High cuisine at Low Gap

Backroad gourmet

The hills of Arkansas are peppered with rural restaurants that serve exceptional meals. From the popular 178 Club in Bull Shoals to the remarkable Cliff House Inn along Scenic Arkansas 7 south of Jasper, the list of such places is surprisingly long for a state our size.

These businesses also can become answered dreams for those willing to take a risk based on confidence, energies and skills.

The most unlikely example for me is a fine-dining eatery which, even in the words of its owner/executive chef Nick Bottini, looks more like like a roadside biker bar.

Bottini's Low Gap Cafe is nestled along Arkansas 74 exactly 10 miles outside Jasper. You can't miss the rustic little place built of stone. Parking lots on each side of the two-laned road stay filled with cars and trucks four days a week when the screen door opens at 11.

"We served 600 meals last week," said Bottini, a creative five-star chef who today crafts meals alongside his understudies in the open kitchen at one end of the cafe's intimate dining room with 13 tables. Nine additional tables are arranged on the outside covered patio where guests can enjoy music while dining on Nick's gourmet fare such as Chicken Marsala or Francese, enormous pan-seared scallops, Ahi Tuna and Lobster Francese. There also are five beef choices from fillets to prime rib and Steak Diane.

It was six years ago that Nick and wife, Marie, left his position as executive chef at the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch to locate another restaurant to call his own. He and Marie saw the abandoned gas station along Arkansas 74 and sat on a bench outside staring at it for a while. That's when he decided he could transform this unlikeliest of spots into his inspiration for fine cuisine.

Really, Nick? A dilapidated former gas station in need of repairs 10 miles into the mountains outside Jasper? Why, what could possibly go wrong?

But any initial reservations they might have had soon faded. Many of us saw the hit 1989 movie, Field of Dreams, where disembodied whispers inspired an Iowa corn farmer: "If you build it, he will come." That pretty much describes what Nick and Marie did. Their motto today has become, "if you make it good, they will come."

The couple poured their blood, sweat and resources into remodeling, even adding on the covered patio once word of the transformation circulated. First local crowds began flocking to the quaint cafe. That soon blossomed into a busy, full-blown restaurant.

Today, the Low Gap Cafe is steadily edging toward legendary status as more and more people from miles distant learn about the food being served behind the door. One couple even drives from Austin, Texas, each year to dine with Nick. We ordered perfectly prepared salmon with red bell pepper cream sauce and Steak Diane topped by a mushroom cracked-pepper demi-glace, both made all the more delectable by Nick's savory sauces. With so many tempting choices on the menu, it wasn't an easy decision.

On this Friday night, former Harrison Times reporter turned social worker George Holcomb was playing with his trio on the covered patio where every table was full by 6 p.m. Fortunately, some seating remained inside so the four of us had plopped down quickly while we could still find a chair.

Bottini left the ovens and grills to stop by the table and chat about how happy he and Marie are living in the hills not far from their creation. "This little corner of the world and state is just where we both want to be," he said. The success we've had is far larger than we ever expected here in what some from elsewhere might call out in the middle of nowhere." I prefer the term boondocks myself.

Twenty years or so have passed since I was introduced to Nick at his popular Bottini's Restaurant inside the former Holiday Inn at Harrison. He spent 11 years in Harrison gaining a wide following before leaving in 2008 for Horseshoe Canyon.

But the soft-spoken artist's career in finer cuisine began well before that era. He actually started at age 17 in a fine-dining restaurant in Stockton, Calif., where he once helped cater Liberace's birthday party. From there he spent nearly four years training at the Culinary Institute of America in New York City. Then it was off to restaurants in Miami Beach, Denver and back in California at his own place called The Olive Tree Restaurant before heading to Harrison.

With all that behind him, little wonder Nick has the skills and experience to create the dishes capable of attracting 600 customers in four days to Low Gap, Ark. The cafe is only open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays and until 9 p.m. Friday and Saturdays. And then there's their catering business, run to a large degree through a Facebook page and Nick's website, lowgapcafe.com.

Nick grinned when telling us he's one happy man who's living the dream that proves darn near anything is possible for those with ability, vision and the willingness to take a risk even out in the Ozark boondocks where "a river runs near it."

------------v------------

Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].

Editorial on 05/10/2016

Upcoming Events