Three years ago, Dave Krog left his job at Interim after a stressful year of management changes that at one time had him working as both executive chef and general manager. I asked him his plans, and he told me he was going to open his own restaurant.

At the time, he had no plan, no money, no location – nothing but confidence that the day would come. Early this year, we rehashed that conversation. 

“I told you three years ago this was going to happen,” he said the first time I stepped inside Dory, the restaurant he owns with his wife, Amanda.

A love story has a happy ending as restaurant Dory opens to the public

I never doubted it. Since getting sober in 2014, Krog has walked the straight and narrow and shown an intuitive ability to zig when he should and zag when he needs to. Last week, we had the story of how he and Amanda got to the point of opening Dory; we won’t rehash it all (the story is now open to all readers, so you can read it here) but we’ll fill in some blanks.

First: Dory officially opened March 4. Private dinners and invitation-only events have been held on weekends for the past few months, but strict COVID restrictions made it hard to open over the holidays.

The menu has changed since I was there, and I’ll visit again soon and have a report on the current menu and the new bar offerings, drink and food, that weren’t available when I visited.

When Dave left Interim, the Krogs survived by cooking private dinners while they hunted for a restaurant. They started their Gallery pop-up dinners, a series in an old building Downtown that was offered for use by a friend, but had about 100 years of accumulated detritus strewn throughout.

The kernel of Dory took hold there, though. Dave already had an idea for an extensive tasting menu; hosting the Gallery dinners allowed the concept to flourish, to prepare the couple for the restaurant to come.

Dave was picky about where it would go. He wanted something along the Poplar corridor, specifically in the 38117 ZIP code. And though he looked at a few, he didn’t want to open his restaurant in a strip center.

After an unsuccessful bid to purchase the building at 716 W. Brookhaven Circle, the Krogs rented it from buyer Benjamin Orgel, who was willing to take a chance on someone else’s dream.

It was a lengthy process to turn a former doctor’s office into a restaurant with an open kitchen, a lounge that feels like a cozy set on a mid-20th-century talk show, and a bar stretching along the south wall.

There were construction delays. Permit delays. COVID delays. Luckily, the Krogs found a committed investor early on, another person willing to take a chance on a couple full of promise and talent, but new to business ownership.

They’re aware of how lucky they’ve been, and live every day in gratitude that now they have a restaurant they can operate the way they want:

It’s a tasting menu.

It’s locally sourced, as much as possible.

Their goal is zero waste.

It presents both challenges and opportunities.

“When you’re putting out a six-course tasting menu it’s kind of like being naked in front of all these people,” Dave said. “I feel pretty exposed.”

And judged. Each course has to be creative, attractive and above all, it has to taste good. The wine has to match. And it’s all on him, because you don’t get to pick what you order (though you should say if you have allergies or restrictions when you make your reservations).

“I want to have the freedom to share experiments,” he explained.

If it doesn’t work, it can change to an a la carte menu, but that’s not the plan. For now it’s a six-course menu for $95 Thursday through Saturday and a four-course menu for $55 on Mondays. The price for the wine pairing will change as wines change; at present, it’s $32 with the six-course dinner and $20 on Mondays.

We ate there in January and the menu has since changed, as it will do frequently.

“Dave is more likely to change the menu if he can’t get something locally than to order an ingredient from someplace else,” Amanda said.

Expect a change at least once a month, perhaps more frequently.

“In the summer, it will change whenever. There’s such abundance in the Mid-South. We have these relationships where we can talk to farmers about what to plant,” Dave said.

Not everything can come from around here. We don’t have saltwater, and while that sadly means no beach and gentle surf, it also means no local seafood. So the scallop in a dish we enjoyed wasn’t local. 

The seared scallop was served on Hollandaise foam, topped with Arkansas paddlefish caviar and the barely cooked yolk of a quail egg. A line of bright yellow dehydrated chicken yolk stretched along the right, starkly contrasting with the black plate. It was lovely, it was delicious, it was all very eggy.

Yet it was the first course, a faux egg dish, that most wowed me. An oval dollop of homemade ricotta was filled with a sunny center of satsuma curd, looking like a shiny, perfect egg half. Crimson beets and a tiny tangle of arugula nestled at one side, both earthy and spicy, and chopped pecans at another. I loved it. Loved it.

We ate powdered foie gras, sprinkled in a bowl of pork belly on turnip puree with a bite or two of turnip greens. We had redfish in a saffron broth with pea shoots, a generous serving of lamb tenderloin with airy and ethereal whipped sweet potatoes.

Dessert was my favorite dessert to serve at home, which drives the point the Krogs want made clear: This might be creative food, but the restaurant is comfortable and the food familiar in many ways.

It was ice cream and cookies, though fancied up a little. Homemade vanilla with impossibly delicate almond squares, made simply of almond flour, sugar and butter. It was garnished with apples, caramel and a scattering of Nine Oat One granola from Amanda’s company.

The six courses included three extra tiny bites: A profiterole filled with goat cheese first, a tiny scoop of lemon sorbet in the middle, and a decadent chocolate truffle to end.

After we ate we sat in the lounge, visiting for a few minutes as we rifled through “Les Diners De Gala,” a fun and surrealistic cookbook by Salvador Dali. The bar was closed then by a Health Department directive, and is still not serving cocktails because the liquor license is delayed, mostly because of the recent bad weather. Wine is available; the beer license is also pending.

A bar menu is to come, and it’s likely to change as often as daily.

“We’ll have bar snacks, bar snacks for two, whatever. Because we’re trying to get as close to zero for waste as we can, we’ll take what we have and let them team turn it into something delicious,” Dave said.

“Everything we do here will be intentional. The relationship you have with your vegetables is special. You want to know the guy who pulled it from the ground.”

Dory, 716 W. Brookhaven Circle, is open for dinner 5-10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and Monday. Call 901-310-4290.