I don’t mean to be ugly, but one of the last places I would have expected to have one of the most flavorful, seasonal, locally sourced and thoughtfully composed dishes I’ve had this summer is Brentwood. Williamson County is known for many things: lush pasture, winding country roads, rolling hills, sprawling retail compounds, family-friendly parks, well-tended athletic fields, gated communities, massive homes and luxury cars. In spite of the gorgeous, state-of-the-appliance, tricked out kitchens in the beautiful homes, this zip code also teems with an astounding plethora of dining establishments. It’s just that the great majority of those restaurants are members of the chain gang. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as long as you don’t mind your dish being conceived in a corporate kitchen in, say, Scottsdale, Ariz., and executed by staff adhering to a strict formula using product shipped from the company commissary 1,000 miles away.
If you prefer your meal be created by someone you can glimpse from your seat in the dining room using produce picked nearby earlier that day and brought to the back door by the farmer who grew it—and you want to eat in Williamson County—you can find few better places to reward your faith in the spirit of independence than Wild Iris.
That is where I was savoring every single bite I could steal from my companion’s almond-crusted rainbow trout with a fricassee of sweet potatoes, summer squash, leeks and corn in a citrus mojo, a dish that rightfully leads off the entrees—not that it’s downhill from there. Scrolling deeper, diners will find a fresh lobster salad with baby greens, avocado and grilled corn; Cajun spiced pan-seared salmon with rosemary white cheddar cheese grits; and tournedos of beef tenderloin stuffed with gorgonzola and served with cherry tomato relish. Your attention might be diverted—as mine always is—from the set menu to the separate sheet of dinner features, created that very day by Chef Mike Kidd. He had me from “braised fennel and black mission fig orzo, sautéed oyster mushrooms, local green beans, roasted red peppers and heirloom cherry tomatoes finished with salsa verde’’ the alluring come-on to the polenta-crusted mahi mahi that was the day’s entrée special.
Chef Kidd is in an accomplished fraternity of peers who have preceded him in the kitchens of Wild Iris and its sister restaurant Yellow Porch, among them Martha Stamps, Kim Totzke, Laura Karswich and Jason Love. He—with current Porch chef Guerry McComas—adheres to the standards set by owners Katie and Gep Nelson, local pioneers in the earth-to-table movement and leaders of the Nashville Originals, the organization of independent restaurants.
Gep married into the business that Katie came to by blood. The western corner of the strip of stores called Brentwood House Shopping Center was the Cross Corner Bar & Grill, a sports bar owned by Katie’s brother Michael Groos. While working there, she began toying with the idea of opening her own restaurant, and when Groos moved to a new location down Franklin Road, Katie answered the knock of opportunity. After a minimal-budget but high-impact aesthetic overhaul, she opened Wild Iris in 1996, with the vision of providing a place that was “upscale when it comes to ingredients and the food, but simple enough that people would feel comfortable in blue jeans.”
The realization of the first part of her vision has always been apparent on the menu, contained on one page, supplemented by a soup, salad and entrée of the day. That the goal of quality and creativity executed consistently is achieved in a (relatively) tiny kitchen in such modest fashion makes dining at Wild Iris a delightful surprise for newcomers and, for regulars, as welcoming as a friend’s home (if that home came equipped with a professional chef).
Regulars are a mainstay of Wild Iris, just as they are at Yellow Porch, the little restaurant behind the verdant garden of produce and herbs on Thompson Lane in Berry Hill. After marrying Katie and working alongside her at Wild Iris, Gep was also bitten by the bug. “I suggested we think about opening another restaurant and right about then, Café Bambino [former occupant of the Porch building] became available, so we grabbed it,” he recalls. “You have to have a certain amount of ignorance, naïveté and ego to think you can make a successful restaurant. I don’t know that I’d do that today.” Lucky for us, he didn’t know any better 1999, and Yellow Porch just celebrated its tenth anniversary.
It did so with Guerry McComas at the helm, who arrived at the Porch almost three years ago with a resume that includes the CIA; he did his externship at Blackberry Farm—as fine a place as any to be immersed in the regional-seasonal mindset. He considers John Fleer his most important mentor, absorbing lessons in balancing rustic food with elegant methods and presentation. Back in Nashville, he was sous chef at Tayst and Bound’ry before taking over the Porch.
McComas’s exemplary skills and easygoing personality combined from the start to make a seamless transition for the passionate charter members of the Yellow Porch fan club. He has treated the “untouchables” on the Porch menu—like the sun-dried cherry salad and the penne Betola—with care and respect for their popular status, while creating dishes so likeable they will likely attain that stature as well, leaving his mark on the Porch menu in the manner of the chefs before him. As they do at the Iris, the daily specials give McComas and more adventurous diners a place to play.
On my most recent visit, we covered the bases with one of the untouchables—the seafood-laden paella, which I swear is the best I’ve ever had every time I order it; a McComas-twisted comfort dish of adobo-marinated skillet-fried chicken with buttermilk mashed potatoes, sautéed mustard greens and chicken gravy; and the special of black grouper teamed with an explosion of summer produce—cucumber feta couscous, local squash and roasted corn and tomato sauce. The vegetarian in our party loves the Porch for showing the love to guests of her persuasion.
The wine program at both restaurants is one of the too-many-to-mention amenities, though this one gets its own shout out. The lists, overseen by Gep, change frequently, span the globe and offer distinctive vintages at remarkably affordable prices (only one bottle is priced more than $50). Best of all, nearly every wine is available by the glass, which allows diners to try different wines, switch from red to white and back again, pairing a glass with every course.
Both Wild Iris and Yellow Porch are off the beaten path, tucked into small spaces, easy to pass by, modestly going about the business of being not just successful but beloved restaurants. “We like to under-hype and over-deliver,” says Gep. “That’s pretty much as close to a mission statement as we’ve ever come.”
And that pretty much says its all.