The High and Low of Silo

Last week, many nights were spent as group dinners. As my team mates know me as the resident foodie, I’m usually entrusted with picking a restaurant. At the suggestion of some locals, I chose Silo. Located a few blocks from the farmer’s market, it sits on a corner in the Germantown area of Nashville. The restaurant is busy, with reservations being enforced and kept. Whiskey bottles are used to serve water, and the lamps are accented with dark reds and yellows, pulling out a natural feel on the wood and cream colored walls.

With a party of five, we were able to get a sizeable selection of dinner options. After a round of cocktails, the table ordered the tasting of the house-made charcuterie. Three separate plates arrived, each with the meat and pairing of pickles, fruit, nuts, and mustard. My favorite was a mousse served in a perfectly shaped dome, and lightly sprinkled with sea salt. It was paired with a whole grain mustard flavored with molasses, the grains popping in your mouth. The plate also featured pistachios and a roasted fig, adding another sweet component, removing any metallic, sour, or gamy flavor that might have been present in the liver-based mousse.

We also ordered were the crispy Brussel sprouts. Roasted and charred, they delivered on the promised crunch. Apple and pickled onion accompanied the dish, sweet and sour complimenting the umami from the char. While the composition, plating, and taste were great, the chef was a bit heavy handed with the salt, to the point of it almost distracting from the flavor.

My entrée was the braised oxtail. Served in a bowl, it was surrounded by roasted vegetation, shitakes, carrots, and potatoes. A poached egg sat atop the bowl, the yolk cascading into the natural jus as it was punctured. I usually eat oxtail at Jamaican restaurants, usually served in a rich curry sauce. This dish highlighted the oxtail on its own, having been removed from the bone. I consider oxtail to be offal, so it usually needs the treatment of something like curry. The meat isn’t as flavorful as other cuts, but I think this dish brought out as much as it could.

Another entrée ordered was the hot chicken, a Nashville staple. This incarnation had thick, juicy, lean chicken breasts, battered and fried. The sauce covering it was spicy, really spicy. I have a decent heat tolerance, but this was hot to the point of being distracting from the rest of the meal. My coworker who ordered it couldn’t finish it.

Sides are served a la carte. We ordered the jalapeño cornbread, which is served in a cast iron skillet. Unlike the hot chicken, the bread was only mildly spicy, crusty on top, and served with a bacon butter. The combination made the side more savory than sweet, which is what I’m used to with cornbread. The other side we ordered was the pot likker greens. The leaves were kept large, rather than chopped, and bathed in their natural juices, flavored with smoked bacon.

Dessert was the highlight of the meal. We ordered the pot de crème, rich and thick, heavily scented with vanilla. It was topped with a salted caramel sauce and served in a mason jar. The jar was surrounded by popcorn, swathed in caramel and speckled with bacon. The salty sweet crunch matched the pot de crème with flavor, but complimented the texture.