Push Start Kitchen

I had the BEST dinner last night.

Zach Malloy is the chef for an underground supper club dinner in the Goat Farm. Dinner is served inside his loft apartment for 14 guests and when you receive the e-mail that you have been invited for the evening - you go. You don't question it, you go. So although I was speeding back from Nashville - Why didn't I Fly? I had to make it back before the dinner party with his beautiful family and the other guests for the evening.



The old ammunition factory with high brick walls and long deep hallways sets the atmosphere for the dinner. The Goat Farm now serves as a performance arts studio hosting galleries to Scoutmob's Halloween Party but the loft apartments are offered to artists that pay their rent through donations to the Goat Farm. Chicken trees are outside, a long old front porch, and goats of course roam the grounds.

And the space and atmosphere is only the beginning. You are greeted by Zach's wife on the front porch and led into their home where you are instantly handed a cocktail - a Spanish rum with infused orange and apple juice and offered these fritter type pastries with a caramel dip and sea salt that may be the best food I have ever eaten.

As Zach works from his kitchen and plates the courses, he laughs and talks with his guests - many he knows personally. It is an intimate dinner party and if you didn't know him or any other guests at the beginning of the night, you will leave with hugs and new phone numbers from your new friends at the end.

I sat next to Steve, a business consultant from California that had first met Zach and his wife in Costa Rica where they ran their first restaurant, Media Naraja. I attended with B who had worked with Zach at 4th + Swift in Atlanta, and next to us was a Russian couple that had recently moved from NYC.

Although the atmosphere and acquaintances are the benefits, first you are fed.



And fed so well.

The first course is plated and set in front of you and Zach comes to pour the steaming carrot veloute over your plate as he explains the dish and the components.

Each dish is paired with a new wine and refilled as quickly as you can sip. As everyone drinks the conversations pick up and the food continues. A red Spanish wine is served with the main course of Shrimp +frog leg confit over a corn pudding that contains exciting flavors and a comforting texture. Zach come around to speak with everyone and add extra shrimp to your plate.

And although you are full, you have to make room for dessert because the muscadine sorbet that is atop the white chocolate arroz con leche is too tempting to push to the side.

The meal is offered to his guests by donations of your choice. It is to raise money for his own restaurant that is opening on 14th called "Better Half" and to get his food out to the public. He leaves you with sweet tea moonshine that he has cut the flavors into and delicious treats of tarjetas de cocca.
Little gooey, sweet, balls of trouble.

The food is delicious, the wine and champagne parings were perfect, and you know he puts his heart and soul into the meal for you. Better Half is going to be well known once it opens and the meals in his home will eventually stop. Hurry over to his website and make a point to get in while you can. Check on the current menu and sign up to get your own meal here. 

Enjoy your dinner party!