Hot 10 List Makers Rolf and Daughters and Ava Gene's Cook Together in Nashville

Collaborations and friendships can start in funny ways. Say, a chance encounter or a set-up by mutual friends. But chefs Philip Krajeck of Rolf and Daughters (RAD) in Nasvhille and Joshua McFadden of Portland's Ave Gene's bonded over something special and entirely different: A mutual love of ranch dressing. The #bromance all started in September at BA's Hot 10 Best New Restaurants in America party in New York City. Their love of said condiment came up when they started putting insane amounts of it on passed hors d'oeuvres. Soon after that trip Krajeck and RAD General Manager Mollie Ward had the crazy idea to host a series of guest-chef dinners in Nashville with other chefs from The Hot 10 list (they've got plans to host Adam Evans of The Optimist and Alma's Ari Taymor early next year).

So, there I was in Nashville. I'd spent time with both Krajeck and McFadden in July when I traveled to all ten cities on the list to film videos with each of the chefs, and now two of them were together in one dining room, signing a stack of badass posters illustrated by Nashville's own Bryce McCloud of Isle of Printing to commemorate the dinner and getting excited by discussions about charcuterie and difficult-to-locate apple varieties in a way that only chefs can. My colleague Andrew Knowlton would never say he doubles as a matchmaker but the man may have a lucrative side-career here.

It turns out that two talented chefs who both focus on Italian food make a pretty good team. Krajeck started off the night with a slew of RAD's house-cured meats—mortadella, pickled pig's tongue, and chicken liver toast. But it was the Jenga-like stack of pork ribs coated in a sticky-sweet-slightly-spicy fermented cayenne pepper glaze that created one of those great dinner-table moments when everyone stops talking and just looks at one another with sticky fingers.

Given McFadden's rep as a sort of vegetable whisper—first as the chef at Franny's in NYC, and now at Ava Gene's—I knew there'd be plenty glorious non-meat dishes. On Monday, that meant a killer plate of fritto misto, a small bowl of broccoli with anchovy and raisins, and McFadden's riff on Chinese takeout (misticanzo, sauteed greens, and fried wild rice). But, like Krajeck's ribs, a salad of apple (Hidden Rose from Oregon) with seaweed butter, almonds, and RAD ham stole the show. Like all of McFadden's best dishes, the salad had so many interesting textural elements going on that it was hard to decide which individual element makes the dish—the crisp apples, melty-fatty ham, crunchy almonds, or the shards of flavored butter. I would have eaten another plate to find out, but asking for seconds seemed rude.