Let's Go Back to The Old South in Russellville.

The last of a great restaurant chain that began in 1947, Russellville's venerable Old South Restaurant still offers a steady, sturdy diner experience today.

The 50 Best Arkansas Burgers I Tried in 2011.

I eat a LOT of burgers.  I write about them, too.  I feature one each week in my Burger Joint of the Week piece for Eat Arkansas, the Arkansas Times blog for food lovers.  I write about burgers inside and outside of Arkansas for Serious Eats:  A Hamburger Today.  And in general, I just like burgers.  They are the quintessential American sandwich.

He Came To Arkansas.

Chef Lee Richardson left New Orleans for Little Rock… and decided to make Central Arkansas his home.

Lee Richardson is not an imposing man. He is not intimidating. The quietly spoken guy in chef’s whites does seem more focused and determined than the average individual, like one of those golf greats taking care of business on the course.

Richardson’s home court is the five kitchens of The Capital Hotel in downtown Little Rock. These self-designed kitchens produce the amazing four-star dining delights of Ashley’s; the top notch everyman’s grub at Capital Bar and Grill; amazing cakes and pastries for big to-dos and plate dinner service for functions in the hotel’s parlors and ballrooms and meals for hotel room service.

I sat down to talk with the chef one Friday afternoon in June. He was in the process of setting up a big outdoor dinner at the Historical Arkansas Museum a couple of blocks away. While we were talking my photographer was in the back, shooting food while the team worked on a meal that would be served to a hundred people in near-100 degree heat. The meal was less than two hours away, yet Chef Richardson was as cool as a cucumber. This is a guy who has his ducks in a row.

“So I have to ask,” I started, “why are you in Little Rock?”

For a moment there was an odd grin that came through the stern discipline that Richardson exudes. The question seemed amusing.

“Well, there was Katrina. It required Katrina to come up here in the first place, and without that I might not have gone away from New Orleans.”

Richardson was Chef de Cuisine at John Besh’s famed Restaurant August in the Crescent City when Katrina struck. He’d started his career with a traditional apprenticeship at Emeril Lagasse’s NOLA and moved on to ventures with Chefs Kevin Graham and Anne Kearney. He departed for a two year stint in North Carolina before returning to New Orleans.

“After the hurricane, John (Besh) and Viking pushed me towards this place. The Stephens Family tagged on to help. They’ve been very helpful.

“When I arrived, I saw a lot of good things. I met Jody Hardin and saw what he was doing. Jody shared products from all over the state -- strawberries, chicken, lamb, eggs, Honeysuckle Lane cheese. I wanted to use these things. There was Peter Brave’s shrimp when he was working that operation. There was War Eagle Mill grains. These things were all part of the state. Coming here allowed me to see that it was here -- everything a chef needs.”

“Arkansas is perfect. It’s not just another part of The South.”

The persuasion worked. Richardson moved his family to Cammack Village and started working with the Stephens family to build up the restaurants that would mark The Capital Hotel as a destination for dining.

“The generosity of the Stephens family provided the opportunity to do something special. When I got here, the hotel had been gutted. They got plans, they had ideas of what they wanted to do. Three months after I got here those plans were discarded and we started anew.”

Richardson outlined what he needed and wanted. He took an integral part in designing not just the rebuild on the kitchen for Ashley’s but in the expansion of the kitchen for Capital Bar and Grill and the addition of three smaller kitchens that service the large meeting spaces on the first and second floors.

The restaurants opened in November 2007 to a lot of noise and commotion from the old stalwarts of Arkansas foodery. There were some comments on the update of Ashley’s, but soon both restaurants fell into good favor with customers and the media. Richardson’s New Americana cuisine took off and became an instant classic.

The chef had an idea of what sort of direction he wanted to take with the restaurant, but it took time to determine what would actually make it on the menu.

“I really didn’t have a menu as such in mind until right when we opened. What were the signature things going to be? They pop up, they develop, they happen. Like pimento cheese and soda crackers in lieu of bread and butter. We decided we had to have bar snacks to give away. At the start we were doing the smoked pecans as our giveaway and selling the fried black-eyed peas. We turned that around later.

“What I wanted here was a sense of place. To pull that off, we had to learn what this place was about. In our kitchens, everything is handcrafted. All meat is hand cut, hand ground. We do everything -- fish cooking, baking, chocolate work, soup, smoking -- we feed our staffs with an in-house soup kitchen.”

“You make everything,” I asked.

“Everything, except the hamburger buns -- which we just can’t make any better than what we get -- and the French bread, which is flown in from New Orleans.”

“I can understand that… but why do you make pickles?”

“I make pickles because I like to make acid,” Richardson said.

That gave me a laugh.

Richardson’s dedication to local food doesn’t just stop with local. He also believes in the seasonality of produce. What’s fresh is likely to be what’s on the menu. For instance, on that particular June day strawberry fried pies were one of the special dessert items at Capital Bar and Grill. You won’t see a strawberry any other time of the year, though -- at least, not a fresh one. And certainly not a chocolate covered one. As Richardson tells it, that can get under the skin of some customers.

“I won’t let people have chocolate covered strawberries for New Year’s Eve or Valentine’s Day. Covering a strawberry in hard chocolate and freezing it is a horrible thing to do to a strawberry. Now, a little warm dark chocolate?” That grin, again.

What’s in the future, then? The chef says he hopes the chefs that will train under him will go out and begin their own restaurants and spread the quality he’s been able to achieve at The Capital Hotel. But to bring more attention to the cause, it’s going to take an effort that will reach far from Arkansas. “We’re going to have to make a big splash nationally. Then we can get Arkansas on board with what we’re doing here.

“Historical relevance is so important to our past. We are trying to get back to the land, and continue to lose our culture. Cooking local means cooking Southern. Southern food is humble. In New Orleans, the soul and heart goes into found things. Ideas about cooking there and here came about in a different time when people had help in the kitchen. More cooking happened. We got away from that, but food has to form that way. I feel pretty sure that this generation of parents are concerned about food, and more parents are sharing that experience with their children.”

The chef’s wife and daughter are flourishing in the new environment. Richardson says he’s planting roots here, that Arkansas has become his home.

“Arkansas could have been a place to just fall off the map. But I‘m doing good. I like it here.”

I have to say, I’ve met a lot of chefs in this job. Richardson has a spark I’ve seen in only a very few. He’s highly analytical, able to separate the emotion from the act of cooking when it comes down to brass tacks. You can still see the amazement in his face when he talks about food finds. But you can also tell he thinks about every portion of the meal, from meat to condiments, side dishes to dessert. He has a sense of balance and proportion. Little Rock is lucky to have him.

Caribe, A Love Story.

Building on the love you share with someone can be one of the greatest experiences of your life. But what happens when one part of that equation is lost?

The transported goodness of Steffey's Pizza.

Arkansas is blessed with a lot of good pizzas... some with a cracker crust (U.S. Pizza Company, Iriana's), some with a biscuit crust (Rod's Pizza Cellar), some Napolitan style (Za Za) and some with their own spin on Chicago (Damgoode Pies).  But I have recently followed some good recommendations to a little place in Lavaca, AR that serves up an incredibly good pizza... which could be the best in Arkansas.

The place:  Steffey's Pizza.  The pie: the Uncle Roman, a double-crusted stuffed pie baked in a 12” cast iron skillet.

Steffey’s Pizza was born in Pennsylvania in 1963, where it enjoyed some success.  But for whatever reason, business started falling off or whatever, the Steffey’s decided to pick up and move to Arkansas in 1981 and try business there.  They didn’t move to any of our major cities but to a little community outside Barling that saw little to no traffic.

It started out in a location west of the current store before being moved downtown where it thrived for a couple of decades.  The new store has been open for about three years now.  It’s clean and homey with four big pizza ovens exposed in the kitchen that’s right in front of you when you walk in the door.  There’s a game room with a pool table, old fashion Horwitzer jukebox (that plays for free) and arcade to the left, and a dining room featuring tables lit with lights ensconced in cheese graters to the right.

The store’s now run by the Steffey’s daughter Lee Ann, and while I was in there I noticed her daughter come in with a friend for a knosh.  The waitresses are all friendly and companionable and full of answers to crazy questions.  And up on one wall there’s the original Steffey’s price marquee with the original prices. 

There are so many pizzas available at Steffey’s with all sorts of toppings.  There are sandwiches, big sub sandwiches baked in the ovens.  There are nachos and breadsticks and salads.  But all these paled compared to that one specially featured

pie in the middle of the menu.


There’s just one size for the Uncle Roman, and you choose the toppings ($18.95 for one or two, $20.95 for three or four, $22.95 for more or a specialty) .  This pie was ordered up with ground beef, mushrooms, a provolone-Cheddar mix and roasted red bell peppers.  The sauce inside was light.  The cheeses glued top and bottom crust together, and both crusts were brushed on the outside with butter and Parmesan cheese and maybe a little cornmeal. 

The surface of the top crust was crunchy and hearty, not soggy or tacky in any way.  It almost crackled under the fork (this is without a doubt a fork-full pizza), the nicely cooked mushrooms and peppers giving way under the fork without hinderance.  The beef is well spiced, too. 

Egads, I have a new favorite pie… this deep-dish monster is over an inch thick, and the more I ate the more I liked it.  I even tried it with both the offered condiments; the parmesan cheese was good as expected, but the ranch dressing offered was a completely separate and strange experience I could totally get behind, creating an almost sandwich-like flavor.

I bet if you wanted ranch dressing instead of red sauce you could get it.  Different offerings on the menu include barbecue sauce, mustard and olive oil as options.

Steffey’s Pizza really differs from Arkansas pizzas in one very specific way.  The crust is not a cracker crust.  It’s not a biscuit crust, either… it’s almost a flatbread, yeasty but barely so with such a nice flavor, like the outer crust of a French bread loaf.  I look forward to going back and trying a traditional pie at some point.

There wasn’t even a hope of that on this visit.  I managed to eat a quarter of it and was pushing it at that -- I wanted nothing more than a nap after that.  Which is a shame, because Steffey’s offers chocolate covered cannoli for $1.69 each ($3 for 2) and they looked perfect -- sweet but small, about all someone could likely manage after being overcome by the Uncle Roman.

You’ll find Steffey’s on the west side of Lavaca on the main drag, across from the sno-cone place and east of the Y intersection of Highways 96 and 255 at 627 West Main.   They’re open 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and it’s closed on Sunday.  (479) 674-2300.

P.S.  It was even better the next day.

Bonnie's in the Delta.

When is a burger joint not a burger joint? When it’s the heartbeat of a community. I found a place in Watson that serves as the lunch plate of a whole town.

First discovered it while traveling in the Arkansas/Mississippi River Delta this past summer, on my way out to Rohwer. It looked inviting, with its Coca Cola banner over the front porch and plenty of cars out front. But I’d just eaten breakfast and was not quite ready for lunch. I bookmarked it for a later visit.

So come March, I’m preparing a trip to New Orleans and decide that it was time to take that side-route and check out the little place facing the railroad track on Highway 1.

My traveling companion and I dropped in around 10:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning with an appetite. The lone woman in the kitchen told us to sit wherever we liked.

I never did ask her if she was Bonnie. She didn’t look at us like we were crazy when we took photos and we didn’t bother her none. She came over and offered us a choice of breakfast or lunch. There was no menu, just an ancient board on the wall that appeared to have gathered dust and yellow. Ever on my burger quest, I asked for a regular burger. My companion went for the lunch special. Our hostess brought us massive Mason jars of beverage and we quietly waited while she went to the back and got things started.

The day’s average patrons dribbled through… too early for a full lunch but not too early for pickups. A guy the hostess called Lee came through the doors. Before he was halfway across to the register at the back she started to holler. “Mayo and ketchup, right?” He nodded, and she continued “fries ain’t done yet, it’ll be a few.” Lee gave her a nod and a gesture and went out front to sit on one of the two van benches located to either side of the front door.

“So how long have you been here?” I asked across the room.

“About 25 years now,” she hollered back, continuing to work on our meals.

A younger lady, perhaps my age, came through the doors and entered the middle of a conversation. I caught “she done died up in the hills. She was 96 years old, never did have no kids.”

I looked back out front where Lee was waiting. I saw him get up and turn to come inside. The hostess met him halfway across the room with a couple of white sacks. He nodded and turned out. I have no idea if any money was exchanged. Probably was when I wasn’t looking.

I’d no more than jotted down a few notes about the exchange when our lunches arrived. My companion’s lunch special was a smothered country fried steak, potatoes and Great Northern beans, the former two doused in a somewhat thin brown gravy, all of it steamy and smelling like a country kitchen. The beefsteak was crunchy and fork-tender, lovingly and lightly spiced with salt and pepper and maybe a little seasoning salt, a generous hand-sized portion about half an inch thick. The potatoes were hand-mashed. And the beans?

I had to get some beans myself. I don’t do that much. But these were slow cooked buttery Great Northerns and I couldn’t help myself. I snuck several off my companion’s plate. Our hostess noticed this when she came out to bring a hunk of cornbread and a biscuit to go with my companion’s meal. She brought me back a bowl of my own to savor.

Not that I needed more food. The third-of-a-pound flat-smashed patty on my burger was crusty from the griddle and glued to the top bun by a single slice of American cheese. It was a classic American burger, pickles right up under the meat, a generous helping of white onion ringlets, tomato slices and a leaf of iceberg lettuce above the bottom bun. It had the sort of flavor you’d get at a drive-in restaurant. I approved.

My companion had been delivered a layered biscuit and a hunk of yellow cornbread… which I confiscated for use with my beans. It was that right blend of yellow cornmeal with its natural sweetness, butter and little else, no added sugar to intefere with the bean consumption. I approve.

Our hostess came out and asked about dessert -- both of us first refused, but she told us she’d bring us a small piece. She returned with something I haven’t seen in ages -- a corner slice of buttermilk cake, just like the sort of cake I could find at any family gathering growing up in south Arkansas. It was a basic butter cake, almost a pound-a cake (a pound-a this, a pound-a that), with a little tang from the buttermilk and just the slightest hint of cinnamon. It made my day.

We couldn’t eat it all, and asked for something to take the cake with us. A piece of plastic wrap over a bowl sufficed, and we were shortly on our way.  I have no idea how much everything actually cost -- our ticket was $11.34 but that included that big lunch special, my burger and two drinks.  Who knows?

Bonnie’s really isn’t the sort of place you’re going to find on an average trip. You have to be going to Watson or somewhere close by to even find the place. The only other places in town we found where you could purchase anything were a liquor store and a small convenience grocery in a mobile home. There’s not even a gas station. Towns like Watson tend to blow away without an anchor.

I suspect Bonnie’s is that anchor, and I’m glad to see such a place survive and thrive, serving up good home cookin’ and the like. I must make another stop there for breakfast some time when I am back in that neck of the woods. Else I should make a special trip.

Bonnie’s is open Monday through Saturday 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Like all good country restaurants on backroads, it’s closed on Sunday. (870) 644-3345.

Architectural and Culinary Restoration at The Grand View Hotel.

Ever just have a dream you want to follow? Ever been brave enough to follow that dream? Alexander Virden has been following dreams for a while. His latest dream could change the face of downtown Berryville.

Virden used to work on oil rigs off the Louisiana coast. He lived in Algier’s Point, just a ferry ride from New Orleans’ French Quarter. Injuries forced him to leave his job as a diver, but he continued on by working to restore homes here and there.
Virden did eventually leave Louisiana, setting off in an RV and just driving where he felt. Something made him stop at Berryville, and that’s where his roaming ceased.

“I asked about this building,” he told me one Saturday afternoon during a late lunch. “I asked about this big building, and no one could remember what it was. I said “you know that building between that little shop and the post office? And people had just ignored it.”

That building was the old Grand View Hotel. It started off life as the Saint George Hotel back in 1902. Though it received an auspicious start with a gala dance in its grand ballroom, the property passed through a number of hands in its first decade. M.M. Hoagland added the balconies and porches to it shortly after he took it over in 1910. Mr. & Mrs. L.C. Smith bought the place in 1926 and renamed it The Grand View Hotel.

Dr. John H. Bohannan bought the hotel in 1943... He eventually added the commercial spaces in front of the hotel for more revenue. But by the early 70s the hotel was closed.

It was purchased in 1984 by Phillis and Carl Loehr, who attempted a massive reconstruction of the building but were unable to finish. It sat fallow for the better part of two decades, gathering bird droppings and an amazing amount of stored away junk. “You couldn’t walk straight through anywhere,” Virden told me. “You’d have to turn sideways. To get through this dining room there was a path from here to the hall. There was scaffolding, there was stuff packed all the way up to the scaffolding and then stuff on top of it. On the stairs it was packed so tight you only had a path just wide enough to go up or down. We hauled out more than 250 cubic yards of junk.”

“We” in this case would be Virden and his partner, Sandra Doss. While we were there for lunch we heard muted noised from the kitchen where she was working. I got the impression she was very shy.

Virden’s dream when he saw the hotel was to refurbish it - not just as a potential hotel but as an art space. He wants to encourage the arts in the small town. He also owns a space down the street, Ozarts.org, 2900 square feet of gallery space and kitchen for local artists. Unfortunately thanks to all the demands and a slow economy he may have to part with that artspace soon.

The hotel, though, had so many possibilities. There are 14 rooms with ensuite baths above the first floor, still in the renovation process but so much further along than they were when Virden first bought the place in November 2005. On the fourth floor there’s a grand open space Virden hopes to utilize as event space -- a large area with its own kitchen that might host artists receptions, weddings and the like. The rooms could be let to artists in residence, possibly. Possibilities seem to be the order of the day at the hotel.

But the main focus these past three years has been on the restaurant. 302 on the Square is part of Virden’s dream -- not just as part of his hotel complex but to finance the completion of the renovations. It’s a time consuming effort, running an eatery -- and it’s eaten into time for actually working on the hotel. But it’s also a labor of love.

The recipes at 302 on the Square are family recipes. The restaurant itself is billed as a “Cajun-American” eatery. “We do the American favorites, hamburger and hot dogs. And we do the kind of food I know from Louisiana, the red beans and rice and stuff.”

I’ve dropped into the 302 before, a couple of summers ago while headed to Eureka Springs. I was taken by a singular dish, the South Carolina Strawberries & Cream ($4.50), only available when strawberries are in season. The marinated berries and heavy cream were served up over a hot flaky biscuit rather than the expected shortcake. The saltiness of that biscuit balanced perfect with the sweetness of the cream and the tart of the berries. It had made an impression upon me.

We dined at the 302 this particular Saturday on many of the eatery’s signature items. We started with simple Grand View Salads ($1.50/$3/$5 based on size), a nice mixture of green leaf lettuce, spinach, red onion, tomato and cheese with a choice of dressings. I went for a simple balsamic vinaigrette and was pleased.

What came out next though was something I can only describe as a momento of my childhood. The dish, listed on the menu as Louisiana Chicken and Gravy ($7.50), was straight out of my grandmother’s recipe book. The thick skillet pepper gravy, smothered free range chicken (all the restaurant’s poultry comes from Little Portion), that flavor of homemade poultry seasoning and a little thyme and butter, all served over a mound of extra long grain rice… that’s the sort of thing that will take me back. It was exactly what I remembered, very warm and hearty and peppery and… I lost myself in the dish. I really did. I took some of the gravy and ladled it onto a piece of the flaky biscuit that comes with the dish. This is the sort of thing that should be well preserved. This.

My dining companion’s selection was the Authentic Cajun Red Beans and Rice with Andouille Sausage ($7.50), served up with a sweet corn muffin. This too was served over the long rice. The roux in the dish was evidently perfect, a gravy-thick base to the substantial heft of the beans and the salty well-seasoned Andouille.

By themselves, the beans wouldn’t have been seasoned enough and the sausage would have been overwhelming. Together they were perfect.

The cornmeal muffin, yellow cornmeal, was sweet but not so very sweet as to be Northerly offensive. A pat of real butter made it even softer. Very nice.

Of course, being a restaurant in Arkansas there was of course a Reuben sandwich. This one ($6 served with kettle chips) was one of the better examples I’ve encountered. The sliced corned beef is tender and cut against the grain so that it falls apart in your mouth.

I liked the variation of chopped slaw -- which made it far easier to get a good bite out of the sandwich without mess. The dressing was tangy, and the Swiss cheese was more than ample -- a definite contender to the sandwich rather than an accompaniment or afterthought, a mistake many make with their Reubens. The very soft marbled rye was a nice touch.

And then came the catfish. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of fried catfish. It’s too often done badly -- whether from improper cleaning or a badly chosen source. I just usually don’t order it. But here, I was happy with it.

The batter was light but thoroughly seasoned with salt and pepper, a cornmeal batter that wasn’t overdone. And the fish itself… it… it was clean and flaky and properly cooked, good enough for me to convert.

The catfish is new on the menu… it wasn’t there when I’d made my previous trip. Just another branching out for Virden and Doss. “We get our catfish from Mississippi,” Virden told me. “We make sure it’s clean. That’s a family recipe we use for it.”

The hush puppies that come along with it are yellow cornmeal orbs with chunks of white onion and a little sweetness to them, an inch and a half in diameter. I’d consider the hush puppies and fish to best be eaten with the terrific green tomato relish offered with them… but then again, I love tomato pickles like this. That’s what I grew up on. My dining companion was not as convinced, preferring a little cocktail sauce with his fish.

There were French fries, and they were decent -- but then there was the coleslaw. I am used to coleslaw either being crunchy or very soft, and if it’s crunchy there’s a real lack of flavor to it. Not here. Somehow or another Doss has managed to make this a worthy coleslaw. “She makes it all up in small batches,” Virden told me. “She cuts up the cabbage and stuff and makes up the dressing separately, and she only combines them a little bit at a time as we go along.” It works. The crunchy vegetation is matched with a sweet and creamy dressing that doesn’t have any hint of staleness to it.

And then there was dessert. While strawberries were undoubtedly out of season, there were other options on the menu -- including several ice cream treats. One of the desserts we sampled was The Grand View Brownie Bar ($2.50, an additional $1.75 a la mode). This long brownie was topped with a thick chocolate frosting, and there was just about as much chocolate inside. It’s a smack-your-lips chocolate concentration. The premium vanilla ice cream comes from nearby Highland Dairy.

I forgot about the brownie (until I looked at the notes and photos) once I tried the Dang Good Pie ($3.50, a la mode for $1.75 more). The recipe comes from a friend, whose grandmother's grandmother had it in her collection. Five generations back, a recipe dating back to the 19th century… and well now. We’re talking about a pineapple-coconut pie. My first thought when I tasted it was how buttery it was. It was very much like pineapple upside down cake -- but with coconut. It was almost meaty in texture, with such a strong and delicious brown sugar flavor to it. The crust was handmade, too, unsweetened butter crust nice and crisp, with a little dotting of whipped cream to top it off. I loved this pie. This is one of the best pies I have ever had in Arkansas. And it’s generational. Wow.

It was an impressive meal -- especially for lunch -- and much of it went back with us as leftovers.

There’s far more work to be done on the hotel. Virden’s next project is to complete the renovation of the Garden Room on the back of the first level and to add a small greenhouse off the back so he and Doss can start growing their own herbs and vegetables to use in the restaurant. That’s going to be quite a bit of work, but I’m sure they’ll manage.

I enjoyed the chance to sit down with Alexander Virden but lamented one thing. This was the second time I’d attempted to make it up on a Friday night, but both times snow on the roads had postponed my trip. I have to go back -- and probably will -- come this April or May. I have to go enjoy the Hootenanny.

That’s right, every Friday night starting at 7pm local musicians come in and jam the way the hollows around these parts have been jammed for more than a century -- with good local folk music played on local instruments. I want to hear the hoot and holler and kick back with a sing-along or two. This experience will have to wait for another time, sadly. Seems I keep bringing snow to north Arkansas this year.

There is more you can learn about The Grand View Hotel… on the website documenting its rebirth. You can also find a complete menu for 302 on the Square and start planning for your next run through town. I doubt you’ll be disappointed. Both can be found on the Berryville Square. For more information you can call (870) 654-3952.