The Town House
It was on my flight home-ish from Iowa last week that I flipped open Hemispheres magazine to find this article.
It's about The Town House in Chilhowie, VA. I had a gig down in Abingdon just a year ago last week, and I stumbled upon this place when looking for an inspiring meal. This place certainly surpassed my expectations. Chefs John Shields (former sous chef at Charlie Trotter's and Alinea, in Chicago) and Karen Urie (former head pastry chef at Charlie Trotter's) hadn't yet gotten married, and were doing truly brilliant things with very local, very seasonal ingredients, hours away from any major metropolitan center.
I had the unique honor of introducing one of my colleagues to nouvelle cuisine. In honor of this anniversary that United Airlines' inflight magazine decided to celebrate for me, I'll include my meal synopsis behind the cut. At the time I wrote this, I didn't realize that John Shields was probably the sous chef for the meal I had shared with family and friends at Alinea earlier in the year...
Dinner last night exceeded expectations, but only by meeting what they would have been had I been planning a short meal at Alinea. The Town House in Chilhowie is, simply put, the Alinia of Appalachia. Achatz would have approved. The menu on their web site is a little out of date. Some of the dishes are the same, and the chefs now share a surname. I took my colleague, Dave, who commented on my FaceBook status, and got to watch his brain explode dish after dish.
We did the four-course meal, a bargain at $48. It opened with an amuse-bouche that was a lemon jelly between two cookies, rolled in parmesan shavings. It was salt and sweet, a bite to serve as punctuation, separating this meal from your day in Appalachia, setting a new context within which to understand that which is to come.
We both had the peekytoe crab appetizer, about a heaped tablespoon of beautiful lump peekytoe crabmeat, sitting in a red beet mayonnaise with a dollop of celeriac ice cream, garnished with chervil, flowers and a leaf I’d never had: oyster leaf. The crabmeat was sweet and delicate, beautiful in its blush from white to red. The purple mayonnaise added both fat and acid with the gently earthy sweetness of beet root. The ice cream was brilliant, confidently occupying the limbo between savory and sweet with its earthiness and nuttiness carried by the cream perfectly. Dave declared that he felt like he was a judge on Iron Chef.
For the fish course, Dave had the turbot that you see on the menu, which was rolled around the shrimp into three or four little bundles, a cluster of rosewater pearls (the size of salmon roe) in the corner, and that pil pil of kohlrabi in ham fat that I was jealous of (so very me). I had a dish of mussels in orange blossom water, shelled and each one crowned with the caviar of a tiny heirloom cherry tomato. The seeds were yellow and green, in deep red jelly. These mussels swam in a cold soup of orange blossom water and yellow squash seeds, a foam of briny mozzarella milk spilling atop them from the side of the wide-rimmed bowl. Dave said that while he preferred the taste of a cheeseburger, there was definitely a sense in which this was “more.” He spent some time searching for words to express flavors and textures he had never even imagined, then surrendered.
For the entrée, Dave had something rather like the shortrib of beef that you see on the menu in the left column. It was kobe, slow-cooked into heavenly unctiousness, with an apple and lychee puree below and a thick foam of cucumber (both smoked and grilled) atop the foie. It looked like a giant, delectable sea cucumber on his plate, festooned with tiny flowers and leaves of things I couldn’t name. He couldn’t even speak, grieved that he had no bread to sop the plate. I had the Thorntree Farms lamb, similar to what’s in the left column. It was lamb shoulder and another cut the waiter didn’t clearly describe, in a butter and herb sous vide for 30 hours. One piece was blanketed by a ribbon of cauliflower and truffle over the top, the other with a ribbon of comte. Upon my first bite, I immediately started giggling, my eyes beginning to water with joy. That first piece of lamb was perfection. I never wanted it to end. On the side was a mix of sprouted grains with some almonds, underneath another ribbon, this one tasting of mushroom and soy.
Dessert. Dave had the peach in the left column. It was a doughnut-shape of peach and red pepper puree that had been frozen in liquid nitrogen atop a segment of roasted peach and a quenelle of Earl Grey ice cream. All of this was cradled in a bed of fine pie crust sand. Dave couldn’t decide whether his dessert or entrée was the best dish he’d ever eaten. According to FB, he seems to have settled on the entrée. I had the three chocolates. There was a yuzu sponge cake, a quenelle of nutmegged chevre and a quenelle of something thick and chocolatey. Atop these were three different single-bean chocolate powders of differing darknesses, a garnish of Okinawan black sugar (I never knew there was such a thing) and a ring of oxalis (also new to me) like a daisy-chain around the bowl. The chocolate powders were just that, powder, the consistency of talcum with tastes ranging from maybe 60% dark to chocolate pie. The yuzu was wonderful, a promise of what I might make in a few years with Mireille’s fruit. The nutmegged chevre was heaven itself. I kept forgetting about it between bites, had to rediscover it a few times. It’s amazing how lemony nutmeg can be, enough that you forget it’s a spice for moments. I wish I could remember what the chocolatey bit was. It was dense and rich, a ganache, really. The oxalis was amazing, like a fantasy Escher-esque unfolding clover that tasted of cake. I wanted a big trough full of it to bury my head in.
There was a final truffle that was lemony and grainy inside, feeling like shaved coconut but clearly something else. I suspect it was the lemon shavings that had given their essence for the jelly in the cookies at the beginning (would be poetic, but not sure if that would actually work). The chocolate dusting the outside was so dark that it was black. Again, it was punctuation, a full-stop to end the meal.
It's about The Town House in Chilhowie, VA. I had a gig down in Abingdon just a year ago last week, and I stumbled upon this place when looking for an inspiring meal. This place certainly surpassed my expectations. Chefs John Shields (former sous chef at Charlie Trotter's and Alinea, in Chicago) and Karen Urie (former head pastry chef at Charlie Trotter's) hadn't yet gotten married, and were doing truly brilliant things with very local, very seasonal ingredients, hours away from any major metropolitan center.
I had the unique honor of introducing one of my colleagues to nouvelle cuisine. In honor of this anniversary that United Airlines' inflight magazine decided to celebrate for me, I'll include my meal synopsis behind the cut. At the time I wrote this, I didn't realize that John Shields was probably the sous chef for the meal I had shared with family and friends at Alinea earlier in the year...
Dinner last night exceeded expectations, but only by meeting what they would have been had I been planning a short meal at Alinea. The Town House in Chilhowie is, simply put, the Alinia of Appalachia. Achatz would have approved. The menu on their web site is a little out of date. Some of the dishes are the same, and the chefs now share a surname. I took my colleague, Dave, who commented on my FaceBook status, and got to watch his brain explode dish after dish.
We did the four-course meal, a bargain at $48. It opened with an amuse-bouche that was a lemon jelly between two cookies, rolled in parmesan shavings. It was salt and sweet, a bite to serve as punctuation, separating this meal from your day in Appalachia, setting a new context within which to understand that which is to come.
We both had the peekytoe crab appetizer, about a heaped tablespoon of beautiful lump peekytoe crabmeat, sitting in a red beet mayonnaise with a dollop of celeriac ice cream, garnished with chervil, flowers and a leaf I’d never had: oyster leaf. The crabmeat was sweet and delicate, beautiful in its blush from white to red. The purple mayonnaise added both fat and acid with the gently earthy sweetness of beet root. The ice cream was brilliant, confidently occupying the limbo between savory and sweet with its earthiness and nuttiness carried by the cream perfectly. Dave declared that he felt like he was a judge on Iron Chef.
For the fish course, Dave had the turbot that you see on the menu, which was rolled around the shrimp into three or four little bundles, a cluster of rosewater pearls (the size of salmon roe) in the corner, and that pil pil of kohlrabi in ham fat that I was jealous of (so very me). I had a dish of mussels in orange blossom water, shelled and each one crowned with the caviar of a tiny heirloom cherry tomato. The seeds were yellow and green, in deep red jelly. These mussels swam in a cold soup of orange blossom water and yellow squash seeds, a foam of briny mozzarella milk spilling atop them from the side of the wide-rimmed bowl. Dave said that while he preferred the taste of a cheeseburger, there was definitely a sense in which this was “more.” He spent some time searching for words to express flavors and textures he had never even imagined, then surrendered.
For the entrée, Dave had something rather like the shortrib of beef that you see on the menu in the left column. It was kobe, slow-cooked into heavenly unctiousness, with an apple and lychee puree below and a thick foam of cucumber (both smoked and grilled) atop the foie. It looked like a giant, delectable sea cucumber on his plate, festooned with tiny flowers and leaves of things I couldn’t name. He couldn’t even speak, grieved that he had no bread to sop the plate. I had the Thorntree Farms lamb, similar to what’s in the left column. It was lamb shoulder and another cut the waiter didn’t clearly describe, in a butter and herb sous vide for 30 hours. One piece was blanketed by a ribbon of cauliflower and truffle over the top, the other with a ribbon of comte. Upon my first bite, I immediately started giggling, my eyes beginning to water with joy. That first piece of lamb was perfection. I never wanted it to end. On the side was a mix of sprouted grains with some almonds, underneath another ribbon, this one tasting of mushroom and soy.
Dessert. Dave had the peach in the left column. It was a doughnut-shape of peach and red pepper puree that had been frozen in liquid nitrogen atop a segment of roasted peach and a quenelle of Earl Grey ice cream. All of this was cradled in a bed of fine pie crust sand. Dave couldn’t decide whether his dessert or entrée was the best dish he’d ever eaten. According to FB, he seems to have settled on the entrée. I had the three chocolates. There was a yuzu sponge cake, a quenelle of nutmegged chevre and a quenelle of something thick and chocolatey. Atop these were three different single-bean chocolate powders of differing darknesses, a garnish of Okinawan black sugar (I never knew there was such a thing) and a ring of oxalis (also new to me) like a daisy-chain around the bowl. The chocolate powders were just that, powder, the consistency of talcum with tastes ranging from maybe 60% dark to chocolate pie. The yuzu was wonderful, a promise of what I might make in a few years with Mireille’s fruit. The nutmegged chevre was heaven itself. I kept forgetting about it between bites, had to rediscover it a few times. It’s amazing how lemony nutmeg can be, enough that you forget it’s a spice for moments. I wish I could remember what the chocolatey bit was. It was dense and rich, a ganache, really. The oxalis was amazing, like a fantasy Escher-esque unfolding clover that tasted of cake. I wanted a big trough full of it to bury my head in.
There was a final truffle that was lemony and grainy inside, feeling like shaved coconut but clearly something else. I suspect it was the lemon shavings that had given their essence for the jelly in the cookies at the beginning (would be poetic, but not sure if that would actually work). The chocolate dusting the outside was so dark that it was black. Again, it was punctuation, a full-stop to end the meal.