Even in New Jersey,men dream big. Chris Cannon's dreaming now as he sits over oysters in a fifteen-thousand-square-foot century-old Italianate mansion in Morristown. This is Cannon's new joint, Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen, a culinary multiplex under one vast palazzo roof in a town that hasn't seen much action since George Washington and the Continental Army huddled here for warmth during the winter of 1779.
It sounds a little nuts: Up the twin marble staircase, you've got a four- or six-course prix-fixe menu served in what was once an oligarch's parlor; the main floor has a cocktail lounge and this oyster bar, each with a separate menu; and in the basement, for good measure, there's a German beer hall, the Rathskeller. Because the long-empty building is a historic landmark, its restoration was exacting and expensive, hewing to the original materials. And because art was the only way to shape Jockey Hollow to his aesthetic, Cannon filled the place with paintings, photos, and sculptures that he commissioned, veering from Dada to abstract to The-Hell-If-I-Know.
In truth, it's totally nuts, yeah, and it's wonderful. Jockey Hollow transmutes crazy into magic because Chris Cannon—dapper, fierce, and manic—has the balls to match his dream. Plus a grudge: A New York City native who made his name opening fine-dining establishments in Manhattan with star chef Michael White, Cannon was leveraged out of a partnership by a Wall Street jackal and chased out of the city by lawyers whose specialty is suing high-profile restaurants for the time-hallowed gray-area practice of including salaried sommeliers and maître-d's in the waitstaff's tip pool. Instead of battling in court, Cannon shuttered his last two restaurants in the city.
"There was a period where these guys made me hate my business. All five restaurants I owned in the city got three stars in TheNew York Times. I said, 'I'm gonna come back better than I've ever been, doing something more ambitious, more interesting.' We were looked at like carpetbaggers trying to dictate what New Jersey should eat. When you open a restaurant, the customer finds you—but you also find the right customer. And when we find the right customer, they're our friends. Within a couple of years, this place is gonna be a restaurant full of the people that love us and that we love."
It took Cannon three and a half years and five and a half million dollars to open Jockey Hollow. Lord, it was worth it. For the oysters alone, these succulent jewels, it was worth it. They're from Forty North, a Jersey-shore oyster farm Cannon helped with funding after Hurricane Sandy. He gets produce and pork from a farm in Mendham, five miles away.
"Jersey is so misunderstood, so maligned. Three quarters of the stuff from the Union Square greenmarket is coming from New Jersey. My staff, all the key guys, moved from the city out here."
That includes chef Kevin Sippel, who began working with Cannon in 2002 in New York City. "The shyest chef I've ever met in my life," Cannon says. "He's got a real blue-collar mentality—he's a cook, but he's got an amazingly sophisticated palate."
I'll vouch for Sippel's palate: On my first Jockey Hollow visit—dinner upstairs in the Dining Room—I tried his six-course tasting menu, which began with a scrambled hen egg with caviar, followed by sweetbread saltimbocca. The egg was exquisite, and the first bite of the sweetbreads moved me close to honest tears.
"You take good food and you stay out of its way," Cannon says. "It's just Italian food. This is shit that's been done for centuries. It's simple."
The food at hand right now is a new dish: a basket of fried chicken. It's simple, yeah—buttermilk, wine, pepper—and it's ye-gods perfect.
"Pretty damn good," Cannon says. "You should eat fried chicken once a week. Fuck it. It'll be in the Rathskeller tomorrow. You can do everything here. We've had people come and have a beautiful six-course menu and then on a Saturday go down to the Rathskeller and end up dancing on the tables. Eating should be joy. It should be in your heart, not your fucking head. Always. Always."
110 South Street; 973-644-3180
Published in the November 2015 issue.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pr%2FQrqCrnV6YvK57xaimnWWUp7avt46rnKyskaq%2ForrTrGaaa2htfnN7yaiapJ2pYrWwuMuormg%3D