September's takes popular cafe concept to a new level
By DANA KOPP FRANKLIN
June 20, 2008 12:00 PM
A successful chef and restaurant owner needs many skills: artistry in the kitchen, an understanding of the community he or she serves and shrewd business sense. And to really excel requires a generous helping of ambition.
That's why it's been interesting to watch Hendersonville chef September Norman. She closed her successful lunch-only restaurant, September's Cafe, last fall, trading up to a high-profile new spot called September's, which opened in March.
Not only is it big (220 seats), with a vastly expanded menu offering lunch and dinner seven days a week, but it's the anchor for The Streets of Indian Lake, a new upscale shopping center in a busily developing section of Hendersonville off Vietnam Veterans Boulevard.
September's is impressive in many ways: sleek contemporary decor, a menu of cleverly designed entrees and an extensive wine list.
I'll tell you up front: I really like September's. On a recent Saturday night visit, the food was delicious, the ambience surprisingly urbane for a shopping center and the service friendly and kind, if slightly less than experienced.
In the new menu, Norman walks a line, keeping favorites from her old cafe to please longtime fans while taking a fresh, fine-dining approach with the entrees.
This makes September's a versatile place to dine, where customers can choose a casual snack like a burger (albeit a $10 one, made with fresh-ground prime rib), opt for light fare like a salad or indulge in one of Norman's well-prepared entrees.
The chef also puts an emphasis on starters, all of which can be sociably shared. We opted to split two, each priced at $8: the chicken potstickers (lovely little nuggets of noodle stuffed with rotisserie chicken) and the savory cheesecake of the day, a lobster version. The latter might sound odd, but it was delightful: a wedge of rich cream cheese studded with lobster meat and topped with caper sauce, a treat to spread on toasted French rounds.
We also ordered salads, including September's signature spinach salad with her best-known creation from her old cafe, pepper-jelly vinaigrette ($10 for the full salad, $6 for a half). The dressing is tangy and sweet (but not too syrupy) and deserves its fame, especially when paired with the salad's toppers: roasted pecans, tart apple chunks, raisins, grapes and blue cheese.
But the biggest hit of our visit was one of the new entrees, pepper-crusted duck *** ($22), which boasted a really succulent hunk of duck, sliced and served atop a gorgeous side dish: savory spinach-mushroom bread pudding. The eggy custard of the pudding melded perfectly with the spinach, mushrooms and herbs. It was like a really wonderful quiche freed from its crusty confines.
The only quibble was that some of the pomegranate-port wine sauce that nicely moistened the duck took an unauthorized detour onto the savory bread pudding, obscuring its subtle flavor.
Norman loves wine, and she has a pretty extensive wine list to complement the entrees. In fact, part of the dining room's charm is soaring glass columns displaying part of the wine collection.
We asked our waitress to recommend a bottle of red, and she happily brought us tastes of four different wines, a service not every restaurant offers gladly. While she didn't seem to be incredibly conversant in the descriptive language of wine, we wound up with a nice Argentine malbec that suited us and was affordably priced.
Our server was shadowed by a server in training, and it was fun to watch her deftly demonstrate the double-hinged waiter's corkscrew to her pupil. Although the wine service didn't match the geeked-out level of expertise found at some Nashville restaurants, our waitress made up for that by being attentive and capable in general.
We ended the evening with a pretty spectacular dessert: pecan pie submerged in a creamy vanilla cheesecake ($8). It merged two great desserts into an even greater whole.
September's gave me and my three friends a wonderful Saturday night out, with the added enticement of a nearby Borders bookstore to browse in and a brand-new, all-digital Regal multiplex just yards from the restaurant's door.
That's why I hope Norman's new venture does well. There was a fair crowd during our visit, and there was convivial energy in the place, but it wasn't as busy as you might expect on a Saturday night.
I hear rumblings that some people in the neighborhood don't know yet what to make of the place - it's different from September's old, familiar cafe.
At the same time, it hasn't been discovered by the kind of sophisticated diners who seek out fine food crafted by a talented local chef. Always on the prowl for the next great thing, those folk haven't, so far, thought to look for it in the middle of a Sumner County shopping center.
I hope people come to learn that September's is the kind of place where you can tailor your own experience. If you want to sit on the patio in shorts sipping a beer and splitting a cheese plate with friends, September's will accommodate you. If you want a four-course special-occasion dinner with a nice bottle of wine, you can have that, too.
Chef September has thought of it all. She's got a plan.