Smoked heirloom tomato gazpacho, marcona almonds, Spanish extra virgin olive oil; marinated beets with sotto cenere cheese, micro celery and truffle oil; spit-roasted Gum Creek Farm pork loin with Anson Mills grits, lady pea succotash and peach jam.
A chef's Atlanta career culminates in these few things — the last supper for chef-owner Michael Tuohy at Woodfire Grill. Tuesday marked the chef's last night in Woodfire's kitchen, where he has strived, sometimes at the detriment of his profit margin, to create seasonal, farm-to-table menus from the iconic restaurant's opening six years ago. The date is also the restaurant's six-year anniversary.
Tuohy, a California native, has opted to sell to Nicolas Quinones and Bernard Moussa of Five Senses Restaurants and return to his home state to serve as executive chef of the Grange, a farm-to-table concept inside the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento. Though the new owners will keep Tuohy's kitchen intact, including the appointment of chef de cuisine Kevin Gillespie to executive chef, it's hard to imagine Woodfire without him.
Influenced early on in his career by the seasonal cooking of California chef Joyce Goldstein of Square One Restaurant, Tuohy moved to Atlanta 22 years ago, launching his lauded Chefs' Cafe in 1986. After a solid 10-year run, he closed that restaurant and joined Tom Murphy at Murphy's in Virginia-Highland, retooling the food towards seasonal appetizers and entrees and away from the soup-and-sandwich combos so prevalent on the popular spot's menu.
He opened Woodfire in 2002, and at its helm quickly became the chef most known for his involvement with Georgia Organics, spearheading the state's long overdue farm-to-table movement by developing ongoing relationships with local farmers and growers, making his own breads and sausages in-house, and breaking down hogs and fish rather than relying on purveyors to do it for him.
Fresh and local has been his motto — his mantra — at Woodfire, and it hasn't always been easy.
"I couldn't cook any other way," he smiles and says. "This is the right way to do it. Pure. Honest. Fresh cooking tastes better and is better for the earth."
It's closing in on 2:30 p.m., and Tuohy, Gillespie and Jared Pyles, a cook from Home restaurant in Buckhead who used to cook at Woodfire Grill and has come to help and say goodbye, are prepping feverishly for the night ahead. A booked dining room of over 200 customers will begin arriving at 6 p.m. The crew has been in the restaurant since 11 a.m. preparing, having prepped the day before, too, which is normally a day off.
Tuohy is making a pickling liquid of cider vinegar and sugar spiked with coriander, mustard seed, star anise, cinnamon and clove for a salad of marinated beets served with sotto cenere cheese. Pyles peels and cuts cucumbers for a salad to be served with wood-grilled hangar steak. Gillespie shucks corn, leaving some ears intact for roasting — the savory sweet kernels will be used for a relish to accompany Woodfire's famous crab cakes, one of four appetizers offered on the evening's prix fixe menu.
Woodfire. The name conjures a realm of possibilities, and the welcoming aroma of the restaurant's woodburning oven wafts through the dining room the moment you walk past the hostess stand near the bar. A collection of artisanal cheeses on the right gives way to the oven and spit roast on the left.
"The oven is what I will miss most about Woodfire Grill," says Tuohy. "It smells like home to me."
It's closing in on 4 p.m., and servers and other front-of-the-house staff are beginning to arrive — workers from Repast and Whole Foods who once worked for Tuohy have returned to work one last night with him. Dan Lindsay, Tuohy's bartender for almost three years, peels lemons and readies the bar. "It's a sad day," he says. "But I'm happy for him."
In the kitchen, Gillespie is still waiting for a shipment of cuerno de torno peppers to arrive from Jenny-Jack Sun Farm in Pine Mountain. Part of working with farmers directly is the headache that they may not be able to adhere to a set schedule, or provide exactly what was ordered.
"Supply and consistency are Georgia's biggest problems for growers and meat suppliers," explains Tuohy, who is quick to admit that the state has come a long way since he started 22 years ago.
By 4:30 p.m., only four things to do remain on the kitchen's prep list, and cooks from Trois and newly opened Dogwood are organizing and portioning crab cakes, dropping the meat into flour and placing the patties on sheetpans.
While selecting the cheeses for the evening's artisanal cheese plate, Tuohy tastes a new cheese he's just ordered from Flat Creek Lodge Dairy, a local producer in Swainsboro. Repairmen were in earlier to talk with him about one of his reach-ins. Even on a last day, there are incidentals to deal with.
By 5 p.m., Seth Roskind, the restaurant's general manager and wine director, brings Tuohy one of what will be three "final" menus for approval. A few minutes later, Tuohy takes small bits of the four cheeses he's chosen upstairs to have a pre-meal meeting with the staff — the cheeses are for their tasting.
Tuohy has changed into chefs' whites. The moment he begins to explain the menu, servers jot notes down. Questions come from many: What's the herb served with the crab cake? Where did the lamb in the ragu come from? Is it ice cream or fromage blanc mousse to be served with the butterscotch pudding (Tuohy's favorite)? Tuohy basically recounts what he's been doing all day — a bittersweet list of love that he must now review as if tonight were just like any other night.
After a short toast, it's curtain up. Customers will be arriving within minutes, and there's no time for sentimental goodbyes.
But for Atlanta, the mark Tuohy has made will remain, and we can only hope that others will carry on in his stead.
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