When it comes to dining options in rural locations or off-the-beaten-path small towns, down-home Southern restaurants often get most of the attention. The thought has been that smaller towns don’t have the critical mass of potential diners to support talented chefs who want to experiment with more elegant cuisine. Or, the more arrogant outlook was that there wasn’t enough culinary sophistication among clientele to appreciate that sort of elevated food.
Well, we’re here to prove that sort of snobbery is dead wrong, and we’ve got plenty of evidence to back us up!
Residents of Manhattan and Washington, DC have long made the pilgrimage out of the metropolises to award-winning culinary hotspots like Blue Hill at Stone Barns in the Hudson Valley and the Inn at Little Washington in a small, Blue Ridge Mountain town. There are more and more rural fine dining destinations popping up across the South of late — and others that may not have reached your radar simply because they are well outside of the bright city lights. To get you started, here are two that we think you should seek out.
High Point Restaurant
Monteagle, TN
More info: highpointrestaurant.net
U.S. Route 31 used to be known as “The Dixie Highway,” connecting Chicago and Miami for early 20th century motorists. One infamous frequent traveler between those destinations was gangster/bootlegger Al Capone, who had homes and significant operations in both cities. Capone also smuggled a lot of liquor into Tennessee, primarily to clubs in Nashville’s Printers Alley.
Monteagle, TN, is about the halfway point on The Dixie Highway and a little over an hour from Nashville, so it was a logical spot for another operations hub for Capone’s crew. The mobster financed the construction of a lovely sandstone house right off the highway on top of Monteagle Mountain. As the most significant elevation between the termini of Route 31, it became known as “High Point.” Named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, High Point has been home to an eponymous restaurant since 1999, and it offers the finest dining for miles around.
Besides the great food, the stately three-story Tudor mansion is worth a road trip just to see its Capone-inspired architectural oddities. The roof is equipped with an escape hatch and outcroppings of stone in the exterior walls provide ease of scrambling down ahead of any Feds who might pay a visit. Tunnels below the basement offer secret spaces to store and smuggle hooch, and the ceiling above the tunnels was packed with sand to stop any bullets fired through the floor above.
The interior of High Point still features many of the architectural elements of Capone’s design. High ceilings trap the heat from a large fireplace to chase off the chill of a winter evening’s dinner, and hardwood floors and dark-stained mahogany doors and trim accent the cream walls.
Enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail by the bubbling fountain on the lovely stone patio, the spot where Capone legendarily enjoyed drinks and card games with John Dillinger. You can also partake of High Point’s signature appetizer, Oysters Rockefeller, topped with a tangy hollandaise sauce.
The dinner menu at High Point runs the gamut of fine dining culinary styles, from straight-ahead steaks and seafood to pasta, all expertly prepared. Seasonal salads make for a great starter, and when berries are ripe, the blackberry salad with Gorgonzola is a wise choice. Rich lobster bisque is another favorite among regular diners.
Choose your cut of steak from filet mignon, ribeye, or NY strip for the “Black & Bruised” steak preparation, cooked to your desired temp and topped with cracked pepper and bleu cheese butter. Add a lobster tail to the filet for a prototypical surf and turf, or pair it with pasta and cheesy sauce as part of their steak and gorgonzola alfredo.
Duck is also popular at High Point, appearing as part of an Asian-inspired appetizer of a sesame-crusted duck breast with tart ponzu sauce and as a main dish served under a zesty blackberry sauce. Dessert is often the, ahem, high point of a meal here, with a unique grilled pound cake as the showstopper. Make sure to take the time to wander around the building before or after your meal, so you don’t miss out on the little details of this important piece of American history.
Vestige
Ocean Springs, MS
More info: Facebook
Usually, the semifinalists for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef: South awards come from big traditional culinary centers like New Orleans. However, this year’s awards spotlight a talented chef out of the small Mississippi Gulf Coast town of Ocean Springs. The attention was gratifying, especially because the town is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina’s direct hit, which destroyed the bridge to Biloxi, cutting it off from visitors.
Now that access is easy again, diners are flocking to visit chef Alex Perry and his extraordinary restaurant, Vestige. Along with his wife, Kumi Omori, Perry has created an innovative tasting menu experience that takes advantage of the bounty of seafood from the Gulf.
Inspired by the culinary culture of his wife’s native Japan, Perry offers astonishingly beautiful plates of intricately prepared seafood bites, presented as a prix fixe menu of delicious small plates. There is a degree of faith involved in a meal at Vestige, as the chef changes the menu daily based on what inspires him and the most interesting ingredients he can find at local markets.
The kitchen focuses on seasonality and sustainability, intentionally sourcing products that are being harvested with an eye on future availability. A typical menu consists of at least five courses, including bread and dessert dishes prepared by Omori.
Chef Perry is a master of presentation, arranging expertly cut seafood under tongue-tantalizing sauces and garnished with tiny edible flowers or a dollop of luxurious caviar. They say you dine with your eyes first, so each dish is off to a great start when it arrives at the table — a little piece of art you can eat.
When chef Perry sneaks in a non-seafood dish, it’s often Japanese A5 wagyu beef, considered the finest steak in the world thanks to its extensive marbling and melt-in-your-mouth texture. Savor every bite because you won’t find this beef in your local market or at any but the finest restaurants.
Even better, Perry manages to offer these unique dining experiences at surprisingly affordable prices, based on market prices. Cleverly selecting ingredients that augment dishes without adding unnecessary extravagance, the chef depends on his talents in the kitchen to elevate his cuisine without breaking the bank. In a small coastal town best known for seafood shacks and po’ boys, Vestige is truly an unexpected treat for locals and visitors alike!
Enjoy your dining adventures!
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