Written by Christie Crawford
Clarksville, TN – You might recognize him with his vast array of tattoos, spiky bleached hair, and combustible personality, but you won’t forget Guy Fieri and his love for all things food. I got to experience him in 1996 when he opened up Johnny Garlic’s restaurant, an immediate hit with the Santa Rosa, CA community, where I’m from.
But it took another ten years after winning the second season of The Next Food Network Star before the whole nation took notice. His show Guy’s Big Bite, launched in 2006, became an immediate hit, and recently, he chose Clarksville to showcase the culinary talent found here.
The Big Bite show evolved in April this year to a competition among chefs in restaurants in medium to small communities around America called Best Bite in Town. Because of his hectic schedule, Fieri wanted to give air-time to his friend and celebrity host Noah Cappe to scope out “some killer small-town dishes.” Guy and his producers vet locations to select restaurants.
The chefs themselves don’t know exactly how they are selected. It may be that a customer has emailed the show, or the restaurant itself personally may have contacted the show, but what is clear, Guy says, is the establishment must have “food, story, and character,” with scratch cooking an essential part of the formula.
The process begins with producers contacting the restaurants during a series of interviews with recipes and food photos submitted. As expected, there is a lot of skepticism and hesitancy as the chefs may not know where the final destination of the submittals is or whether the process will truly develop into a show. The interviews begin 14 months in advance of airing, and actual filming is about eight months before the show’s debut. All this is done with sworn secrecy.
Once the restaurants have been selected, national guest host chefs called the Bite Club are selected by Cappe, who select two items to try from each site. Then, the host chefs nominate three restaurants, putting up one dish for competition. The winner receives $5,000 for the restaurant and an additional $5,000 for a charity of choice.
Clarksville’s Six Big Bite contestants with selected menu items were:
- Four Brothers Pizza Margherita Pizza/BokBok It Like It’s Hot Pizza
- Legends Smokehouse & Grill Black Mamba Burger w/ Sweet Blueberry BBQ Sauce/
Pork n’ Roll - B’s Cheesecakes Caramel Praline/Raspberry White Chocolate Moscato/ Banana Pudding Cheesecakes
- Cafe 931 Queso Birria tacos/ Biscuits and Gravy burrito
- Taco Loco Jerk Chicken Tacos/Spicy Thai Steak Taco
- Yada on Franklin Italian Sausage Bolognese pasta/Tiramisu
Guest hosts that selected the dishes were:
Tiffany Faison: (based in Boston, James Beard and Top Chef finalist – her restaurant Sweet Cheeks Q was named Boston’s Best Barbecue). Faison visited Four Brothers Pizza and Legends Smokehouse.
Noah Cappe: (Canadian actor and TV host- star of Food Network’s Carnival Eats) Cappe visited B’s Cheesecakes and Cafe 931.
Jet Tila: (Celebrity chef and author – Tila has Asian-themed restaurants in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Henderson, NV, and was recently named Culinary Ambassador for Thailand). Tila visited Taco Loco and Yada on Franklin.
The competition culminated in a showdown with three restaurants/items: Four Brothers Pizza’s BokBok It Like It’s Hot pizza, Cafe 931’s Biscuits and Gravy burrito, and Yada on Franklin’s Tiramisu, competing for the top prize.
The dishes were presented to a separate panel of judges at Downtown Commons. Judges were Hunter Fieri, Guy’s son and TV celebrity on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (known as the Triple D), Maneet Chauhan, Culinary Institue of America graduate and Nashville restaurateur, Pat Martin from Martin’s BBQ – a multi-state barbecue empire including six locations in Middle TN, and Star Maye, Chopped champion, and owner of Anzie Blue restaurant in Nashville.
The winner was Yada on Franklin’s Tiramisu. $5,000 was awarded to the establishment. The other $5,000 was donated to the Urban Ministries Safe House program. If you have any inkling why these dishes were chosen, it’s because they had a Southern bent to them.
Four Brothesr’s pizza selection is created with Nashville Hot Chicken sauce, roasted chicken, spicy chicken sausage, pickle, and cheddar cheese, topped with a seasoning that adds even more heat. Cafe 931’s burrito contains homemade biscuits and gravy with sausage, and Yada on Franklin’s tiramisu includes Tennessee sipping cream in their dessert. The cream is a spin on Irish cream with charcoal-aged Tennessee whiskey, a key ingredient.
Although the show aired live on May 3rd, you can still view the Clarksville and other town episodes streaming on Max/Hulu. If you’re wondering what impact the show has made on the restaurants, Cafe 931’s owner, Claudia Oakes, says that “it was an amazing experience.” The Saturday after the show aired, she planned on doubling her business but instead ran out in just over 2 hours of opening. She stated that Midwesterners on their way to and from Florida stopped by to try the nominated dishes as well as others. Oakes, as a child, remembers cooking at home, pretending to be her cooking idol Rachel Ray, and says that it has been a dream come true.
I’ve had the fortune of trying five of the six restaurants, and I challenge you to try them as well. No matter who was crowned or made the finals, Clarksville can take a bow and say that its culinary talent has not gone unnoticed.
