photographs by Justin Fox Burks
On a recent Saturday night at Interim, the dining room is full, abuzz with conversations — families, friends, and date-night couples enjoying the restaurant’s wine offerings and new menu options. From our table, a direct view of the expansive open kitchen shows half-a-dozen cooks, busy prepping, plating, and sending out dishes to eager patrons, pots steaming and pans sizzling behind them.
When Interim opened in 2006, it was meant be a placeholder for what was to come. After the closing of the former tenant Wally Joe, a restaurant run by renowned chef Joe himself (who now owns Acre) and co-owner Fred Carl Jr., the Viking Range founder who’s credited for the installation of its top-notch open kitchen, Carl opened Interim to keep the space active until he could sell.
The charcuterie board features three selections, like bresaola and duck prosciutto, all cured at City Block.
Through the years, the temporary project became more permanent, though it evolved, rotating chefs — and owners — until last September when chef Nick Scott (co-owner of Alchemy and City Block Salumeria) and restaurateurs/partners Tony Westmoreland and Brittany and Ed Cabigao (South of Beale and Zaka Bowl) purchased the restaurant. In some ways, things have come full circle for Scott, who was a chef on the opening team for Wally Joe back in 2002. “We found out through the grapevine that it was for sale,” Scott says. “I always loved the restaurant, I loved the kitchen, so this was kind of a no-brainer to me.”
Menus have been reimagined, while retaining some standards, like the Claybrook Farm burger and the mac-and-cheese. The latter is impossibly creamy with pasta bathed in a sauce of fontina, white cheddar, and grana padano, topped with an herb-parmesan panko crust and served in a cast-iron dish. Not your momma’s mac — dare I say better?
For starters, we choose the beef carpaccio, which arrives like a fully bloomed flower, colorful with reds and greens. Gliding the fork across the plate picks up a memorable bite: beef, arugula, discs of crisp potato, grated grana padano, briny capers, and aioli. As we eat, a server delivers an impressive dish to a neighboring diner: a weighty double-bone pork chop sourced from Home Place Pastures in Como, Mississippi. Other popular plates: the ribeye, dry-aged 28 days at City Block Salumeria; and a charcuterie board with three meats like duck prosciutto, lonza, or cured pork tenderloin, and bresaola, salty and sliced paper thin and cured, as well, at City Block.
Specials like this strawberry tart (left) let French pastry chef Franck Oysel (above) be inventive while sticking to his roots.
A standout entree among those we choose is the duck carbonara, a juicy duck breast, scored, pan-seared, and sliced, served alongside house-made pasta, its sauce elevated by the addition of duck prosciutto (in place of pancetta) and finished with a perfectly poached egg that bursts with a pierce of the fork, smothering the noodles like a warm hug.
As for drinks, bartender Drew Wooten has overhauled the bar’s cocktail selection, crafting new offerings such as the sour/sweet Hemingway, made with rum and shaken with an egg white for a frothy finish, and the soon-to-come watermelon Pimm’s Cup. The wine selection remains extensive with more than 120 varieties available by the bottle.
Definitely save room for the meal’s grand finale. Pastry chef Franck Oysel, who hails from France, keeps the dessert menu exciting with some purely French desserts in addition to French-inspired versions of Southern staples like carrot cake or pecan pie, heavy on the pecans and made with local honey rather than corn syrup. Oysel stays true to his roots, ordering quality ingredients, including chocolate and butter, directly from France, and takes care not to make the desserts overly sweet. “All these little steps I take, it’s very important to me,” he says.
Oysel changes the dessert menu every couple of months and creates two specials a week. This day, he serves up a heavenly strawberry tart, with a light strawberry mousse resting atop a crust made with crushed hazelnuts and marzipan, almost too good to share.
“My specials are always something people have never tried or seen before,” Oysel says. “The first thing you want [as a chef] is to make people happy. How do you do that? Make something different.”
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The Hemingway ($12)
This slightly sour, mildly sweet cocktail mixes Rhum Clément, fresh grapefruit and lime juices, bitters, simple syrup, and Luxardo. Shaken with a dollop of egg white that forms a frothy top layer, the result is something to write home about.
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Airline Chicken Breast ($26)
A reimagined chicken and dumplings (the most comforting of comfort foods), the dish features juicy pan-seared chicken and gnocchi parisienne — made with pâte à choux — swimming in a natural jus broth with English peas and truffle.
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Ruby Red ($10)
Finish the meal with one of pastry chef Franck Oysel’s French desserts. This subtly sweet almond sponge cake, made with white almonds and hazelnut butter, has a rhubarb jam filling and is topped with strawberry mousse and a bouquet of sliced strawberries.
Interim
5040 Sanderlin Ave.
901-818-0821
3 Stars
Food: The menu is New American, with some Southern staples reinvented with global influence; daily fish specials are a customer favorite.
Drinks: A wide selection of wine is available, in addition to a variety of cocktails concocted by, Scott says, “one of the best bartenders in the city,” Drew Wooten.
Atmosphere: Dressy casual; great for meetings, dates, or friendly reunions.
Service: Attentive and informative: Not sure what lychee or dacquoise are? You’re soon to find out.
Extras: Monthly wine dinners feature several courses of off-menu dishes paired with a variety of wines.
Reservations: Not required, but recommended, especially on weekends.
Up Next: As the menu continues to shift, expect more technical and creative dishes: think lamb shoulder confit with lemon conserva and rosemary jus.
Prices: Appetizers, salads, and sandwiches: $3 to $18; lunch entrees: $14 to $21; dinner entrees: $21 to $38; desserts: $8 to $10.
Open: Opens for lunch Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner Monday through Saturday from 5:30 to 10 p.m.; Sunday brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Sunday dinner from 5:30 to 9 p.m.
