Not Foolin' Anyone With These Biscuits

Photo by Jeffrey Metcalf

Foolish Things Bar and Biscuit, tucked away in Tulsa’s Brookside area, feels curiously warm and welcoming, and the biscuit sandwiches would make owner Justin Carpenter’s mother proud.

“My mother’s from a big Mexican family,” he says, “and she taught me that if you want to show people you care for them, you feed them well. [When I was] young, I wanted to change the world, but now I just want to create a space where people feel safe and can form a community.”

Carpenter and crew experimented for months to create the perfect biscuit; it’s topped with skirt steak rubbed in coffee and brown sugar and cooked to order, with creme fraiche and a poached farm egg, or with gravy, made with sausage and milk from local farms.

There are lots of other items: more than 40 cocktails, many inspired by hundred-year-old recipes; impeccably sourced fair trade coffees that vary with the season; and exquisite arrangements of flowers from local greenhouses. Carpenter has a passion for learning and an obsession to do everything perfectly.

There’s already a community at Foolish Things. Ask Carpenter about any dish and he insists on giving credit to all the friends who helped design it. 3524F S. Peoria Ave., Tulsa; 918- 289-4156; barandbiscuit.com.

BRIAN SCHWARTZ