It’s been about nine months since we first heard about Fancypants, the third Nashville restaurant project from chef Bryan Lee Weaver and the team behind Butcher & Bee and Redheaded Stranger. Slated for an opening later this summer at 921 Dickerson Pike in the former home of the Piggly Wiggly supermarket, Fancypants is on a mission to bring some fun to the concept of fine dining. To help accomplish this, management has announced a talented food and beverage team ahead of the opening.
Joining Weaver in the kitchen will be chef de cuisine Joshua Homacki, a Johnson & Wales College of Culinary Arts graduate who has previously cooked in and led kitchens in Pennsylvania. With more than two decades of experience and a background in French cuisine and classic techniques, Homacki will work with Weaver to bring a little playfulness to the grid-style tasting menu featuring seasonal ingredients.
With the upcoming project, the B&B team hopes to turn fine dining on its head in the former Piggly Wiggly on Dickerson Pike
Katie Fair has already earned legions of fans for her work at Butcher & Bee, and she’ll run the dessert program at Fancypants as executive pastry chef. It’s always important to end a multicourse tasting menu with a strong salvo of desserts, and Fair will definitely be up to the task.
Beverage director David Norris has spent 16 years working in Nashville restaurants, including managing the drinks program at the Bee. At Fancypants, Norris will focus on wines from the West Coast arranged in sort of a “choose your own adventure” format that will allow guests to find wines at different price points to complement the eclectic sweet and savory menus created by the culinary team. Norris will also craft a list of classic cocktails and a tight menu of beers. He promises the cocktails may look familiar, but like many other things about Fancypants, some of the ingredients might seem delightfully exotic, perhaps even weird to some tipplers. I suggest placing your trust in the vision of Weaver and his entire team and just enjoying the ride!
Hopefully, we can head to the Fancypants culinary amusement park sooner rather than later.
