From her years as an artist and chef in New York City to her succession of inventive restaurants in her Memphis hometown, Karen Blockman Carrier has always pushed boundaries. “To me, the most important thing is to awaken the emotion in others,” Karen says. Diners at her restaurants — The Beauty Shop and Bar DKDC, to name a few — can attest to the eclectic flavors, funky ambiance, and sensory experience. Karen’s vision and ambition have helped transform the Memphis dining scene, earning attention from Bon Appetit, Travel + Leisure, Gourmet, Food & Wine, and Food Network. She also runs one of the hottest catering businesses in town. Get to know this fascinating FACE of Memphis.
When did you discover your passion for food?
I was born and raised in Memphis. My mother is from London and met my father here after World War II. She’s an amazing cook and baker who was always entertaining. I grew up in a Jewish Orthodox, kosher household and didn’t taste bacon or shellfish until I moved out of my parents’ house at 17. I went nuts — I didn’t know what I was missing!
I graduated from White Station High School and The Memphis Academy of Arts with a bachelor of fine arts in painting and enameling. After a few years teaching art in Nashville, I received a scholarship to get my master’s degree in painting from Hunter College in New York City. I didn’t have enough to live on, so I had to get a job. A friend from Memphis, who was running Martha Stewart’s catering company, talked me into signing up for a six-week program at The New York Cooking School, which introduced me to the creative world of culinary arts. I was hooked!
Later, I met Susana Trilling, who ran a catering business (Seasons of My Heart), in the bathroom of the Lone Star Café. We hit it off, and I went to work for her. That next morning, I got off the Lower East Side subway, wondering what I had gotten myself into. I rang a bell, and no one came to the door.
Finally, I heard someone call my name from above. I looked up, and Susana threw me a key in a sock and told me to walk up to the third floor. Making my way up the rickety stairs, I smelled these incredible aromas. When the door opened, nine women were bustling around inside a big loft with three small apartment-sized stoves pushed together.
I met women from Belize, Mexico, and Austin, Texas. They were rolling tamales, making gumbo, cooking johnnycakes, and getting ready for a gig. It felt like home.
What inspired you to pivot from painting to culinary arts?
Working for Susana, I was thrown into a magical world of food and interesting people. We catered all over the city, from video shoots for The Stray Cats and The Clash to the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Sackler Wing to Calvin Klein’s 50th birthday celebration in the Hamptons and private dinners for director Mike Nichols in his townhome.
I opened several restaurants in Manhattan with Susana, including Rick’s 181 Lounge and The Bon Temps Rouler. After she moved to Mexico, I started Lunch Catering, catering to New York City’s fashion photographers, and then opened Automatic Slim’s, One Bar Under a Groove, which I still have today.
What brought you back to Memphis?
I returned here in 1987 to marry a Memphis guy I met in New York and started a small catering business, Another Roadside Attraction, in our home, the Mollie Fontaine House, in Victorian Village. After five years, the business grew so much that I opened my first restaurant in downtown Memphis, Automatic Slim’s Tonga Club, which I sold in 2008.
I wanted to be where I could see people walking, not in a strip mall. Everyone thought I was crazy to look downtown, but it was perfect for me. I hired my friends from art school to help me design the space.
The experience of dining in this art-inspired space, with its rubbed mango-colored walls, hand-carved poplar tree bar, and copper-leaf covered tables, and diving into our huachinango (whole crispy snapper), coconut mango shrimp, Jamaican jerk duck, and voodoo stew, created a buzz.
I went on to open the French Caribbean-inspired Cielo in our home, then reopened it as The Mollie Fontaine Lounge. In 2002, we opened The Beauty Shop Restaurant in Cooper-Young and the Beauty Shop General Store next door, where we sold meals to go along with Dinstuhl’s candies, international cheeses, coffee, vegetables, old Vespas, Giraudon Italian shoes and hats made by milliner Amy Downs (my best friend from NYC).
The store was ahead of its time, but after six months, I decided to change the concept and open Dō Sushi. A few years later, we started opening for lunch as Noodle Doodle Dō. Then I closed the sushi restaurant to open my music club, Bar DKDC in 2013, with global international street food. My restaurants are just paintings — I get bored every six or seven years and have to create something new!
What’s the greatest challenge you’ve faced?
When I opened my first Memphis restaurant, most people thought it would be a flash in the pan that wouldn’t make it past the first year. Living in New York taught me to stand tough and persevere no matter what’s thrown my way. The art of entertaining changed the landscape of New York City, and I wanted to bring that to Memphis — that feeling when a diner walks into an establishment, takes in the sights, smells, sounds, and colors, and sits down to a meal that is seductive to all the senses.
How would you describe your culinary style?
My food is in your face — bold, colorful, and cross-cultural. My influences are from the sun-drenched cuisines of Jamaica, New Orleans, Mexico, Israel, Spain, and California, and my roots are in Tennessee. My culinary knowledge has been gleaned from traveling to these places, eating street food, and learning from home cooks.
I bring ideas, concepts, chiles, and sauces back home from my travels and blend them into my cuisine to create art. After cooking for so long, I have that sensory ability to taste flavors before I test them — it’s like a sixth sense.
Some of my biggest influences have come from coworkers who have been with me for years, including Cindy from Vietnam and Lena from Bangkok … So has Ms. Winnie, who brought her pots and pans to the beaches of Negril, Jamaica, each morning to cook over a makeshift fire. She taught me so much and cooked the most amazing food I’ve ever put in my mouth!
Because of my background as a painter and enamelist, I see myself as a food artist. The juxtaposition of shapes and colors on a plate and the table layout is just as important to me as the taste of the food. I tend to meld many cuisines and colors into one dish.
What is your recipe for success?
What makes a great chef is the ability to delegate with a firm hand but a warm heart. You’re only as good as the people who support and work alongside you. I can have every concept in the world, but I can’t do it alone. You cannot cook the food, create the menu, talk to customers, fix art on the wall, or [replace] a light in the ceiling by yourself. I’m not a “yes chef, no chef” kind of person.
What I strive for in my kitchen is familia. You have to treat the people who work for you the way you want to be treated and build them up. Loyalty and respect are what make a restaurant family — that’s the secret to my success.
How has the Memphis restaurant scene grown?
I’m proud of what’s happening now. I love seeing the younger generation opening up new concepts and visual footprints. It’s important for our city to bring in new blood — people who want to put down roots and watch neighborhoods grow up around them. I think my role has been our staying power. We tested the waters and survived the test of time. In this crazy business of food, part of success is luck, and part is your passion, determination, art, and belief that you will do what it takes to make it. Whatever you do in life, you should give it 150 percent. That’s your calling card. That’s your art.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Keep on walking, and don’t look back. Put your head down and commit to the work. Love what you do and do what you love. Life is short — live it!
Name three things you can’t live without.
Weed, wine, and my dogs!
And, our final lightning round of questions!
Last delicious local meal:Â Tsunami
Favorite vacation spot: Negril, Jamaica
Biggest celebrities you’ve cooked for: Tom Cruise, Susan Sarandon, John Kennedy Jr., Bill Clinton, Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld, and Francis Ford Coppola
Books on your bedside table:Â Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad, How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair, and Notes on a Banana by David Leite
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