Asheville Chef Elliott Moss' Cooking Career Is Indelibly
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MEAT AS M steady plume of smoke rises into the night air onU barrel. ThroughoutS the night,E glowing deposits will drop the south side of Coxe Avenue in Asheville, North into the bottom, coals like fiery tender to coax the hog Carolina. Behind a barbed wire fence on the fringes into smoky submission. of downtown, amid warehouses, car shops, and the Moss is joined by trusty sidekicks Dan Silo and Sarah burgeoning development of the South Slope neigh- Cousler, the two main cooks at his current pop-up borhood, Elliott Moss settles in for an all-night vigil restaurant, The Thunderbird, and his father, Terrell Moss, Awith a 200-pound hog. in town for a weekend visit. Moss jabs at the burning The chef wears a yellow Duke’s mayonnaise t-shirt, a pair wood with the shovel, releasing a flurry of neon ashes into ASHEVILLE of Levi’s that fit just a touch more than snug, work boots, the midnight sky like a million tiny stars. Cooking a hog CHEF ELLIOTT MOSS’ and his trademark cap affixed with a pin shaped like a is a skill that requires patience and endurance, careful tim- marijuana leaf but patterned to look like a dripping slice ing bolstered by the use of all the senses. As the wood COOKING CAREER of pepperoni pizza. One might say this is his uniform. burns down, Moss and his father intuitively load more IS INDELIBLY Elliott Moss is an artist. At the moment, meat is his muse. logs into the barrel, instincts born and bred in Florence, Tonight, his porcine companion will be washed in the South Carolina. INFLUENCED transformative elements of smoke and fire. By daylight “I ate barbecue like people eat pizza,” says Moss. “We’d BY HIS it will emerge as the main attraction for the neighboring go to the store and get a loaf of white bread, a pound of INNER ARTIST brewery’s backyard barbecue. This hog, as with a host of barbecue, and cole slaw. That was our meal.” others cooked over the last two years, is a foretaste of Bux- Just down the road from his home in Florence was Scott’s PHOTOS BY ton Hall Barbecue, Moss’s long-awaited brick-and-mortar Bar-B-Que, one of the most lauded barbecue shacks in ANDREW THOMAS LEE concept with restaurateur Meherwan Irani, owner of Chai the country. Moss counts pitmaster Rodney Scott as one Pani and MG Road Cocktail Lounge. It’s 11:30 p.m. on of his biggest barbecue influences. If you taste Moss’ bar- Friday night. Shovel in hand, Moss tends to the becue carefully, you can find whispers of Scott’s oak logs piled in the top of his handcrafted burn BY KEIA MASTRIANNI influence in the red pepper-laden vinegar mop. 84 85 I ATE BARBECUE LIKE PEOPLE EAT PIZZA,” SAYS MOSS. “WE’D GO TO THE STORE AND GET A LOAF OF WHITE BREAD, A POUND OF BARBECUE, AND COLE SLAW. THAT WAS OUR MEAL. deeply into music. He took art more than that. Inside a tiny open space barely cery store checkout line might inspire that eve- weaved them seamlessly with Asian influences “The thing about cooking whole hogs this classes throughout high school passable as a kitchen, Moss slowly transformed ning’s featured dish, such as a Slim Jim hash. and technique. way,” says his ’cue compatriot Dan Silo, “is that and spent hours crafting mix- The Admiral into one of the pioneering restau- “The way I approach menu writing and devel- During that time, Sarah Cousler and Dan Silo it’s one hundred percent your own work, there’s tapes, listening to punk rock, and rants of Asheville’s contemporary food scene. opment,” explains Moss, “is to think about what joined him in the kitchen while they awaited the no other source. You’re generating your own fire designing record labels. “Elliott figured out what West Asheville wanted I want to eat because I’ve gotta cook it and taste it opening of Buxton Hall. To keep his team gain- and using that fire to cook the animal. It’s just At age seventeen, Moss nabbed his before they even knew what they wanted,” says and dish it out all day. Then I think about child- fully employed in the interim, Moss replaced fire and animal.” first kitchen job working for Chick- Chef Brian Canipelli of Cucina 24 “He was hood memories…how can I incorporate flavors Punk Wok with The Thunderbird, a six-nights-a It’s also a lesson in watching and wait- fil-A. He began cooking primarily to doing things that weren’t being done. There were that I remember?” week nostalgia-fueled notion inspired by a ho- ing. Moss is good at waiting, especially when feed himself and to impress girls. His no rules. It was wide open. Different.” In 2013, Moss ended his tenure at The tel in Florence. Here, Moss riffs on the retro it comes to opening his barbecue dream. As it Casanova hits were Italian-inspired “I knew about it [The Admiral] because a bud- Admiral, his third restaurant gig ever, with a fare one might find at an old-school Southern is with the art of cooking whole hogs, timing creations like chicken parmesan dy said there was this restaurant in West Asheville nomination by the James Beard Foundation for buffet, and elevates it. Inside The Thunderbird, is everything. made with Chick-fil-A chicken and with prison silverware and incredible food, you Best Chef: Southeast. frozen ravioli. gotta check it out,” says Mike Moore, executive chef/owner of Seven Sows and founder of The TO JAPAN AND BACK AGAIN IF YOU TASTE MOSS’ BARBECUE CAREFULLY, YOU CAN FIND WHISPERS OF THE PATH TO COOK Blind Pig Supper Club. The inward-thinking chef moved on to pursue After a move to Columbia, South Moore admits that he would dine at The new endeavors in Asheville: a Japanese-inspired [RODNEY] SCOTT’S INFLUENCE IN THE RED PEPPER-LADEN VINEGAR MOP. Carolina, Moss realized that he Admiral before he even knew Moss just to yakitori concept at Ben’s Tune-Up and a barbe- wanted to cook for a living, but watch him cook. “I saw a guy who loved what cue concept called Buxton Hill (note the one no one would hire him, a fast-food he did and did it very differently. It was ex- vowel difference between this first “Hill” and you can also find the artist brain- employee without “restaurant” ex- tremely obvious to me and profound,” says his current project “Hall”). To prepare for Ben’s storming his next project. The Ala- perience. His opportunity came in Moore. “I knew it at that very moment, that Tune-Up, Moss immersed himself in the study bama white sauce on the fried catfish 2005, when a local bar called The what I was seeing was an artist, Elliott’s own of Japanese cuisine, taking his education of Asian and grits entrée is a test run for Whig came onto the scene. By law, individuality.” flavors and techniques, particularly fermentation, Buxton Hall. the bar was required to have food. At The Admiral, Moss played with texture, to heart. After a short stint at Ben’s Tune-Up and “Elliott is a person with such a Moss approached owner Jonathan color, and the rule of odds—artists’ principles ex- an ill-fated beginning with Buxton Hill, both specific vision and child-like joy Robinson (who now owns The ecuted on the plate. He summoned, too, humble concepts fell through. with expressing his creativity,” Admiral and Ben’s Tune-Up in inspirations in order to create his own distinct When the news broke, Meherwan Irani, own- says Nate Allen, executive chef of Asheville) and asked if he could brand of Southern food; a long wait in the gro- er of Chai Pani and MG Road Cocktail Lounge Knife & Fork in Spruce Pine, who run his kitchen. “I opened the reached out. Irani and Moss discovered that they recently collaborated with Moss at kitchen with no real restaurant had been similarly thrust into the culinary scene The Thunderbird. “That boy just experience,” says Moss. “It was just from unlikely beginnings. Irani had never oper- wants fire and freedom!” MOSS' TATTOO OF PETUNIA THE PIG WAS me. I cooked the food, I ran the ated a restaurant before he opened Chai Pani MODIFIED TO HAVE food, I washed the dishes.” in 2009, and Moss had never attended culinary WAITING TO BEGIN HER HOLDING A SHOVEL Moss moved to Philadelphia school or worked under anyone.“I was always re- As he awaits the opening of Bux- next and reluctantly took a head ally impressed with his demeanor, at how quiet ton Hall later this summer, Moss chef position at a small Italian and humble he was,” says Irani, who first met continues to create, and jumps at restaurant in the neighborhood Moss through The Blind Pig circuit. every opportunity to cook a hog. HUMBLE BEGINNINGS where he lived. “I think I learned a lot about The two formed a partnership and decided to His perpetually moving mind and Moss comes from a working-class family. His myself in Philly,” says Moss. It was there, he move on a new concept inside an old skating rink deep-seeded love of barbecue pro- father is a welder and his father’s father was says, that he had the freedom to experiment in the South Slope neighborhood. They would pel him forward. a welder. “In the fifties, my father would barbe- and was first exposed to fresh vegetables.