A few hundred of Rush Harding III’s friends and acquaintances entered Cache Restaurant on Wednesday evening and were offered flutes of champagne.
That was swell, but a Manhattan might have been even more appropriate.
That’s the atmosphere in the newest - and perhaps most elegant - restaurant in town.
Some places use mirrors to create a sense of space, and the openness of Cache suggests reflected depths.
But look again. That’s not you in the mirror. It’s another person in another room in the 9,000-squarefoot chrome and glass restaurant in the heart of the River Market District.
The open kitchen presents a greeting as the metal hearth reveals a roaring oven where pizza and other baked foods come and go.
The Cache is named for the river at Clarendon, the eastern Arkansas hometown of Harding, who spends his working hours as chief executive of Crews and Associates, an investment banking house in Little Rock.
His son, Payne, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., is general manager of Cache (pronounced cash) and top chef, after honing his skills at 1620 Savoy in west Little Rock, which he, his father and others own.
The Cache River of Rush Harding’s boyhood memory runs through the restaurant, with varying degrees of subtlety. From the back lit meandering design set in the dark paneling of a long wall upstairs, to those ribbony images in the elevator’s walls,it’s all part of the river motif.
The second floor of the restaurant at 425 President Clinton Ave. will be for private parties, but this night was one big party. And so you could’ve gotten a Manhattan from the second floor bar.
A balcony overlooking the traffic of the district was decked out in comfortable seating, replete with glowing cubes that served as rests for drinks. A gas flame in the center offered a touch of warmth on a clear, still, 37-degree night. The perch allowed a glimpse of a river, the Arkansas in this case.
And in the convivial din of the event, architect William E. “Bill” Johnson III of Atlanta, delighted in Harding’s enthusiasm for detail.
He cringed if someone observed that maybe the interior doesn’t have a lot of warm colors. He pointed out the orange flames dancing in the oven.
Johnson’s eye for detail has its beginnings in the elegant architecture of his hometown, Charleston, S.C., he says.
For the past 40 years, he has called Atlanta home, and for the past 25 years his Johnson Studio has specialized in restaurant design, about 500 of them around the country.
Of the Cache, he said: “We wanted to bring a little ‘big city’ to Little Rock.”
On this night, it was the place, not so much the food - hors d’oeuvres and other finger foods - that was the star of the show.
It carries a hefty price tag. A building permit was issued to Clark Construction LLC a year ago with the cost put at $3,167,904. It is in the Arcade Building nearing completion at the corner of President Clinton and River Market avenues, a collaboration of Moses Tucker Real Estate and the Central Arkansas Library System.
And the Cache cuisine: How to characterize it? Perhaps the invitation with its enticing come-on, sheds light on that.
“Be the first person at Cache to sample the Tasmanian salmon,” it says.
And when will that be? Payne Harding said the public opening for lunch and dinner will be Jan. 9, but the website says there’s to be a first-come party ($75 per ticket) on New Year’s Eve.
If you have a tip, call Jack Weatherly at (501) 378-3518 or email him at
Business, Pages 67 on 12/15/2013