Women in his family taught Wine Down chef Wilbur Cox Jr. to cook, friends brought him to Chattanooga

Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Executive chef Wilbur Cox Jr. at Wine Down Bistro & Lounge in Ooltewah.
Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Executive chef Wilbur Cox Jr. at Wine Down Bistro & Lounge in Ooltewah.

Formative summers at the family farm helped set Wilbur Cox Jr. on his culinary path. But it was the women in his life who had the most profound effect on his career.

"It was my mother, my grandmothers and my Aunt Helen," says Cox, executive chef and director of culinary at Ooltewah's Wine Down Bistro & Lounge. "As a family we would vacation in eastern North Carolina at our farm, Long Acre. During those vacations, I had the ability to see food created from seed to fork and animals raised from birth to slaughter."

Back in his hometown of Baltimore, he also had a neighbor who would invite young Wilbur over to cook with him. The neighbor taught him to make dishes such as sweet-and-sour pork and profiteroles, small puff pastries similar to eclairs.

By the time Cox's mother bought a restaurant in 1994, "the kitchen just felt like home to me," he says.

Cox earned his culinary degree from Baltimore Culinary College in Baltimore, as well as its campus in County Cavan, Ireland. His resume includes a stint as corporate chef for Joie de Vivre Hotels in Baltimore.

He was working as sous chef at Hotel Monaco in Baltimore when he met Marcus Garner, the hotel's assistant manager and chef. He became fast friends with Garner and his wife, Georgia. Long story short, the friendship brought Cox to Tennessee.

"Marcus and Georgia moved to Tennessee in 2013," Cox says. "I continued to work for other hotel brands as executive chef while Marcus and Georgia were building the Wine Down brand. We always kept in touch, and when I visited Chattanooga, we talked about eventually opening something together. At the end of 2018, Marcus called me and asked if I was still interested in doing something together, and my answer was, of course, yes. So I sold my house, packed a truck and moved to Chattanooga in December of 2018."

In July 2020, he fulfilled a dream of working with his friends in their own restaurant with the opening of Wine Down.

Q: What's your earliest cooking memory?

A: My mother and I would always bake together on the weekends at our house in Baltimore. The first meal that I ever cooked was spaghetti with meat sauce when I was 8. And under the supervision of my grandmother, I cooked dinner for my parents when they were at work."

Q: As a trained chef, you already knew a lot about wines, but have you learned more about them since working there as the executive chef?

A: Of course. Marcus has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to wine and spirits, and I try to soak up as much knowledge from him as humanly possible.

Q: How would you describe the food menu at Wine Down?

A: Our food is modern American with a focus on local products.

Q: Do you try to create a menu that pairs well with the different wines?

A: First and foremost, I create the menus based around the season and what we can get relatively locally, as well as pulling ingredients from the Gulf to the Chesapeake Bay. The wine pairings are handled by our front-of-house staff.

Q: What wines are you liking these days?

A: My favorite wines are big, bold reds - either a dry Malbac from Argentina or a really good fruity Beaujolais from France. I also really enjoy Vinho Verde from Portugal if I'm in a white-wine mood.

Q: What's your favorite food to pair with it?

A: That all depends on whether or not we are trying to push or pull the flavors in a certain dish. We could with go with it or against it. If we go with the Beaujolais, we could serve it with duck and blackberries to accentuate the fruit in the wine and the food. If we go against it, we could use the Vinho Verde with a nice fatty pork chop to help cut the fat in the dish and add some bright acidity.

Q: Do you stick with the motto: White wine with chicken and fish, red wine with beef and pork?

A: Not at all. There are no rules when it comes to food and pairings anymore. Drink what wine you enjoy with whatever food you enjoy, whenever you want to enjoy it.

Q: What's the most important cooking tool in your kitchen?

A: Google.

Q: What trend do you think is overdone in restaurants?

A: In Chattanooga? The plague of sameness and the lack of adventurous food.

Q: Complete this sentence. If I hadn't become a chef I would be a

A: Master distiller. I'm still working on that one though!

Q: What food is your guilty pleasure?

A: Greek yogurt with banana, honey and peanut butter.

Q: Restaurant kitchens can be really hectic places. How do you maintain calm amid the madness on a busy night?

A: I have been very blessed with the team that I have at Wine Down. We try and place the right staff member with the right station to ensure that when the crazy happens, they are well equipped to handle the situation. We also have systems in place for prep, ordering and inventory to ensure that we are well equipped to handle any amount of business that may walk through the door on any given night.

Q: Your recipe for Desperation Pie is quite interesting. Where does it come from?

A: The name comes from the Civil War when all trade routes were cut off because of the war. The Union stopped rail lines coming from Florida and the Gulf, so citrus disappeared. Appalachian people, in their amazing, ingenious ways, made pies with homemade vinegar to substitute for the citrus out of their desperation for sweets. I found the recipe in many of the really old Appalachian cookbooks I have.

Desperation Pie

For the crust:

2 1/2 cups flour

Pinch of salt

Pinch of sugar

1/2 pound frozen butter

Ice water

For the filling:

3 whole eggs, plus 2 yolks

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 ounces melted butter

1/2 ounce vanilla extract

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of salt

3 tablespoon good-quality vinegar (preferably cider)

For the Candied Pecan Syrup:

1/2 cup shelled pecans

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

For crust: Place flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Grate frozen butter on the box grater over dry ingredients, and mix well. Add enough ice water just until the dough is pliable. Let rest in the refrigerator for an hour. After resting, roll out very thin, and line the inside of a 9-inch pie tin with the dough. Prick the dough with a fork, and place foil inside the pan on top of the dough to hold it down. Place beans, pie weights or pennies on top of the foil to hold the dough in place. (Pennies work well because the copper conducts heat well.) Blind-bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or so until the crust is baked and crispy. Set aside, and let cool.

For filling: Mix all filling ingredients together. When the crust is cool, fill with the vinegar custard and bake at 325 degrees until it is just set, about 30 minutes. Once baked, place in refrigerator to cool.

For the syrup: Combine all syrup ingredients, and bring to a boil, stirring until thick; let cool.

To serve: Slice the pie into wedges, and serve with your favorite ice cream drizzled with the Candied Pecan Syrup.

Contact Anne Braly at abraly@timesfreepress.com or AnneBraly.com.

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