FILLING MORE THAN YOUR BELLY: WunderHaus co-owner Jacqueline Forrester Smith wants the dishes she designs to make you happy.
READERS CHOICE
BRIAN CHILSON
I
WUNDERFUL EUROPEAN SOUL FOOD, AT WUNDERHAUS. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK
38 FEBRUARY 2020
ARKANSAS TIMES
t was conception that conceived WunderHaus. That is, the idea for serving good food produced locally came to Jacqueline Smith when she was pregnant. She and her husband, Jason, were watching food writer Michael Pollan’s films (“Cooked,” “In Defense of Food”) and looking into issues of agriculture. “We really started delving into the works of Wendell Berry,” Smith said. “We were compelled to action. … The way he writes about nature in general and our relationship to other people is so spiritual. And his sense of responsibility, the role of steward.” The Flint water crisis was in the headlines. The Smiths were about to bring a child into the world, an emotional and vulnerable time. “We felt it was an important thing to do to represent a smaller part of the food industry that needs to be a larger portion of the food industry.” Jacqueline Smith, though an opera major at UA Little Rock, and her brother, Auguste Forrester, had long been interested in food. “We picked up a tiny bit of passion for cooking when we were small children,” she said. Smith also had restaurant experience, gained with Alexis Jones at the short-lived Natchez Restaurant in downtown Little Rock. Hence, in 2015, along with Hazel Smith (now 5), the WunderBus food truck was born. Its menu was German street food, and the food got rave reviews. But the Smiths and Forrester always had a brick and mortar place in mind. A vacant storefront at Oak and Locust streets in Conway seemed perfect, and it has proved to be so. WunderHaus opened in September 2017 in the old gas station/burger joint, bringing to Central Arkansas what Jacqueline Smith calls “European soul food.” It’s rich, delicious, endorphin-producing, the kind of fare that will require a stiff cup of coffee to keep you awake on the drive home. “It’s not meant just to feed your belly,” said Smith (who creates the menu), “but to make sure you have a wonderful day.” (WunderHaus has been the setting for a proposal of marriage; it might have been the food.) With the exception of the pineapple in the fantastically moist carrot cake (and Forrest-
