The Catbird Seat - Where Everyone Knows Your Name
I have worked in the food and beverage industry for 17 years in every capacity from bussing tables to consulting. I have dined at countless restaurants in France, Italy, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, and all over the United States from dive bars to 3 Michelin Stars. Yet, the single greatest bite of food I have ever had came from Midtown Nashville at a restaurant called The Catbird Seat.
The Catbird Seat is a tiny place with presence. Once greeted outside the discreet-looking wooden door, guests are led into an elevator and up to the second floor where you step through the looking glass and into the world beyond. Ask many who live here, however, and the reaction isn’t always pleasant––a fact that continues to take me by surprise. Chef Ryan Poli and Beverage Director Matthew Poli are no strangers to this particular stigma. He says, “People think it’s hoity-toity and it’s pretentious and it’s impossible to get into and it’s expensive. But, when you’re looking at a 10-course tasting menu in any other city, you’re paying close to $1,000 for it. This constant uphill battle with people––trying to break these misconceptions that they have––we’re just trying to serve good food and drinks. We’re conscious that a lot of people have been saving up and that this is expensive for [some]…we don’t want people to pay out the nose for things but there’s a cost that comes into what we’re doing.” A meal at The Catbird Seat will run you $125 in advance, plus tax and an automatic 20% gratuity. Beverage pairings––both with alcohol and without––are available for purchase once seated for your reservation. A modest price for the number of courses, quality of food, and the skilled hands preparing it. Reservations are released 30 days prior on their website, and I, for one, have never had a problem securing one.
Beyond these facts, The Catbird Seat is simply a place people should want to go because it feels good to be there. The 22-seat, u-shaped bar serves as a kind of communal table, bringing people together from all over to share and participate in a one of a kind dining experience. Each guest sitting down in a front row seat to the pearly gates of the art of food and beverage. The offerings at The Catbird are top notch, creative, modern, and innovative, yet the atmosphere takes hospitality back to its roots––where the food delivered to you comes from the hands of those who prepared it. Chef Poli’s entire philosophy is based around this concept. He says, “I think in the restaurant industry we’re really getting away from being hospitable to people and serving people food and welcoming them into a place where they can feel comfortable and they can forget about their problems for a while. This shift happened, where it became about the TV Chef and the cooking shows and what list you’re on. It really became about the Chefs as rock stars, and we forgot about the people that were coming into the restaurants and wanted to experience it. I feel like it’s still happening and what I really wanted to get back to…is a place where people can walk in and they feel like they’re walking into mom’s house for Thanksgiving.” Like mom’s, the entire staff greets you as you walk to the table, speaks to you individually, and bids you a friendly goodbye. You leave feeling warmed from the inside and like a part of The Catbird Seat family. “Little things like that…. That’s what makes The Catbird special.” With a current trend in restaurants of old style and traditions being the “new” new, The Catbird sure fits the bill.
After looking for places in both Chicago and Denver to start their own place and “nothing ever [feeling] right”, the Polis found a perfect fit at The Catbird Seat here in Nashville. Ryan and Matthew are brothers, each masters of their craft in their own right. Sitting down with them and their resumes, you would expect an intimidating experience. Instead it’s refreshing––a giant swig of mouthwash from the all too commonly found, stagnant, well-rehearsed, stale bread fed to us by many industry pros these days. Each toting a staggering honesty and intensity about their craft and guests' experience, as well as a shared, pure, genuine heart in their hospitality. Perhaps it is due to their relation that they offer up the same warmth, but it sure translates to both the food and beverage aspects of the restaurant. They explain, “We’re friends first. That brings a lot of barriers down when we’re working in the restaurant. There’s a lot of ego that gets pushed aside that you would run into with just working with someone you don’t know or someone you don’t trust.”
Hyper-conscious in their intention in all things, nothing goes unnoticed. But when asked about the motivations behind his work, Chef looks me directly in the eye and, in a moment of near vulnerability states something jarring. “I don’t think I love cooking. I think I love entertaining.” Well, there’s a first time for everything. Chef Ryan goes on to say, “It goes back to my mom. The older I get, I get more nostalgic about my mom. [The way she entertained] stuck with me my whole cooking career. And then when I met someone like Thomas Keller, whose uber detail orientated, those two worlds collided. This foundation that I had from my mom of entertaining and cleaning and being organized––she would have a prep list before I even knew what a prep list was––and then you meet Thomas Keller who shows you how to label and date something and shows you how to put something away and condense something and keep your station organized...putting those things together. That’s what I love to do.” Ryan refers to each and every cook in the kitchen as “Chef”––showing they are all on the same level. Big words coming from a guy whose professional accolades are too many to list off, only further accentuating his unfailingly humble nature.
Matthew is unassuming and matter-of-fact about each thing he touches that is pure magic and sorcery to everyone else. In a moment of good-natured sibling jealousy, Chef Ryan states, “Matthew can taste something once and he can rolodex it and pull it out years later. It’s infuriating.” And his talent spreads farther than alcohol. I’ve become quite partial to sitting with a friend and ordering one alcoholic beverage pairing and one non-alcoholic pairing in order to sample them both with each course. Fascinating ingredients continuously make their way into Matthew’s non-alcoholic fare. Items I’ve rarely, if ever, seen in a beverage program––from beet shrub to mushroom dashi. Having spent a good amount of my career studying mixology myself, I jump at the chance to pick his brain.
Matthew imparts his wisdom, “It starts with the alcohol; deconstructing the flavors that you find in the alcohol and trying to recreate them in organic form. It’s actually helped me immensely to understand alcohol a lot more, as backwards as that sounds. When re-creating in non-alcoholic form…. What are we tasting? How do we find those in nature? How do we blend them together without being so one dimensional with just adding juices and syrups? So it starts there, just breaking down those flavors and trying to find them in organic form and recreate them as best we can.”
Currently on the beverage pairing menu is a beer course. What does Matthew have in store as the other option? A house-made, non-alcoholic beer, of course! “He made beer…. By not making beer,” Chef Ryan laughs. I think it’s safe to say we’ve reached the next level here. But for Matthew, this shouldn’t be uncommon. He elucidates, “You accommodate for dietary restrictions and allergies for people––why wouldn’t you accommodate for people who don’t drink? It never clicked in my brain. I never understood why it’s always an after-thought for people. We’re supposed to be so hospitable and we’re supposed to be welcoming to everybody… Why would you miss the mark on that? For me, it’s always been the hospitality aspect that everybody feels like they can participate and nobody’s missing out. People don’t drink for all kinds of reasons and I feel like the industry––we’re missing out on those aspects of what true hospitality is.”
As for the food menu, the brothers acknowledge, “there’s a huge misconception that we change the menu every day.” In reality, menu items are constantly evolving––a singular dish sometimes ending up in several iterations over the course of multiple months by the time it’s retired. When asked about his inspiration, Chef responds, “I don’t know where the ideas come from. I’d like to say that I sit up all night and concoct these things or I have a dream about it…. The seasons bring food and the chefs have ideas…. It’s an open dialog for creativity amongst the chefs. Nobody’s idea is ever squashed. Everybody comes to the table with ideas. When we’re tasting the dishes everybody in the whole restaurant is involved. Matthew, myself, all the cooks, the dishwasher, Andrea the Server Assistant…. Everybody’s opinion matters because everyone in the restaurant represents the cliental that we get––the world traveler, the cook, someone that’s eaten in a lot of restaurants, someone that doesn’t eat anything at all, someone that’s very picky, someone that’s from Nashville…it’s our cliental. It’s not ‘here’s a new dish; this is what we’re doing’. It’s ‘what do you think?' [When there’s a new menu], the staff gets excited, we give the dish to Matthew and he tastes it and pairs wine with it, and then we all taste the wine and it’s like, 'Kumbaya, let’s do this! Here we are.' You know? This is Catbird.”
The Catbird Seat is an American expression meaning the upper hand. Ryan Poli only worries about the best foot. He says, “We’re really hard on ourselves when we change a menu. If it’s not perfect in our eyes, we’re not going to serve it to someone…. [It has to be] amazing––from textures to flavors to seasoning to presentation…. In my mind, everything has to be 100% our best foot forward. Everybody is confident––Matthew’s confident in the wine that he’s serving with it––here’s the new dish.”
As the rapid rise in cooking shows has shown us, watching your food be prepared is fascinating to witness. The Catbird Seat brings an experience usually reserved for television or hibachi establishments to a fine dining atmosphere and outfits it with honest to goodness kindness and frivolity. Ryan and Matthew share their vision: “We want to wrap our arms around the u-shaped bar and make everyone a part of what is going on…. It’s like going to a Broadway theater of Top Chef. It’s live. It’s right there.” Curious about what they’re doing and what exactly is in front of you? Ask away! Chef Poli and team are eager and willing to engage you in conversation. Ryan and Matthew describe the concept of the restaurant as “taking things that are so simple and then making them interesting.” And interesting, it certainly is.
From a restaurant operation standpoint, The Catbird Seat is a utopian situation, with guest counts and dietary restrictions known roughly a month in advance, two built-in gardens both up and downstairs, full utilization of each staff member throughout service, and the ability to run with absolutely minimal waste––each dish perfectly portioned out for their guests, from dollops of sauce to slice after sexy slice of meat. From a guest standpoint, it’s an experience; a portal to pure satisfaction and entertainment, where you won’t help but ask yourself how quickly you can come back to Wonderland.
