One of Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous lines is, “An army marches on its stomach.” The same applies to foodies, who also need to be well-fed. Now, two members of the “top brass” in the Memphis food corps have joined forces to make sure everyone is happily marching along at Hotel Napoleon.
Hugh Balthrop, founder of Sweet Magnolia Gelato, and chef David Lorrison, founder of the legendary Rumble Fish restaurant, are now at Archives, the restaurant/bar in the Hotel Napoleon at 179 Madison Avenue. It’s housed in the basement of the circa 1902 building that once housed the old Memphis Press-Scimitar newspaper. Balthrop is chef manager and Lorrison is bar manager.
Archives is open for breakfast and dinner seven days a week. “We do special events here,” Balthrop says. “Like birthday parties and other little functions. We’re just trying to build it up.”
Breakfast items include eggs, breakfast potatoes, sausage (pork and chicken), avocado toast, and “Elvis overnight oats,” which is made with chia seeds, almond milk, peanut butter, bananas, and yogurt.
Dinner includes steaks, salmon, burgers, jerk wings, deviled eggs, hot chicken and waffles, and charcuterie. “We’re trying to build up breakfast and dinner,” Balthrop says.
Sweet Magnolia gelato also is available at Hotel Napoleon. “We haven’t pulled the trigger [on an independent location] yet,” Balthrop says. He closed Sweet Magnolia’s Crosstown Concourse location when his lease ran out, and he’s not ready to open another shop, not wanting to get “locked into a long-term lease” in the wrong location.
“I closed down my Sweet Magnolia shops in Oxford and Memphis, so I’m just focused on the restaurant right now,” he says.
Balthrop has worn many hats. He originally opened First World Gallery in 1995 in Washington, D.C. The gallery featured art from the African diaspora. He later married, moved to Chicago, and became a stay-at-home dad while his wife finished her residency.
In 2011, he studied the science of ice cream at the Penn State Ice Cream Short Course. He also studied under a gelato master at The French Pastry School in Chicago, finally opening his first gelato business in Clarksdale, Mississippi. There, he began creating Southern flavors, including banana pudding and watermelon.
His new job at Hotel Napoleon is “a pretty cool deal,” Balthrop says, noting that he does some of the cooking when needed. “I’m learning and I’m growing and having fun. And of course, I have a new healthy respect for chefs.”
Many people know Lorrison from his old Midtown French bistro restaurant, Rumble Fish. That short-lived eatery closed more than 25 years ago. Recently, Lorrison has done pop-ups featuring some of Rumble Fish’s favorites at Erling Jensen: The Restaurant, and he plans to continue offering his pop-ups at Hotel Napoleon.
A native of Lexington, Kentucky, Lorrison moved to Memphis in the early ’90s, working first with chef Jose Gutierrez at Chez Philippe, then at Automatic Slim’s, Cafe Samovar, and under Jensen at the old La Tourelle.
After working in real estate for many years, he’s now getting back into cooking. Archives was a perfect place for him “to plant” himself, he says.
Lorrison wants the bar’s offerings to be a departure from most bar menus. “We’re going to do very classic stuff. Like croque monsieur, or tenderloin sliders with sage derby and horseradish aioli, or lump crab cakes with crème fraîche. Things inspired by Balthazar in New York.”
And, he says, “I want to have a really independent wine list. Four or five choice wines. I’m also doing some Japanese whiskeys and vodkas.”
He recently donned a ship’s captain uniform for “Ship of Fools,” the first of what he hopes are more special events in the bar at Archives. And in the near future, Lorrison wants to get “some jazzy combos in there.”
