1 of 5
Wild Virginia Flounder Crudo
2 of 5
Jason Zygmont
3 of 5
English Pea and Ricotta Agnolotti
4 of 5
Dry Aged Beef Tartare
5 of 5
Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs
The Treehouse made waves when it opened in 2013, most notably for the space it occupied: a well-recognized home on Clearview Avenue in Five Points, once owned by famed fiddle player Buddy Spicher. The restaurant's namesake came from a tree house in the back. Co-owners (and family members) Corey Ladd and Matt Spicher renovated the space themselves, bringing new life to the iconic property.
What to order: What to order:
Charred Kale Raab, $15Dry-Aged Beef Tartare, $16Uni Cacio E Pepe, $16Sweet & Sour Pork Ribs, $18Buttermilk Mousse, $10
Opening chef Todd Alan Martin drew fans, too, with his Latin-inspired menu, but it was the late-night dining scene that garnered the restaurant most of its buzz. It became a haven for industry workers in search of filling grub after their own shifts, plus it welcomed fun collaborations, like a City House takeover in 2015. When Martin announced he was leaving last fall, it was a gut-check to faithful followers. But, in one of those window-opening moments, it also allowed for the arrival of fresh talent in the form of Jason Zygmont, who made the move up to Nashville from Athens, Georgia, to take the reins this winter.
Zygmont brings a fine pedigree to the compact kitchen, including a six-month run at the acclaimed Nordic restaurant, Noma. He also spent just shy of a year at Thomas Keller's Per Se in New York. And these were after positions at stellar Atlanta restaurants, like Restaurant Eugene.
Such high-profile stops weren't even on the young chef's radar when he was studying philosophy at the University of Georgia, Zygmont laughs.
'I'd watched a lot of food television growing up[Julia and Jacques] Cooking at Home, the Food Networkbut I'd never cooked myself,” he says. 'My first night of service [at a restaurant in Chapel Hill], they had me cook a mussel dish, and it was so bad, the chef brought the customer into the kitchen to tell me so.”
Determined to learn the hard way, Zygmont made his way from one kitchen to the next, moving from North Carolina to New York to Atlanta before heading to Noma, where he worked in the restaurant's Nordic Food Lab. Eventually, he landed back in New York at Per Se. A short while later, he returned to the South to work for Top Chef judge Hugh Acheson at the Athens restaurant, 5&10.
'He gave me full creative liberty, but Athens is still a meat-and-potato town,” Zygmont says.
He'd looked forward to taking all that he learned during his travels to a larger market. He eventually targeted Nashville as his next stopping point and saw that there was an opening at The Treehouse. Zygmont met the co-owners over beers in Athens and shortly after, made the move to Nashville infusing the menu with his thoughtful, elevated fare ever since.
precise plating
Take one look at Zymont's plating, and it's clear he's brought a global influence to the operation. With Instagram-worthy flourish, he tops crudo with fresh, edible flowers; smears vibrantly colored sauce under proteins; and sprays dusts and powders with a painter's finesse. Yet, underneath all of that composition, good flavor, seasoning, and balance lay.
To start, there's the charred kale raab, which sits on a bed of barley puree and gets a flutter of dried scallop flakes. Pickled green almonds offset the earthy char on the raab. (Kale raab is harvested during the tender, early stages of kale growth, and Zygmont serves them as whole shoots and stems.) The flowered crudo, when we had it, was thinly slivered flounder, wild-caught from Virginia, and it melted easily on the tongue. Another appetizer-sized dish that's hearty enough to share (like most of the dishes here) is the beef tartare, made from dry-aged beef that's sourced out of Bear Creek Farm in Franklin. Though he puts an emphasis on Tennessee ingredients, Zygmont isn't die-hard in his sourcing circumference. 'I count the entire Southeast region as local. If I can drive there in a day, I'll work with it,” he says.
He does, however, emphasize seasonality. Entrée-sized dishes will change regularly, but a few staples will stick, Zygmont assures, like the fall-off-the-bone sweet and sour pork ribs. Sharply flavored with a sorghum and apple cider vinegar gastrique, these ribs also offer a sizable dose of heat, thanks to the addition of Sriracha sauce. Another fixture, he notes, will likely be the uni cacio e pepe, or tagliatelle pasta tangled with a lobster-and-uni butter.
late night tradition
Zygmont has kept the late-night menu in place, with beer-favoring fare, like fried chicken and a Spanish fried egg with buttered grits, and he also offers a few large-format dishes, like a quartered roast chicken or a 38-ounce rib eye. (The latter is no small investment for $140, but it feeds a crowd.)
It's all incredibly ambitious, especially when you peek into the small, open kitchen and realize Zygmont has but a few helping hands, which, he says, he prefers. It gives him complete control, even down to the desserts, which he's currently creating himself.
As for the rest of The Treehouse experience, it's still on point, from the friendly and well-informed staff to the clever cocktails. (You Can't Handle Vermouth is a refreshing precursor to any of Zygmont's meals.) You can still dine in the actual tree house out back or at bar seats looking into the kitchenbut with this new roster of dishes and a chef who's raising the bar in East Nashville dining, any seat in the house is worth your time.
1011 Clearview Ave; 615-454-4201; treehousenashville.com