The opening of Expat, the larger-than-life global barbecue joint from Niche Food Group (NFG), has been one of the most highly anticipated restaurants in ºüÀêÊÓƵ since Gerard Craft unveiled the plan in May 2023. The multilevel, 16,000 square-foot space will include a 100-seat full-service dining room, a second level with a casual menu, a mezzanine for private events and a spacious outdoor terrace.
It's a massive undertaking in both size and scope, and leading the team as they prepare to open is someone willing and ready to take on the challenge. Sam Nawrocki, who has worked in restaurants all over the country, has returned to ºüÀêÊÓƵ to take her place as executive chef at Expat, and has spent the past year honing both her skills and the restaurant’s menu.Ìý
Prior to joining the NFG team, Nawrocki spent several years as chef de cuisine at 404 Kitchen & Whiskey Bar and the chef de cuisine at Oak Steakhouse in Nashville, Tennessee. At 404 Kitchen, Howard Greenstone (CEO of Red Pebbles Hospitality, parent company of 404 Kitchen) mentored her and helped her come into her own identity as a chef. When the pandemic hit, she had been toying with the idea of opening a spot of her own; an international Meat & Three. “Meat & Three’s are all about the urbanization of the American South,†Nawrocki says. “The fastest growing cities in the south – like Nashville, Austin, Atlanta – all are extremely diverse, immigrant-dense cities. So I wanted to open a restaurant that celebrates that.â€Ìý
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Greenstone encouraged her to do her homework before going all in. “He was kind of like, ‘Go run a steakhouse for a year,’†she says. “From his perspective, it was removing the creativity to focus on the nuts and bolts of running an operation. It was very, very good advice.†Steakhouses, Nawrocki says, are what they say they are, with hyper-specific dishes universal to the category with little variance. She took a job at Oak Steakhouse and did the work, quickly realizing that the creative aspects are what drove her. “If I go to a steakhouse, I already know what I’m going to order,†she says. “It’s the whole point of going, and that’s totally fine. It’s just not where I want to work. It’s not what wakes me up in the morning.â€Ìý
The situation had Nawrocki on the hunt, and so did Nashville’s increasingly crowded landscape and skyrocketing cost of living. With her roots in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, she decided to start some conversations about potential places to land; one of her first calls was with Gerard Craft, who wanted to know what she had in mind. “I was kind of talking about that idea [for the international Meat & Three], and he’s like ‘Well, you won’t believe this…’Ìý because [Expat] is very much the same idea, but with international barbecue,†she says. “If you look at the template of a barbecue menu and a Meat & Three menu, they’re very similar. So it was about how we could have fun with it and make it an adventure.â€Ìý
Things picked up speed once Craft and Nawrocki realized their viewpoints aligned, and a dinner Nawrocki cooked for him in Nashville sealed the deal. “He offered me the job that day,†she says. “He was like, ‘How soon can you move back to ºüÀêÊÓƵ?’ He was ready to hit go.â€
The Foundation
The road to executive chef has been a winding one for Nawrocki, who grew up in ºüÀêÊÓƵ and is also a classically trained cellist, a background which she says informs her current role. “Classical music is very, very high pressure, and being a musician isn’t about performance, it’s about practice,†she says. “I was teaching at a culinary school in Nashville, and my day-one speech to students was that if you can’t fall in love with repetitive tasks, you’re gonna have a bad day. It’s about focusing on the moment and practicing your technique. If you can’t fall in love with that part, this is not going to be fun for you.â€Ìý
She spent time cooking as a young adult in other cities, eventually moving back to ºüÀêÊÓƵ for grad school. Nawrocki had decided at the time that she had had enough of the tough hustle the restaurant industry required and had decided to go back to grad school for a degree in econometrics. At the time, she was working for Josh Galliano at The Libertine, who she credits with reigniting her love for the kitchen. “He brought me back,†she says. “I remember I worked for him a whole summer before I told him I was going to grad school. I was so afraid, and I waited one night until everyone was gone, and I walked back to tell him, fully expecting to be fired.â€
But what happened instead changed the trajectory of her career. “He was really supportive, and was like, ‘What are you studying?’†she says, adding that she stayed at the restaurant, often studying for exams by drawing graphs and making notes on the backs of spent tickets during spare minutes. The people she met in that kitchen reinforced her love for the industry. “I met all my favorite people there. I worked with Tommy Andrews [of Nomad], Ryan McDonald [of Farm Spirit and Homie Hospitality], and Josh Poletti [of Wright’s Tavern]. It was when Such & Such Farm was just starting out, and I met Dave [Blum] and Autumn [Sij], and I was like, these are my people. By the time I finished grad school, I was like, ‘Fuck; I really like making dinner for people.’ So, ºüÀêÊÓƵ brought me back from not wanting to do this anymore.â€
Gerard Craft and Josh Galliano have been foundational to the ºüÀêÊÓƵ dining scene as we know it today. Both have made their mark not only through their skills as chefs but also by using their innate talent as educators and mentors within the industry.
ÌýNawrocki has spent the last year developing and refining the menu for Expat, which will focus on pulling global flavors into classic American barbecue offerings. The goal is twofold; to give customers a chance to branch out into more uncharted territory while simultaneously making the menu accessible to all. “Who eats barbecue, right? Rich people, poor people, people from urban and rural areas, people of all colors,†she says. “It’s ubiquitous. This will be a restaurant where the person who’s the most adventurous of the group can try something new and be excited, and the person who is the least adventurous will also be excited about the familiarity of the menu.â€Ìý
Nawrocki spends much of her time nowadays in the final stages of development, occasionally flexing her fine dining muscle at Bowood by Niche for its pop-up wine and sake dinners. Expat is in pop-up mode itself, amid a summer event series at Urban Chestnut that’s giving ºüÀêÊÓƵ a peek at the menu before the opening, which is currently slated for mid-August. Feedback is a huge priority for Nawrocki, who loves surprising guests she knows with dishes she’s working on to get feedback from those she trusts the most. “It makes people feel like they’re bought in; it makes them feel like they have ownership of the space,†she says. “I talk about it like a technique, but it’s not. It’s seeking human connection. And that’s what people want; with enough research and focus, you can make whatever food you want in your house. But restaurants are about the experience and how you make people feel.â€
At the Bowood pop-up dinners, she often creates dishes built on personal experiences and uses the evening to build connections with guests by sharing those stories between courses. With Expat, she’s pulled in flavor profiles she’s experienced from her travels; while she won’t be able to explain the story behind each dish to a restaurant full of guests, Nawrocki hopes to convey the same feelings through each bite. She also wants to use Expat to tell others’ stories, hoping to eventually use the restaurant as a platform for collaborations with guest chefs. “I want to learn together, in a way that it’s not just my story, it’s the restaurant’s story,†she says. “And that translates into the guest experience as well; I just want it to be as much fun for everybody else as it is for me.â€Ìý
Expat (coming soon), 3730 Foundry Way, Midtown, ºüÀêÊÓƵ,
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