Geoffrey Davis has his parents to thank for an early introduction to cooking.
“They made sure their kids could cook,” he says. “My family is full of good cooks. Everybody in the family was taught at a young age.”
Now, Davis is executive chef at Neighbor of Wine Down. The Ooltewah restaurant, located next door to the Wine Down Bistro, is open for breakfast and lunch, but specializes in brunch.
Here, Davis talks about the things that make brunch a favorite meal of the day, as well as what it’s like to share a kitchen with Neighbor’s sister restaurant, Wine Down.
Q: What do you think makes brunch such a special experience?
A: Brunch is about getting together with friends for a day out on the town.
Q: Describe the menu at Neighbor.
A: It’s like going to your grandmother’s for all your favorites, only Grandma always added to her repertoire.
Q: What’s your favorite thing to make on the menu, and do you change the menu often?
A: My favorite dish is the Cuban. We make it with roasted pork belly, Benton’s ham, Swiss cheese, mustard and pickles on Leidenheimer’s French bread.
Q: Do you change your menu often?
A: We change with the season as fresh, new ingredients become available.
Q: How do you think Neighbor complements other restaurants in the Cambridge Square neighborhood?
A: We make a great fit and solved a want that wasn’t fulfilled in this area.
Q: Neighbor is a sister restaurant and right next door to Wine Down, so how do you make sure the two restaurants remain separate from each other? Are there any crossovers on the menus?
A: It seems as though these are two completely separate restaurants from the outside, But on the back end, we share cooler space and employees go back and forth between the two. We work as one unit to run both concepts. Cross utilization is extra important when sharing space like we do. Things like grits fries, brisket and pork belly we share between restaurants for different dishes. For example, the house-made chow chow goes on the Reuben at Neighbor, and at Wine Down Bistro, it goes on the Crispy Skin Salmon.
Q: What other restaurants have you worked at?
A: I’ve been at Wine Down/Neighbor for the last five years. Before that, I was at Il Primo as a line lead. I was also a sous chef at Southside Social when it opened, and I opened as a line lead at Puckett’s Restaurant & Grocery here in Chattanooga.
Q: What’s your earliest cooking memory?
A: Trying to simulate a chopped wienie plate with scrambled eggs when I was about 9 or 10 years old.
Q: Whom do you consider your mentor?
A: I can name two: Marcus Garner (owner of Wine Down) and Wilbur Cox (executive chef at Wine Down). Through things they’ve said and things they haven’t, my personal growth with them has been exponential.
Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / Chef Geoffrey Davis at his restaurant, Neighbor, in Ooltewah.Q: Why did you choose a culinary career?
A: Culinary life kind of chose me. I started cooking at a burger joint and slowly moved to better dining as my career progressed. It was what I knew.
Q: Is there a particular spice or other ingredient you’re using? If so, how are you using it?
A: Brown sugar and cinnamon. They are great for Southern sweet treats or things like Churro French Toast.
Q: What’s your Achilles heel ingredient or dish?
A: Eggs. They can be a pain. One wrong move and the yolk is busted. Start over.
Q: Is there a trend that you think is being overdone in restaurants these days?
A: I focus so much on what I’m doing that I’m not paying attention to everyone else. I have a focus in this building, and that’s creating good food coming from a good kitchen culture.
Q: What food is your guilty pleasure?
A: Blue cheese — the funkier the better. A lot of people can’t stand the thought of eating anything with blue cheese on it, but I love it.
Q: Is there a cookbook or website that you turn to for inspiration?
A: Not one place. I usually just look up four or five recipes to find the base, then make it my own.
Q: What food city do you enjoy visiting the most? Is there a favorite restaurant you enjoy going to?
A: When I travel, I go to dive bars and small diners. I like finding local restaurants wherever I go. It’s where you get the authenticity of a city or town.
Q: Complete this sentence. If I hadn’t become a chef, I would’ve been a…
A: I’d be in business management of some sort.
Q: What’s one of your favorite recipes you make a home?
A: Brisket. It’s a meat that Texans hold as their own. The thought is no one can do it any other way than the Texas way, and that is smoked. I don’t have a smoker, so my only option was to braise it. First time I did it, I was doing chili rellenos with brisket. I seasoned it, placed it in liquid and cooked it overnight low and slow. It turned out great. The seasoning base was different that first time, but my brisket morphed into what it is now.
Braised Brisket
1 (5- to 6-pound) beef brisket
Barbecue rub (your favorite)
2 cups Worcestershire sauce
1 cup hot sauce, or to taste
Trim fat from brisket, then rub brisket down with barbecue rub. Wrap with aluminum foil, then place in refrigerator for 8 hours or overnight.
Remove brisket from refrigerator, and place in a deep pan to submerge in liquid combination of Worcestershire and hot sauce, adding water till it’s completely covered. Cover pan, and place in oven at 240 degrees for 6-8 hours or until brisket shreds easily.
Contact Anne Braly at abraly@timesfreepress.com or annebraly.com.
Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / Chef Geoffrey Davis at his restaurant, Neighbor, in Ooltewah.