CAT HERINE & M A RY ’S
BEST CAJUN / CREOLE BAYOU BAR & GRILL OWEN BRENNAN’S THE SECOND LINE BEST SHARED PLATES BABALU BOUNTY ON BROAD MCEWEN’S / ALCHEMY (TIE) BEST DELI ELWOOD’S SHACK FINO’S BOGIE’S DELICATESSEN BEST PLATE LUNCH SOUL FISH CUPBOARD RESTAURANT PATRICK’S BEST BURGER HUEY’S EARNESTINE & HAZEL’S BELMONT GRILL / ALEX’S TAVERN / TOPS BAR-B-Q (TIE)
Cocktails like the Sweet Melissa and inventive plates — crispy Brussels sprouts, Porcellino’s steak and potatoes au gratin, and tortellini en brodo — shape a seamless match with the beautifully renovated first floor of the Chisca Hotel.
F
rom across the room, when the mirrored bar at Catherine & Mary’s backlights customers and liquor bottles, I feel caught in a vintage animation, slowed down and dreamy. But then a cocktail arrives named Heart On, and its Vida mezcal, grenadine, Prosecco, and citrus juices plant me firmly in the new year with lovely views out plate-glass windows of traffic and passersby. Located on the first floor of the newly renovated Hotel Chisca, Cath-
erine & Mary’s is the fifth restaurant for superstar chefs Michael Hudman and Andrew Ticer, who named the restaurant after their Sicilian and Tuscan grandmothers. “Our grandmothers made sure that whatever the occasion, both good and bad, revolved around some amazing food,” Ticer said before the restaurant opened in late September. The restaurant’s menu of shareable plates honors the chefs’ family traditions with regional Italian special-
ties organized into four parts: snacks, plates, pastas, and entrées. Chef Ryan Jenniges moved to the new restaurant from Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen on Brookhaven Circle, and his inspired cooking drives dishes like caviartopped oysters baked with creamy brandade that are so good I feel no shame in using my fingers to scrape up every morsel from the sea-shaped shells. — Pamela Denney 272 S. MAIN (901-254-8600)
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