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MARCH 6, 2014
ARKANSAS TIMES
Hog heaven Tusk and Trotter is a carnivore’s paradise in Northwest Arkansas. BY DAVID RAMSEY
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fter getting his culinary training in Boulder, Colo., and the Provence region of France, Rob Nelson settled about five years ago in Bentonville and, in the summer of 2011, opened Tusk and Trotter, a snout-to-tail restaurant with a focus on charcuterie, the art of curing meats. “Northwest Arkansas is home, I love it,” said Nelson, who grew up in Hope and did his undergrad at the University of Arkansas. The area “was an untapped resource five years ago and now the explosion’s happened.” The timing for Nelson couldn’t have been better. Bentonville — a once sleepy Ozark town until some guy named Sam opened a five-and-dime there — has recently been getting attention for more than just its status as Walmart Stores Inc. headquarters. With the opening of world-class Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in late 2011, the hospitality industry in downtown Bentonville has boomed. The town has become a cultural destination; the Washington Post highlighted the Bentonville dining scene as its go-to spot on the 2013 “In/Out List” (sorry Charleston, S.C., you’re out). The James Beard House in New York, the mecca of good eats, recently hosted a multi-course tasting event featuring only Bentonville chefs, including Nelson. Nelson had been thinking of his concept for Tusk and Trotter — a French-style brasserie with Ozark flavors, specializing in creative pork dishes — for a while. “My favorite animal in the world is the pig, of course,” he said. “We take the entire pig
and show its versatility. … I wanted to do something focused on that, but also local sustainability is also a passion of mine. I’ve got 25 different [local] purveyors that I use week in and week out.” Nelson focuses on getting as much as possible from Arkansas or nearby — everything comes from within 200 miles. “The closer it is, the better the food tastes,” he said. Nelson trained in the art of charcuterie and whole-animal cooking with master chefs in the south of France. It’s fitting that he brought this refined training to hog-crazy Arkansas. “It’s been a part of our culture since the beginning,” Nelson said. “A lot of people forget — farm to table, the slow food movement — it really isn’t something new to the people of Arkansas, who have been farming and ranching for generations. Now we’re just trying to refine our cooking and bring it up to the next level, but still try not to stray from ... our roots.” Nelson said he aims to apply the “standards of Old World charcuterie but give it a modern Southern flair.” Nelson and other Bentonville chefs (Matthew McClure at the Hive, Case Dighero at Eleven) have come up with the name “High South” to describe their approach, giving a cultivated touch and creative flourishes to traditional Southern cooking, all with ingredients locally available in Northwest Arkansas. “It’s anything that you can do sticking with the Ozark region,” Nelson said. “Lake fish and river fish — trout and walleyes — things that you can get up here.