BENTONVILLE — The restaurant at the 21c Museum Hotel is airy and bright with a buzzing energy and conversation-inducing contemporary art, a far cry from the dimly-lit and swanky air one might associate with high-end fare.
Residents can get their first glimpse of The Hive when it opens for dinner at 5 p.m. Monday.
The art, like the restaurant’s menu, will rotate to provide ever-changing experiences to its guests. Animal heads will peer down at the restaurant’s first diners Monday in a carousel of faux taxidermy. There’s an elk head made of leather products — shoes, belts, gloves. The boar is comprised of thousands of matchsticks. The tiger with a beehive in its tail? Blaze orange traffic cones.
At A Glance
The Hive at the 21c Museum Hotel
Hours are:
• Sunday through Thursday: 5-9:30 p.m.
• Friday and Saturday: 5-10:30 p.m.
Breakfast, lunch and brunch will follow in the coming months.
Source: Staff Report
While the art is one part of the hotel experience, a restaurant lives and dies by its food. The Hive will offer a menu head chef Matthew McClure describes as “comfortable but interesting.”
Arkansans will see foods celebrating the area’s culinary heritage with a new twist. The inaugural menu includes house-made pimento cheese served with bacon jam and toasted white bread, crispy chicken livers marinated in buttermilk, and pickled shrimp with salt-cured country ham, mustard greens and crispy cornbread.
Rabbit, locally-raised chicken and organic grits from War Eagle Mill also will make an appearance.
“Arkansas has a great culture of food, but a lot of it was subsistence,” McClure said. “We haven’t had a great lineage of chefs, but we have our own identity. Now it’s time to start celebrating that.”
Diners can watch their meals take shape through an open window into the kitchen. A wood-fire grill is one of the highlights of the kitchen, with oak and hickory providing a smoky flavor to meals. McClure said he has a staff of about 18 but hopes to be up to 25 soon. In the interim, the restaurant will be open only during dinner hours.
“There are a few important things that we want to make sure we get right,” he said. “Then we’ll evolve from there.”
The limited hours will give locals a chance to experience the downtown restaurant before guests descend from around the country for the museum’s grand opening. An opening date for the hotel hasn’t yet been set, but visitors can catch a glimpse into the lobby and enjoy artwork while walking to the restaurant.
“We wanted residents to have a chance to dine before it fills up with out-of-town guests,” McClure said. “They’ve put up with all the construction and dust.”
Jeff Genova, director of food and beverage at the hotel, said the restaurant aims to be accessible. Its prices won’t be out of reach for residents, while the atmosphere is designed to be unintimidating.
The restaurant will strive to buy ingredients from local farmers whenever available, McClure said. He called Arkansas a “chef’s paradise” when it comes to home-grown food. Even in the depths of winter, the new restaurant has managed to pull together a lineup of locally produced food. From beef to beer, diners can feast knowing their dollars are going into the pockets of local producers.
The menu will change according to what’s available and what foods are in season. McClure said if a farmer calls him and says he has just slaughtered a lamb, diners are likely to see lamb on the menu that night.
The restaurant smokes its own bacon and breakfast sausage, grinds its own hamburger meat — McClure wants no confusion about “pink slime” — and even makes its own ice cream.
The bar includes a full lineup of drinks with a focus on bourbon and rye, according to a news release. Cocktails will rotate seasonally with drinks like the Arkansawyer with gin, lemon, house-made ginger syrup and lavender. A laid-back bar menu is coming soon, including a brisket burger and ox ribs.