Ash Bar and Grill in West Homewood celebrates the timeless tastes that result when food is cooked over a wood fire. Smoke and flame influence nearly every dish—meats, vegetables, and even dessert. These two elements are as crucial as salt, spices, flavored oils, and vinegars, says owner Mark Driskill, who opened Ash in August with his wife, Ashley.
“One of the special things about wood-fire cooking is you have to treat the heat and smoke and the flavors you get from them as ingredients,” he says. “They’re that palpable, that distinct.”
The restaurant’s décor reflects the wood’s journey from split log to ash. Firewood is stacked in the dining room. Wooden wall décor and booths are partially burned, evoking a fire in its early stages. Wood tabletops are flame-scorched black.
“You have every kind of wood in the dining room to touch, to smell, to eat on,” says Driskill, who mastered wood-fire cooking as a chef at Frank Stitt’s Highlands Bar and Grill, Bottega, and Chez Fonfon from 2009-2014. Driskill also helped Mauricio Papapietro (another Stitt-restaurant alum) open both Brick and Tin restaurants, and spent two years in Southern Living’s test kitchen.
Chef Driskill describes Ash as a wood-fired American kitchen with Southern roots and international flavors. The restaurant serves comfort food elevated with haute chef touches—familiar, yet unafraid to stray into new territory.
Take, for example, the BBQ Plate ($14), which includes that classic North Alabama combination of chicken and white sauce. But the chicken—leg quarters from Joyce Farms in North Carolina—is confit cooked by poaching the quarters in pork renderings, and then briefly grilled to pick up some smoke. The meat is coated in red barbecue sauce and finished with ribbons of white sauce. It’s served with potato salad that’s dressed with a salty-herbal, mayonnaise-like sauce gribiche that includes housemade pickles. Leaves of grilled napa cabbage, with deep smoky flavor, tie everything together.
While utilizing top-quality products, Chef Driskill’s butchering background helps keep prices down. Instead of paying a premium for parts, the kitchen cuts up whole chickens, using leg quarters for confit, breasts for tenders and chicken sandwiches ($11), and bones for stock. Cooks also break down large cuts of beef, pork, lamb, and whole fish. Instead of pricey ribeyes or filets, you’re more likely to find less-expensive but still-flavorful steak cuts like flat-iron, hangar, or tri-tip.
For Ash’s signature Double Cheeseburger ($11), patties are ground daily from chuck, New York strip, and ribeye. A self-described burger “purist,” Driskill constructs the burger with the housemade patties plus cheese, condiments, lettuce, and housexmade pickles. Alabama-cured bacon, grilled onion, jalapeños, and mushrooms are available as additional toppings.
Though some dishes are simpler than others, Driskill doesn’t believe in cutting corners. Mexican Braised Beef Short Rib ($28) features housemade mole sauce that includes several kinds of dried chiles, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, aromatic vegetables, tomato, chocolate, and chicken stock. It’s cooked down overnight, then strained twice for smoothness.
Some of the mole goes into the braising liquid. The cooked short rib is served with sweet-potato purée, mole, and a combo of rice and pink beans imported from Central America. The accompaniment’s mélange of flavors comes from lime juice, Mexican crema (thick table cream), cilantro salsa verde, vinegar, garlic, lemon zest, and olive oil.
The kitchen also breads and pre-freezes its Fried Green Tomatoes ($5), a trick that breaks down the tomatoes so the outside cooks crisp but the inside is tart and creamy. That appetizer, along with house-breaded fried chicken tenders, are the rare menu items that don’t spend time on the grill, although a side dish accompanying a tenders entrée ($12) likely has grilled ingredients.
Sandwich buns—from Hinkle’s Bakery in Springville—are grilled. Cabbage and spinach in the vegan-friendly Meatless Main ($11) are grilled. Endive in the Roasted Butternut and Endive Salad ($11) is lightly charred. Graham crackers in the s’mores-like dessert called Fried Brownie Truffles ($7), are smoked; the mini-marshmallows are fire-toasted.
Ash is the family-friendly, yet comfortably sophisticated place that every great residential neighborhood needs. The “Child’s Choice” portion of the menu includes four main options ($3–$5), with housemade applesauce ($2) and fresh fruit ($3) joining the usual French fries ($2) as side options. The entire menu changes regularly, sometimes daily, to maintain freshness.
The restaurant is open for both lunch and dinner, with reduced prices on the burger and “ASHouse” salad during happy hour from 3 p.m.–5 p.m. The bar serves nearly two dozen wines by the glass or bottle, mostly bottled or canned beer, and cocktails.
Ash is the Driskills’ love letter to the neighborhood where they have lived for the past five years. Their house, where they raise their three children (including two born while planning and outfitting the restaurant), is three blocks away.
“We wanted to create a unique space where families feel welcome and kids are nourished in a way I would feel proud to feed my own,” Driskill says. “We’re the definition of ‘Mom and Pop.’”
Details
Ash Bar and Grill | 705 Oak Grove Rd. (across from Patriot Park in West Homewood) | 205.558.9401 | Hours: Tues.–Thurs., 11 a.m.–9 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 11 a.m.–10 p.m. | Sun., 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Closed Mon. | ashhomewood.com
