“It's not faux,” jokes
Starving Artist Café owner, Jason Morrell, pointing to the partially exposed brick wall behind him. The strategically positioned crevices look like the handy work of a TLC reality decorating show, but the brick, the plaster, and the artwork that hangs salon-style over the cracked façade are all authentic. And that's the way Jason and
Paula Morrell like it. Real. Without pretension.
In October of 2005, the Morrells set out on a mission to create a restaurant with not only great cuisine but also artists, writers, and musicians “performing.” Despite the adorned walls, throughout our interview Paula and Jason repeatedly remind me that they are NOT a gallery, “We're not in that business. Although someone the other day said, ‘Yes you are, you're just not calling yourself a gallery.' I said ‘No, we're a restaurant and our concept is that the space is for artists to put up their stuff or perform or do whatever they want and for us to serve this great food around them. It's like a loft, where it's all kind of their space.”
After a few hours painting, singing, or reading the artist is invited to partake in one of the meals themselves. “We don't pay the artist or musician to come in and play, but we do give them a meal, and they put out their tip jars and sell their work. Everything we put up is 100 percent commission to the artists.”
Despite this laissez-faire approach, customers still assume that many of the pieces hanging on the walls are exclusively chosen. Paula assures me it's quite the opposite, “One of the good things that has happened for us is that we've got people like
Kelly Moore who are collected internationally, and we've also got people who haven't ever put anything anywhere, so there's this huge range. An artist was in here one day and he was saying, ‘Oh, you're the curator, you have a great eye.' But this is not stuff I pick, this is literally people coming in and putting stuff up. I have not picked anything, I have not turned down anything—not one person has been turned down. It looks like it's all very selected and planned, but it's all kind of creating itself.”
High school sweethearts Jason and Paula have
traveled around the country and the world hitting culinary hot spots in Florida, New Orleans, and several European sites. In Florida, Jason studied the culinary arts while Paula pursued an undergraduate in English (still a writer, Paula often offers her own work to a dining audience). Eight years ago, Paula and Jason headed back to Arkansas after being abroad. Originally, they planned to open a small bistro in Hillcrest, but their idea never came to fruition, and they were on their way out of town when Jason was offered the chef position at the newly-opened Sonny Williams Steakhouse in the Rivermarket. Jason remembers the experience with chagrin, “It was just a year, a year and a half, of just opening a restaurant. It was a pain, especially working on one of that caliber.” Large scale is not Jason, nor Paula's cup of tea. They prefer the quiet, intimate setting their 50-seat establishment offers. Utilizing the model of the European bistros run by husbands and wives, they try to make as much contact as possible with their patrons, often visiting tables at dinner, making small talk and suggesting another course or a complimentary wine.
Although Jason was something of a renegade chef in his early days, what he strives for now is akin to the overall concept of the restaurant
—simple but satisfying. Fanatically anti-prepackaged, he makes nearly everything by hand, from the condiments to the soups. Although he's been labeled a “Provencal” chef, he disregards the term as all encompassing, “I've been dubbed a Provencal cook and I don't like to think that I have to have tomatoes and olives on everything. Don't get me wrong, I love tomatoes and olives, but I don't know if I'm a Southern French chef. I don't know if I'm a Creole chef or a Provencal chef.”
What Jason does know is that he cares about the food. Berating American cuisine for it's watered down, halfhearted quality, Jason insists that the best tasting food is that which is made with the same sensibility as a great piece of art—an ideal of patience and by-hand specialty preparation (every dish is made to order.)
It's the sense of somebody caring,” Jason says, “I put plates out and my cooks are sitting there staring at it, saying ‘That's the greatest looking pork chop ever!'”
The prices, though out of range for a truly starving artist, remain reasonable, $7-$10 for lunch, under $20 for dinner.
The restaurant is open for lunch Tuesday through Friday from 11 am until 2 pm and for dinner Thursday through Saturday from 5 pm until 9 pm. Open mic night is every 4 th Monday of the month and various artists, musicians, and writers perform throughout the week. Check out the menu and special events at
www.starvingartistcafe.net.
