigorously shaken — 25 seconds instead of the more typical 15 — along with Meletti liqueur, fresh-squeezed lemon, and Branca Menta, a minty Italian digestif. Poured into champagne coupes, topped off with prosecco, and garnished with twists, the cocktails turn deep pink to purple, like ripening summer fruit on a mulberry tree.
Justin Fox Burks
Chefs Michael Hudman, Ryan Jenniges, and Andrew Ticer
Sipping our drinks, we feel chatty and insulated, like good friends do. But when we swing our stools around to move from bar to table, the dining room bustle startles us a bit. People have filled up the tables, and from the tall storefront windows, twilight shadows drift in.
I’ve felt this surprise before at Catherine & Mary’s, where I have eaten half-a-dozen times since the restaurant opened last September. Despite its grand scale on the first floor of the Chisca Hotel, the restaurant plays out like a series of illustrated vignettes. Along with the bar’s singular focus are the dining room’s multiple personalities: a sheltered two-top for intimate encounters; an energetic four-top with a view into the busy kitchen; and a window table to watch traffic and dog-walkers scoot on by.
The restaurant’s northwest windows also frame a streetscape of the Orpheum marquee, one of many reasons chef/owners Michael Hudman and Andrew Ticer embraced the building where radio station WHBQ first played Elvis Presley’s breakout hit, “That’s All Right.”
“The building had been boarded up for 26 years, but the bones of the building are so special,” Hudman says. “Andy went right to that corner window, looked at me, and said, ‘We are going to do this.’”
Certainly, the downtown restaurant builds on Hudman and Ticer’s storied success. Named Best New Chefs in 2013 by Food and Wine magazine and James Beard Award finalists for multiple years, they now operate of a family of five restaurants including Josephine Estelle in New Orleans. Memphis natives and boyhood friends, the chefs often say that they keep opening restaurants to give new opportunities to their accomplished staff. Longtime general manager Nick Talarico left Hog and Hominy for Catherine & Mary’s, where he runs the team’s newest restaurant with meticulous attention to detail. (He uses a yardstick, for instance, to ensure table settings are precisely placed.)
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Chef de cuisine Ryan Jenniges, who held the same position at Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen in East Memphis, also moved downtown, bringing his sublime cooking to a more relaxed menu built around small plates, entrees, and eight different pastas that frequently change up. “We start with seasonal ingredients, and then pick the noodle,” Jenniges says. “Some ingredients are better stuffed into a pasta, and certain pastas pick up sauce better than others.”
Visitors new to Catherine & Mary’s should order pasta, by all means, and lumache, a snail-shape pasta with cacao e pepe (cheese and pepper sauce) is my warm weather favorite. But here’s another tip: Eat judiciously because the restaurant’s other small plates are shareable and also excellent.
Consider the humble cannellini beans, a dish so popular it holds a permanent place on the menu. One of the plate’s components — along with pork terrine and black pepper broth — is micro-planed egg yolk, cured in a pound of salt and spices for 15 days. And the rustic pickle plate — served with toasted slices of baguette —orchestrates a cacophony of color and texture with okra, celery, cauliflower, snap beans, dried apricots, and watermelon rinds all pickled in different ways.
The seasonal spuntini selection (an Italian word for snack or small bite) is another favorite, presented to the table like a fanciful miniature circus: triangles of fried cheese; chick peas also fried but tossed with rosemary, parsley, and lemon juice; and herbaceous poached shrimp mixed with a pretty pickled giardiniera of whatever is handy. And for dipping? A crudité of raw vegetables with Green Goddess dressing, spruced up with avocado, a little dill, and ramp tops preserved in the spring.
Justin Fox Burks
Spuntini
Entrees also are lovely to look at and easy to love. On a visit in early spring, I fall hard for a beef cut called spinalis (it’s the cap on a ribeye), served with bordelaise, fried shallots, and potatoes au gratin. And for dessert? A mascarpone and goat cheese torta with blueberries and hibiscus sorbet.
At Catherine & Mary’s, every dish starts with a sense memory or reference point for inspiration. “But then there’s a bridge to something new, to a different spin,” Ticer says. “And that’s the point when the dish becomes part of you.”
Pam’s Pics: Three to Try
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Justin Fox Burks
Hamachi Tartare
($14)A dish to truly dream about, chef Ryan Jenniges mixes Hamachi — the Japanese name for Pacific yellowtail — with preserved Meyer lemon rind puree and tops the tartare with dill, cucumber, crème fraiche, and crunchy fried garlic.
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Improved Vesper
($13)James Bond’s legendary cocktail gets updated with Caperitif — a Chenin blanc botanical from South Africa — and a spritz of tincture made with dill and Tellicherry peppercorns. Happily, the drink’s gin and vodka also stay in the mix.
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Lamb with Peas, Asparagus, & Cherry Sauce
($31) One taste, and you’ll wonder out loud, “Why doesn’t everyone eat cherries with lamb?” For the ruby-colored sauce, chefs reduce red onions to a molasses consistency, add reduced beet juice, and fold in cherries.
Catherine & Mary’s
272 S. Main St.
901-245-8600
4 Stars
Food: Inspired by the Sicilian and Tuscan cooking of Hudman and Ticer’s grandmothers, for whom the restaurant is named, the menu focuses on pasta and contemporary dishes with a Southern twist.
Drinks: The bar program is top-notch, and a good time to experiment is happy hour from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Sunday, when the bar menu includes munchies like fried chicken skins and country pate.
Atmosphere: In a reclaimed space with an industrial feel in the Chisca Hotel, Catherine & Mary’s mixes a thrown-together urban appeal with the kind of excellent service more typically expected with traditional fine dining.
Extras: Notice the restaurant’s impressive paintings from local artists: landscapes by Matt Hasty, abstracts by Beth Winterburn, and Kyle Taylor’s whimsical portraits of Hudman and Ticer as youngsters, cooking with their grandmothers.
Up next: Expect weekday lunch and weekend brunch sometime in September, and the rollout of a new restaurant in the Old Dominick Distillery on Front Street, featuring wood-fire cooking.
Prices: Snacks for sharing ($17 to $25); plates ($12 to $15); pastas ($14 to $17); entrees ($25 to $32); coffee and dessert ($4 to $7).
Open: Monday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m.
