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Chef James Fier prepares to make a Merlot au jus sauce. 

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Hotel chef adds host of new flavors to downtown Marion

DON SIMMONS JR./Correspondent

caper (noun):  an edible flower bud of a Mediterranean shrub, pickled or salted and used as a flavoring or garnish

Capers! (proper noun): a new fine-dining restaurant in the General Francis Marion Hotel

Chef James Fier leans in close as he dusts two thin green-apple slices with raw sugar. The 39-year-old transplant from Charlotte uses a propane torch to burnish the sugar onto the slices, then carefully places them upright between two puffed pastries stuffed with baked port salut cheese. A drizzle of sauce and the appetizer is ready to go.

Sounds like the kind of work you’d find in a high-pressure kitchen in some extremely pricey four-star city restaurant.

And it is. Except for the pressure and the extremely high prices.
Fier cheerfully sings along with Billy Carrington’s “Must Be Doing Something Right” as he preps a huge beef tenderloin for the Saturday dinner crowd at Capers!, the new restaurant that opened this month in the restored General Francis Marion Hotel.

His assistants reflect Fier’s attitude as they run their stations, preparing salads or manning the grills and ovens. Fier coaches the youngsters through their paces with an easy, gentle tone, correcting when necessary and congratulating jobs well-done.

Capers! bills itself as elegant, but casual dining. The surroundings are indeed elegant. Early evening sunlight spills through two huge plate-glass windows decorated with orchid arrangements onto well-spaced maple tables. Golden folded napkins accent the Alizarin crimson walls and intertwined Arabesque designs on the ceiling. Low-key jazz pipes in quietly as well-dressed servers tend to their customers.

But the diners need not be in tails, ties and gowns. And they don’t need overstuffed pocketbooks either.

Despite meals that double as works of art, the pricing at Capers! is reasonable. Entrees run from $8 for “Sliced Roasted Pork Loin with Whole Grain Mustard, Provolone Cheese and Sour Pickles on a Ciabatta Loaf” to $26 for “Pistachio Crusted Lamb Chops with Sun-dried Cherries and a Merlot Au Jus.” Soups and salads are all under $10. Breakfast and lunch menus top out at $12 for a “Pecan Crusted Chicken Breast topped with a Honey Buerre Blanc Sauce.”

“We didn’t want to be as pricey as The Townhouse [Tom Bishop’s fine-dining restaurant in Chilhowie], but we still wanted to provide excellent food in a great atmosphere,” said hotel manager Robert Lincoln. “We were looking to provide something really nice for someone maybe going to a performance at the [Lincoln] Theatre, staying a night in the hotel and wanting a great dinner to go with it.
“We’re marketing to the business traveler, but also wanted something all our residents could enjoy.”
On Saturday evening, Rural Retreat residents Jim and Sarah Minick said the hotel had definitely hit its mark.

“We’ve tried restaurants in a seven-county area and this is the best for the quality of the food, atmosphere and price that we’ve tried,” said Sarah Minick, who dined on chicken roulade while her husband enjoyed a combination of grouper and New York strip.

The hotel’s owners Joe and Susie Ellis and Lincoln began putting out feelers with the American Culinary Federation around the first of the year and got more than 25 responses from as far away as California. They narrowed it down to five and invited those chefs to Roanoke for individual demonstrations.

“James had experience at large and small hotels and with banquets and we were very impressed, not only with the quality of his cooking, but with the way he ran the kitchen,” said Lincoln.

For Fier, who has spent the past 10 years as executive chef at hotels with as many as three restaurants and six kitchens, the move is a break from managing 45 cooks and dealing with all the headaches that come with that size of an operation. Instead, he is finally able to cook fine food again and train some younger aspiring cooks in the finer culinary arts.

“Now 80 percent of my job is actually cooking. It gets your creative juices flowing again,” said Fier, whose deal included total control over the menu. “In corporate kitchens there are so many set guidelines. Here, I write it and make it happen.”

Fier has also made pains to find local suppliers. He buys most of his produce from Rich Valley’s Jason Hines and gets his eggs from Charlie Clark’s free-range hens.

For a man who started his cooking career at age 13 peeling potatoes and making roll dough at Shanti Steakhouse in Memphis, and who for four years cooked for 110 soldiers on a Navy submarine, Marion is a source of rejuvenation and a chance to get his wife and three daughters out from the city into a more family-friendly environment, said Fier.

His wife, Jennifer, who handles the restaurant’s banquet business, said that while her husband is an artist in the kitchen, at home he generally enjoys more down-to-earth fare.

“Tacos are his favorite,” she confided.