While working as a young chef making his name in Durham, North Carolina, Matt Kelly dined at the venerable Magnolia Grill and tasted a dish from chef Ben Barker that blew his mind. “I put my spoon in it and to this day, I remember that first bite,” Kelly says. “I kept eating, and when I was done I ordered another one because it was the best dish I’d ever had.” Twelve years ago, Magnolia Grill closed its doors, and that holy-grail recipe, a twice-baked grits soufflé, disappeared with it—until now.
Kelly went on to become a Durham icon in his own right, with his hospitality group opening celebrated spots like Vin Rouge, Mateo, St. James Seafood, and Mothers & Sons. At the end of last year, he reopened Nanas, a beloved fine-dining spot that hadn’t survived the pandemic—but before opening day rolled around, he made a phone call. “He said, ‘I want to do something like your soufflé on the menu at Nanas,’” Barker recalls. “I said, ‘You know what, Matt? I’ll give you the recipe.’ And the phone just went silent for a minute.”
Needless to say, Kelly accepted the offer (“my eyes were watering a little”). But as recipes go, the twice-baked grits soufflé as Barker makes it is not exactly user-friendly. The grits are lightened up with whipped egg whites. There is a mushroom emulsion, a Vidalia onion puree, a sherry vinaigrette, and a melted confit of foie gras on top. “I’ve only made the dish once since we closed the restaurant, because it has so many steps,” Barker admits. “And we definitely had a love-hate relationship with it while we were open.” The end result, though, is worth it. “You put it in your mouth and it lasts so long on your palate,” Kelly says. “You have all these perfect textures and complementary flavors and layers of savoriness.”
A recipe like this one doesn’t materialize overnight. “Its story tells you a lot about how dishes coalesce and come together,” Barker says. He and his wife, Karen, became especially interested in grits after Magnolia Grill’s grits cake with asparagus, morels, and country ham gained a national spotlight. They experimented with using them as the base for a twice-baked cheese soufflé from Richard Olney’s landmark cookbook Simple French Food, something they had cooked at the Fearrington House before opening Magnolia Grill. From there, they added regional touches, like the Vidalia onions, and tweaked and fiddled until they landed on the perfect combination. “We must have made 15,000 of them while Magnolia Grill was open,” Barker says. “It was the most re-ordered dish on the menu, which says a lot.” (Even more tellingly, Magnolia Grill busboys used to grab hunks of bread to sop up the cheesy, creamy leftovers from ramekins coming back into the kitchen.)
Now, with a few tweaks, it lives on at Nanas—with credit to Barker—and is already gaining a following there, too. “I’m proud to serve it because Magnolia Grill was such a landmark restaurant in the South,” Kelly says. “Nanas is all about telling stories, and that means bringing new dishes to the table and keeping other dishes like this one alive.”
Below, find an adapted, more approachable version of the recipe, which has never been shared before.
