Acclaimed West Virginia chefs teaming up to help Asheville

Cookbook signing at Capitol Market and special menu at 1010 Bridge Restaurant will feature Charleston native (and James Beard semifinalist) Chef William Dissen.

Butternut squash soup with bleu cheese and pepitas from Chef William Dissen

Two James Beard-honored chefs – and West Virginia native sons – have teamed up to host a weeklong special prix fix menu at a local restaurant to benefit Hurricane Helene relief efforts in Asheville, North Carolina.

James Beard’s 2024 “Best Chef Southeast” winner Paul Smith of 1010 Bridge Restaurant in South Hills and William Dissen, a Charleston native and current Asheville chef, have worked together to create a special three-course menu inspired by Dissen’s dishes that is being offered at 1010 this week.

All proceeds will benefit Dissen’s Asheville restaurant The Market Place, a James Beard semifinalist for “Outstanding Restaurant” in the country last year that has been closed for the past month after devastating floods in Western North Carolina.

The $100 prix fix menu at 1010 will feature squash soup with bleu cheese and toasted pumpkin seeds, Hernshaw Farms mushroom toast with homemade peppered ricotta and pickled onions, and a cider-braised pork shank with collard greens, farro and gremolata.

All three dishes come from Dissen’s new nationally acclaimed cookbook “Thoughtful Cooking: Recipes Rooted in the New South,” which will also be for sale at the restaurant this week and during a special book signing he will appear at from noon to 1 p.m. today (Wednesday) at Capitol Market.

Approximately 100 cookbooks are available for purchase at the market today for $40 each, which includes a Capitol Market bag and signed book.

To reserve seats for the prix fixe dinner at 1010, or to place an order to go, call 681-265-0599.

To make a donation directly to Dissen’s relief efforts in Asheville, visit https://bit.ly/3A4cDW5.

Thoughts from Chef William Dissen

I had an opportunity to talk with Dissen a few days before his trip back to West Virginia this week, where the Charleston native spoke openly about the challenges facing him and so many others in the Asheville community.

Here are some excerpts from our conversation …

“Honestly, it’s been hell. There’s just no other way to put it. We’ve been closed for more than 30 days now. At this point during COVID, at least we had the government saying they were working on things to help restaurants and there was stimulus money out there. But that was a global issue, and this is regional and localized. I’ve got friends in positions of power, but they’re saying things like, well, we’d love to help you out but we have this election to focus on. That’s crazy.”

“We’ve been over 30 days without water now – without clean water – and we live in a metro area. That’s pretty insane. I know Charleston had the water crisis from the chemical spill and White Sulphur Springs lost water after their bad flooding, but not for 30 days. It’s unreal.”

“The restaurants that have been able to reopen in Asheville were gifted these $25,000 water tanks that cost about $1,000 a day to operate. So they’re open, but some of them are only making about $1,000 or a little more a day in sales. That’s not even covering their costs, so they may be open but they’re still hurting.”

“The businesses in downtown Asheville are primarily supported by tourists, so it’s been devastating. Even if more of them could open right now, many of the main roads into the city have been bombed out and have to be rebuilt.”

“The Market Place sits on a hill, so we didn’t get flooded out. But we sustained a lot of rain and wind damage. We had some roof damage and our solar panels were messed up. We had water coming in through our HVAC vents and some outdoor and patio damage to clean up. But compared to so many other restaurants and businesses in the area, we were lucky. We’re pretty blessed.”

“I’m very passionate about food safety and just don’t feel comfortable reopening until we have a steady, safe water supply. We can go to city hall and get buckets of potable water, or we could use bottled water and disposable plates and things like that. But then you have to weigh the value of the extra time it would take to do all of that vs. the actual revenue we’d be able to produce, which is probably not much. When it comes to reopening, we have to think about when it will be safe to do so and who will be able to come when we do.”

“Until we can reopen, I’m just trying to focus on helping my community. About a third of the people who live here are employed through the hospitality and tourism industry, and most of them are out of work right now and need our help.”

“Access is still a big issue here. We have interstates that have been bombed out and need rebuilt. Parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway got bombed out and need rebuilt. The River Arts District and Biltmore Village, two of our biggest tourism areas, were under 30 feet of water and have buildings that were damaged and some will need rebuilt.”

“Everyone’s been talking about the economic fallout of this storm in terms of physical damage – and that will be huge – but there’s going to be a pretty significant mental health fallout in the weeks, months and years ahead, too.”

“If anyone can help lead these recovery efforts, it’s chefs and others in the restaurant industry. We know how to feed and care for and nurture people. That’s what we do. When we have a problem in the kitchen or the oven quits working or whatever, we just jump in and do whatever it takes to get by. When the kitchen gets backed up and we have tickets overflowing on the floor and customers out front trying to tell us about their food allergies, we just take a breath and say, OK, here’s what we’re going to do. When you have something that needs to get done, just ask a chef.”

“We haven’t received the government help we desperately need, but we’ve been overwhelmed by support from so many others. We have food trucks coming in to feed first responders and FEMA workers, we have groups like World Central Kitchen coming in to help get people fed.”

“People in West Virginia always pitch in to help those in need. When I called some friends up there to see if they could bring us a truckload of supplies, they ended up filling it 10 times over what we expected. We’ve received amazing support from my home state of West Virginia. I may get a little sentimental when I come back home to visit this week. I feel very blessed to have Paul Smith as a friend and I’m so grateful for what he’s doing to help us.”

“I think growing up in West Virginia you just learn that if you need something or you want to make a change, you’re going to have to do it yourself. No one’s just going to hand it to you. I think that’s been ingrained in me as part of my West Virginia upbringing and is a big part of the reason I’ve been able to have a fair amount of success in life.”

“But we still have a long road ahead, for sure. This takes the phrase hell or high water to a whole new level.”

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Steven Keith is a food writer and restaurant critic known as “The Food Guy” who writes a weekly column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail and has appeared in several state, regional and national culinary publications. Follow him online at www.wvfoodguy.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. He can be reached at 304-380-6096 or at wvfoodguy@aol.com.