Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on January 9, 2013

John Currence is a James Beard Award-winning chef, and City Grocery, his Oxford flagship restaurant, is well-known among his colleagues across the country as a bastion of Southern cooking.Currence has closed it for about six weeks, in part because of them. He's doing a massive kitchen renovation.

"This is long overdue. Since I started doing a guest chef series about two years ago, I've felt this acute embarrassment when people come to cook," he said. "Right now, we're down to dirt floors and brick walls."

This is not to say he's taking a vacation, though. Besides operating three other restaurants in Oxford Bour, Big Bad Breakfast and Snackbar as well as writing, preparing for the upcoming birth of his first child and running his catering company, Currence decided to use the City Grocery down time to host more guest chefs. This time, there's a twist:

Street food.

Working from the catering kitchen, which seats about 50, Currence will host Eli Kirshtein of Atlanta Wednesday through Saturday; Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman of Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen and Hog & Hominy in Memphis

Jan. 23-26; and Kelly English of Restaurant Iris in Memphis Jan. 30 through Feb. 2. The staff of City Grocery will do the cooking Jan. 16-19. The series is called Big Bad Pop-ups, named after the phenomenon of temporary restaurants called pop-ups."The entire month is a study of different street foods," Currence said.

Think food truck food, but on a plate, served on a table.

"The tables will actually be in the kitchen," Currence said. "We'll take it from the line, turn around and hand it right to the table.

"We wanted to do something affordable and something different. Jesse (Houston, chef de cuisine) and I talked about it and he had these great, grandiose ideas. We whittled it down."

Kirshtein, who has the kitchen this week, is a "Top Chef" celebrity from Atlanta. He'll feature Israeli street food.

Read more from the original source:
It's pop-up fare in Oxford with chef specialties by special chefs

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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