For Savannah restaurateurs Patrick and Jenny McNamara, “place” has always been a resource and a guidepost. But it wasn’t until the couple settled in “The Hostess City of the South”and opened Noble Fare, a fine dining restaurant in Savannah’s historic district, that “place”—especially when it comes to food—became more deeply synonymous with “home.”
When the two crossed paths, Patrick had moved home to Cleveland after years spent in countless kitchens from Florida to New Mexico, working for corporations, small restaurants, catering groups, and even for one of the U.S. Olympic Team chefs. Jenny—who was born in Côte-d’Ivoire and had spent most of her youth abroad living in places like West Africa, Strasbourg, Paris, and eventually Michigan—was pursuing a degree in criminology at Kent State.
“And then you meet a guy that completely changes your plan and makes you realize that this obsession with food and wine and entertaining could be something more than just that,” she said. “It could be something you do every single day.”
In the early years of their relationship, Jenny describes long nights spent fantasizing about the future together, filling a notebook with ideas. One of those notebook dreams—only five years later—would manifest itself as Noble Fare in the mid-aughts. “And here we are, at the very same corner, with the same nosy neighbors [who watched] the new couple in town renovate that building in 2006—those are some of our best customers today,” said Jenny.
With each of their culinary and cultural backgrounds steeped in such a diverse collection of places, and with Pat’s training in the French technique, the McNamaras came to Savannah eager to embrace the concepts of southern coastal cuisine, but also to bring their own interpretations to the table. “Our food has so many layers. You can get as geeky as you want with the terminology,” Jenny laughed. “French meets American, Southern comfort, continental American, French technique but American, Nouvelle cuisine.
“You come to learn that people have certain expectations from one region or another. But then you have the Noble Fare version. Like, ‘You don’t put peas in a low country boil!’ But that’s our addition, our personal addition.”
Jenny emphasized that one common sentiment among the Savannah food scene is the embrace of local and seasonal products—a priority she and Pat made evident when planning the menu for their visit to Louisiana for our April “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” Supper Club in Saint Francisville, which will feature “as many locally sourced ingredients as possible.”
Noting the many parallels between Savannah and Louisiana’s little Saint Francisville—both port cities, both with supreme access to fresh seafood, both with colorful, though often complicated, Southern histories and a monumental collection of historic sites and traditions to prove it—Jenny said she and Pat are eager to draw on those similarities, while also sharing their own unique, nouvelle-Savannahian takes with a Louisiana audience.
“If you’re in Savannah you put a little more of this, and if it’s Louisiana you put a little more of that,” said Jenny. “But there’s a preconceived notion that you can’t mix fine cuisine with simple classic dishes, and I’m hoping, with our flavor profiles [Country Roads Supper Club guests] might be pleasantly surprised at something different.”
Over the past twelve years, Jenny says that the most remarkable thing about owning their restaurant has been experiencing the community around food. Their restaurant has drawn customers from the world over, enjoying a meal recommended by dear friends or by strangers they met on their flight. But then there are also the customers from right around the corner, the neighbors and locals who have become part of the McNamaras’ lives, the people who have played their part in making Savannah—after years of happily wandering—their home.
And so this month, we welcome the McNamaras into our Louisiana. From one small town to another, our worlds will contract and expand over a shared meal and a shared experience. And perhaps we’ll all leave with new bit of “place” in our pockets.
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