Saturday, 03/31/07

Flyte Worthy 

Flyte’s sophisticated urban decor matches the menu’s cultivated and worldly maturity. (Photo by Matthew H. Starling)

Co-owners Scott Atkinson and Scott Sears, along with opening Executive Chef Robert MacClure, have achieved this triumph by building a cohesive team of young professionals who are passionate about their craft, and by creating a working environment that recognizes, supports and rewards their efforts. The successful synchronicity of that formula reveals itself to guests at every turn, from arrival through departure.

Atkinson and Sears—from St. Louis and Tampa, respectively—met in Room 101, a band they were members of while students at Vanderbilt. They also punched the clock at the now-closed Rio Bravo Cantina, where they were first struck by the notion of opening their own restaurant. Upon graduation Atkinson moved to Chicago to work in the banking industry, and Sears co-owned local internet provider Telalink, but the idea never left them. About four years ago they got serious and began a site search. They poked around emerging commercial areas including The Gulch and Cannery Row, but eventually staked a claim in fairly unexplored territory on the outskirts of both. What the corner of Division and 8th Avenue South lacks in glamour and prestige, it makes up for in visibility and drive-by traffic, as well as its proximity to local landmark Frugal MacDougal’s Liquor Warehouse.

Finding just the right person to run the kitchen took a couple of tries. A Nashville chef came and went fairly quickly, followed by a recruit from the Windy City who, after a year-long relationship, balked the day before the lease on the building was to be signed. The runaway chef referred them to MacClure, then Executive Chef at Caffe Deluca in the Chicago suburb Forrest Park. The pair went to the restaurant and MacClure prepared a five-course tasting menu for them, an act that got him promptly fired, but free to sign on as the third member of the Flyte team. Another complication delayed possession of the building until April 2006, but the lag was time well spent on fine-tuning the concept and coming up with the name, a reference to the practice of small tasting pours of wine. “Wine has always been key to the concept,” says Sears, the taller of the two 36-year-old Scotts and the one who selects and oversees the wine inventory. Architect Cary Dunn was retained to define the space—walled in cinderblock, floored in concrete and topped by a wooden ceiling of two-by-fours—and Tony Shankle of Principal Building Group came on board as contractor, with plenty of restaurant build-outs under his belt.

With the exception of work that required licensing, the Flyte construction crew consisted of the owners, principal staff like bar manager/brew director/mega-personality Doc Downs, friends and family. Sears’s mother Marty was the interior designer and his father Stephen leveled every table, fashioned on site to generously sized specifications. They built the bar, dividers and banquettes, turned the black ceiling white with 150 gallons of paint, and drenched the walls in earthy hues of persimmon and ocher. As each hire came on board they were handed a hammer and assigned a task. “I came for my interview decked out in a white jacket and black pants and Robert was in work clothes and baseball cap,” says chef de cuisine Jake Stearn. “I didn’t see Scott [Sears] cleaned up until the day we opened,” adds sous chef Bobby Benjamin.

Stearn and Benjamin—neither of whom is anywhere close to turning 30—both had much to contribute to the development of the culinary concept. “We wanted flavors and cuisines from around the world to complement the Old World and New World wines we’d be offering,” Sears explains. Adds MacClure, “Jake and Bobby are so solid with technique thanks to their backgrounds, passionate about experimenting and learning, and have so much energy. I tell them to come in at 10 but they’re here at 8.”

The two first met while cooking at The Oak Room, the Five Diamond restaurant in Louisville’s historic Seelbach Hotel. They became friends, and when Benjamin moved to Beverly Hills to stage under Wolfgang Puck, Stearn followed a few months later. Their next destination was going to be Seattle or Toronto, but when Benjamin’s mother in Nashville was diagnosed with breast cancer, they detoured here so he could be with her through her treatment. Luckily, they found challenging work under kitchen science wizard Sean Brock at the Capitol Grill, where they remained under new chef Tyler Brown until landing at Flyte. It was not the only serendipity to gift the kitchen: Brooke Woffinden applied for a job as a server two days before opening, but when her resume revealed experience as a pastry chef, she assumed that role 30 minutes after her interview. Jen Franzen gave up a successful corporate career in marketing to put in 14-hour days on the line.

Undaunted by superstition, Flyte staged its family-and-friends opening on Friday the 13th of October. It was a disaster. “Everything that could go wrong did,” remembers Atkinson. “But it accomplished exactly what it needed to—Saturday night was better, and by the time we officially opened Tuesday, we were ready.”

Flyte may be the new kid on the block, but in the front of the house familiar faces abound amid the poised and polished staff culled from upscale restaurants like The Acorn, Park Café and Capitol Grill. The lighting throughout the bar and main dining is dramatic and artful; large unframed oils (most by Sears’s brother Bryan) inhabit the vertical horizon of the spacious room, and bricked alcoves that pocket the walls display tall metal and clay vessels.

The effect is bold and sexy, but it’s the joyful partnership of food and drink that performs a subtle yet irresistible seduction of body and soul.

An evolving list of Old and New World wines specific to their origin are accessibly priced and straightforwardly described in language even wine dummies can understand. A separate list of flights—three two-ounce pours in each—encourages exploration.

From the kitchen, Flyte’s culinary artistry soars with impeccable preparation, intriguing compositions, discerning balance and gorgeous presentations. Thanks to a keen understanding and appreciation of the relationship between nature and chemistry, dining at Flyte is multi-sensorial—flavor, color, scent and texture spring from every dish and delight the nose, eye and tongue.

The restaurant is committed to using organic and local produce and humanely raised livestock whenever possible, and not only are vegetarians assured of a slot on the menu, vegans (frequently dismissed as an annoyance in other restaurants) get a dedicated plate, too. Diners are advised that entrees will take at least 30 minutes to prepare, thanks to the commitment to a la minut preparation. This is especially apparent in cooked-to-order side dishes—from knife to pan to plate to table. Vegetables retain their integrity, sweet counters salt, a touch of fruit adds another dimension, and then another arrives with a back-beat of heat. On citrus-roasted prawn, the chutney combines papaya and bacon; teamed with braised short rib, pomegranate gives collard greens their tang. Two large diver scallops are rolled in almond powder, sautéed and gently placed atop a ribbon of bright green English peas and sweet corn puree, paprika oil splashing the plate with copper. A swirl of local honey and dab of celery cream hide beneath a pile of bacon and honey-mustard dressed spinach; caramel replaces honey on the plate of mixed greens, candied walnuts and bleu cheese.

The third and most focused menu— conceived by Stearns and Benjamin, who were promoted to co-executive chefs in mid-February when MacClure resigned to spend more time with his family— to date takes diners around the world, globe-trotting course by course, dish by dish, from America to Asia, Cuba to Germany, France to the Middle East. Cuba is represented by lemon-roasted mahi with fried plantains, avocado crab salsa and rhubarb puree; the American south shows itself through rabbit pot pie with vegetable ragout, pistachios and pie crumble; Scandinavia makes a rare local visit via pan-seared salmon with beet kumquat salad and whole grain mustard zabaione. Northern France delivers sophisticated comfort food on a hearty plate of Painted Hills ribeye, whipped Yukon potatoes French-kissed with truffle shavings, earthy sautéed oyster mushrooms, crunchy Brussels sprouts and intensely flavored port jus.

Conclude your meal with a demitasse of espresso, a cup of French press coffee or snifter of port, indulge in something sweet from Woffinden’s delicate hand, or select a trio of cheeses from a dozen offered.

Like other groundbreaking urban restaurants, Flyte had gambled that its concept, its product and its staff would trump an unlikely location. They were right on all counts, and Nashville’s dining public is the lucky beneficiary.