blvd. | cuisine
Postcards from Italy FIRST LOOK: EVER ANDALO by Cathy Martin | photographs by Justin Driscoll
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aying goodbye to Crepe Cellar, the NoDa restaurant Jamie Brown and Jeff Tonidandel opened in 2009, was a bittersweet moment. The couple had nurtured the neighborhood spot through the lowest point of the Great Recession, along with an expansion when the space next door opened up. Crepe Cellar maintained a loyal following as Brown and Tonidandel later opened Growlers Pourhouse, then Haberdish, the upscale Southern comfort-food spot down the street, followed by Reigning Doughnuts and Supperland, arguably the most anticipated Charlotte restaurant opening in 2021. “This was a different place,” Brown tells me as she surveys the 88-seat restaurant, newly christened Ever Andalo, from a seat at the quartz bar that had been installed the previous day. “But the climate has changed. People’s expectations have changed, and the reasons people are going out have changed. I think people value a lot more sourcing and the craftedness of food, and we just felt like Crepe Cellar as a brand was not allowing our team to expand past crepes.” So on January 30, Crepe Cellar closed and a mere five weeks later, the Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group opened Ever Andalo, a restaurant inspired by an ambling trip across Europe the couple took more than a decade ago. Before their kids were born, the couple, both with MBAs, left comfortable corporate jobs — Jamie in marketing at Lance (now part of Campbell Soup Co.), Jeff in sponsorship with a NASCAR team — for an eight-month backpacking trip across Europe and Asia. Eggplant Rollatini 36
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