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TennesseanIn what came as sudden news to the local restaurant community, Watermark executive chef Joe Shaw and owner Jerry Brown agreed to part ways this morning. Brown said he didn't have an immediate replacement lined up, but that he had a strong team in place and that the restaurant was in a "good place for them to carry on." "It came down to a difference in food styles," said Shaw from his home. "I was very vocal and deliberate in my commitment, and not afraid to put myself in the fray."
Shaw says he would like to remain in Nashville, and that the market for upscale casual dining here is wide open. Editor's note: Watermark was named one of, Tennessean dining critic Jim Myers' favorite restuarants in an article last week, based priimarily on the culinary vision of chef Shaw.
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Chef Joe Shaw had left the popular Watermark restaurant in the Gulch surprised a lot of people. Both sides say the split was amicable.
Owner Jerry Brown says Shaw's initial term of employment was two years. Now that it's up, both parties wanted to move on. Brown says the Watermark style of cuisine was developed before Shaw came on board. He also stresses continuity, with Nathan Lindley remaining as general manager. (It was Lindley, a veteran of Southern cuisine guru Frank Stitt's operations in Birmingham, Ala., who recruited Shaw, another Stitt protégé.)
"Joe has been a big part of our success," Brown says, but he adds "Watermark was never designed as a one-person-focused organization."
Brown praises the restaurant's entire 60-person staff, including Lindley, beverage manager Justin Maestas,chef de cuisine Sean Norton, sous chef Tom Cruise, pastry chef Sam Tucker and kitchen manager Bernardo Ramirez, who supervises the day staff that cooks up all the broths and bases for Watermark's sauces.
Shaw, meanwhile, says, "Jerry and I came to a very amicable decision. . . . I'm presently looking in the downtown area to do something on my own." He says he has checked out several potential restaurant sites and is working on lining up investors.
He's also getting to know Nashville a little better, having moved here from Birmingham and immediately plunged into work at Watermark. "For two years, I've spent 90 percent of my time in that restaurant or my apartment," he says, laughing.
Once he gets his own restaurant, what will he be cooking? "Primarily, the food I love is Southern," he says. "Around the rest of the U.S., Southern food is the hot cuisine. In the South, it's still the guilty pleasure. . . . I'm really excited to get into some really historic Southern foods, and doing that with the highest standards of integrity and presentation."
Shaw says, "Jerry and I came to a very amicable decision. . . . I'm presently looking in the downtown area to do something on my own." He says he has checked out several potential restaurant sites and is working on lining up investors. Once he gets his own restaurant, what will he be cooking? "Primarily, the food I love is Southern," he says. "I'm really excited to get into some really historic Southern foods, and doing that with the highest standards of integrity and presentation."
