Made from Scratch: Black Oak Grill

by Joshua Heston

A word about food. At its most elemental, food equals basic survival. But more than that, food is memory, moment, comfort, even childhood. Some of our best memories involve a special meal or a special dish lovingly prepared by a mother or grandmother. It’s the simplest of mortars holding together the bricks of our lives.

But in the last 50 years, home cooking has largely been replaced and not just by fast food. Stroll through any frozen-food or baking section of a grocery store and you’ll find whole meals — appetizer, entree, dessert, snack — brought to you courtesy of a multinational conglomerate.

Don’t get me wrong. I love pre-prepared food as much as the next guy but there’s something disturbing in the reality that now several generations of kids have grown up with deeply cherished childhood memories formulated by Pepperidge Farms and Sara Lee rather than grandma’s recipe book.

And that brings us to this article celebrating the from-scratch food of Branson’s Black Oak Grill. “A restaurant review article on StateoftheOzarks?” you might ask. Yessir, it is. And not a paid article, I am quick to point out. Feature article space on the premier magazine of the Ozarks is not something that may be purchased but rather must be earned.

Several weeks ago, I sat down with general manager Casey Wallace to talk about the efforts Black Oak Grill — located near Lake Taneycomo on the north side of the Branson Landing — and find out if they truly put their money where their mouth is.

In short, they do. “I’ve worked for restaurants where food prep for soup was — first thing in the morning — to empty big bags into hot water and stir. There was no food prep at all! Here, we make the soup from scratch with real ingredients. It is a huge difference and you can taste it!” says Wallace who lives in Ozark, Missouri, and attended Missouri State University in nearby Springfield. He worked for two restaurant chains — in Springfield and Branson — before joining the staff of Black Oak as kitchen manager in March 2013. He was promoted to general manager two months later.

The restaurant itself — flagship in what may become a franchise — had opened a year earlier. A second Black Oak Grill has been opened in Omaha. “I think this is the future of casual dining — a scratch kitchen, the ingredients as locally sourced as possible,” explains Wallace.

But what does that mean, exactly? A purely locally sourced restaurant can be difficult to manage but this place strives to find a decent balance, mixing local vendors, companies and fresh produce. Beef is supplied by Harter House, a Springfield-owned neighborhood supermarket known for the quality of their meats. The business owns only six locations (all in the immediate Ozark area).

Trout is sourced from the Ozarks as well. The salmon goes from ocean to table within three days. Much of the bread is from Neighbor’s Mill — they bake their whole-grain breads without preservatives — in Harrison, Arkansas. Rather than little plastic cups of artificial butter-like whipped spread, the butter here is real and infused with honey and nutmeg.

Attention to detail, unusual in a world increasingly pre-packaged, results in foods far more reminiscent of good, home-cooked meals of a generation past. The buttermilk ranch and honey mustard dressings are made in the kitchen from real ingredients and are, not surprisingly, lacking in that odd, slightly plastic aftertaste inherent in most bottled dressings.

The mango-habanero buffalo wings’ sauce is surprising in its simplicity: “We grill habanero peppers, take fresh mangos, pulp them, then pureé the peppers and mango pulp together,” details Wallace. The buffalo herb sauce includes oregano, crushed black pepper, cayenne, onion and cumin, rather than a laundry list of unpronounceable chemicals .

The tortilla chips are made from scratch in the kitchen as well. “You would think something like chips we would just buy,” laughs Wallace, “But the chicken and bean nachos and the cheese dip are so thick, anything we bought would either go soggy or break off in the dip. We needed a thicker chip so the simplest thing to do is just make our own!”

For all its downhome style, however, there is an upscale trend that is hard to miss. The salads are graced with goat cheese and Fuji apples. The rice pilaf accompanying the trout is checkered with pinot noir-infused cranberries and smoked almonds. The nachos’ pickled jalepeños aren’t from a can but rather fresh sliced peppers pickled in a vinegar mixture in the kitchen.

The steaks are prepared just as a good steak should be — cut thick, lightly seasoned with salt and fresh cracked pepper, then grilled. There are no heavy marinades to cover up the taste of the meat (something unneccessary when you begin with high quality cuts).

An upscale wine list and cocktails — including an “Ozark Mule” which uses ginger beer and rye whiskey — complete the casual yet slightly trendy feel of the place. Desserts include apple and cherry pie baked by local baker Linda Lewis of Fall Creek Bakery (typically served with ice cream and a dash of cinnamon) as well as carrot cake provided by Dino Kartsonakis’ nearby store.

“The challenge of Branson is it’s ferociously seasonal,” notes Wallace soberly. “A week ago we broke record sales. This afternoon, it is incredibly quiet. Unlike Springfield where you are within immediate reach of 150,000 people, here there are only 10,000 regulars. Everyone else is a visitor. If the community doesn’t like you, you can’t make it.

“I hope people know we deeply care about their experience with us. I want people to have a great experience and all they have to do is ask. We’ll stop at nothing to make that happen.”

September 9, 2014