If you like creative twists on comfort foods, there's a pop-up restaurant in town sure to make your heart swoon. Beefhearts Pop-Up is the project of S.B. chefs Nick Bodden and Ronald Allen, who, on Fridays and Saturdays, can be found cranking out crazy-good revivals of classics such as fried chicken or hot dogs in the comfy confines of breweries like Draughtsman Aleworks and M. Special.
The two met while working as line cooks at bouchon, where they bonded over music preferences and a shared penchant for peculiar flavors. Allen, who works at Petit Valentien, hails from S.B. and has worked in restaurants all over town, while Bodden comes from Long Island with Michelin-starred kitchen experience. The two first tried doing pop-up prix fixe menus at The Black Sheep, unconventional food full of beautiful purées and platings, but it wasn't sustainable. “We had a blast, but it wasn’t gonna pay the rent,” Allen said. “We looked around and said, what does S.B. not have? It doesn’t have good soul food, and that's both one of our favorite things.”
The two balance each other out in a project named after avant-garde rocker Captain Beefheart. “We’re both pretty avant-garde, but we’ll keep each other in check,” Allen said. “If you leave a guy alone with a synthesizer in a basement, he might make some cool stuff, but no one may want to listen to it; but with two people you can rein it in, get weird, and respect that’s what makes it interesting.”