A California transplant found a lack of healthy options in Nashville, so she opened her own restaurant. Five years later, she’s on her fourth location
When Amanda Frederickson opened Radish Kitchen in 2020, naysayers told her Southerners don’t do salads and grain bowls.
Yet in March, Frederickson will open the fourth location of her vegetable-powered restaurant at Assembly Food Hall, in a primo location between the iconic Prince’s Hot Chicken and Pharmacy Burger.
She expects to hold her own amidst the fried chicken and cheeseburgers, but it’s a bold move — especially for someone who never intended to be a restaurant owner.
In San Francisco, Frederickson worked in fundraising for the nonprofit Stanford Children’s Hospital. She was also engaged in the Bay Area’s food culture, which is rich in farmers markets, Michelin-starred restaurants, street food vendors and world flavors.
At work, her performance reviews were flawless and she began to wonder why she was working so hard for someone else, even if the job was comfortable.
“It was just like a great, amazing institution, but it was kind of like golden handcuffs, where I didn’t want to leave because I had an amazing opportunity, but it wasn’t what I was happiest doing,” she said.
Though some of her friends thought she had gone nuts, in 2013 Frederickson enrolled in San Francisco Cooking School and launched a new career.
“And it was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life,” she said.
Her stint in culinary school landed her a dream job in the Williams-Sonoma Test Kitchen, which overlooked the San Francisco Bay. It had insurance, great hours, and plenty of flexibility. It was ideal — but it still wasn’t hers.
Culinary school gave her a sense of urgency and confidence, something she applied equally to an apprenticeship in a Michelin-starred restaurant and a test kitchen geared to the home cook.
Those same values helped her to strike out on her own, launching a website, publishing a cookbook called “Simple, Beautiful Food” and starting her first restaurant while pregnant and amid a pandemic.
Radish Kitchen: An ‘insane’ restaurant plan
Frederickson moved to Nashville with her husband Luke Smiley, who graduated from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, in 2018 to be closer to family. But Nashville’s dearth of vegetable-forward options became quickly obvious to the California ex-pats.
Though she hadn’t gone to culinary school to open a brick-and-mortar, she began to draw up plans for Radish Kitchen, which she envisioned as a whole foods-focused concept with a menu of proteins such as salmon, grilled steak and chicken thighs, served on tangles of fresh vegetables and in grain bowls and wraps.
Locals weren’t sure she’d hit on a concept that could fly here.
“Everyone was like, ‘You’re totally insane,'” she said. “One of our friends’ dads, this older Southern gentleman was like, ‘What are you gonna serve? Iceberg lettuce?’ They just didn’t understand that this kind of fresh food could still be delicious and filling.”
Frederickson and Smiley pushed forward with the project, signing a lease on a unit in the Sylvan Supply building at 4101 Charlotte Ave., with a projected opening date in April 2020. Those plans got pushed back to August to accommodate the pandemic. By then, people were ready to leave the house and undo the effects of months of sedentary life.
Two years later they opened their second location in Williamson County, following that in 2024 with a third location in Hunter’s Station. Now she and her husband are on the precipice of opening their fourth Radish in Assembly Food Hall, with the grand opening slated for mid-March. They plan to open more throughout the Southeast.
“It wasn’t easy, but we got through,” she said. “I think Nashville supports Nashville brands. People really stepped up, showed up and were patient with us when it was total chaos.”
Now her daughters Palmer and Olivia, now 5 and 6 respectively, are her toughest critics, preferring pancakes for dinner over salads and salmon. But they’re also witnessing what it means to have the confidence to start your own business.
“It’s fun for them to see what we’re building with Radish, and being able to understand what it means to go to work, and I think that’s an important thing for them to see,” Frederickson said.
One-pot chicken and orzo with sundried tomatoes
Recipe by Amanda Frederickson, first published in “Simple, Beautiful Food.”
This is the type of one-pot meal kids love. It’s great for busy parents too. It’s flavorful, easy, comes together in under an hour and doesn’t use up a ton of dishes.
Ingredients
- 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 cup dried orzo
- 1/2 cup coarsely chopped sun-dried tomatoes
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
- 1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Sprinkle the chicken thighs with a large pinch of salt.
In a large sauté pan or cast-iron skillet, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Working in batches, add the chicken to the pan, skin side down, and sear until the skin is browned. This should take 4 to 6 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan and transfer to a platter.
Add the onion to the pan and sauté until soft and translucent, 4 to 6 minutes. Next, add the garlic and a pinch of pepper and continue to cook for 30 seconds.
Add the orzo and sun-dried tomatoes and another pinch of salt and continue cooking for 30 seconds.
Deglaze with the wine, scraping browned bits from the pan bottom with a wooden spoon until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the chicken stock and lemon slices, then return the chicken to the pan, skin side up.
Place the skillet in the oven and cook until the chicken is cooked through and the orzo has absorbed the liquid, 35 to 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let the chicken sit for 5 minutes before serving.
