Southern Dish is brought to you by these sponsors.

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Foundation Gaming and Entertainment, Mississippians proudly supporting Mississippi.

>> In this episode of Southern Dish, we'll travel with former restaurant owner Lydia Chassaniol to see how two Mississippi chefs have turned local landmarks into high-end restaurants.

Featured on popular reality shows such as “Chopped” and “Cutthroat Kitchen,” these two chefs prove when it comes to cooking, Mississippi competes on the national level.

Two kitchens, two stories, One Mississippi.

Southern Dish.

In the early morning hours, breakfast is about to be served in one of downtown Jackson's most historic landmarks.

The Sun & Sand Motor Hotel became a fixture in 1960.

It was the place to stay for many of the state's political leaders and civil rights activists over the decades.

In the early 2000s, the Sun & Sand closed its doors and remained dormant for nearly 20 years.

Then, just as the building was slated for destruction, a local chef had an idea.

Welcome to Hen and Egg.

Hello, I'm Lydia.

I'm Nick Wallace.

So nice to meet you, Chef.

Great to meet you, too.

You want to take a tour?

I'd love to.

All right, come on.

My name is Nick Wallace.

I'm the chef and owner of Hen and Egg.

So when this space came to be, it was honestly looking just like an old motel.

That's what it looked like.

A bunch of windows, long outside hallways that you get to with the room, big huge pool.

So people come in here and honestly sometimes think it's still a motel.

Nick, thank you so much- You're welcome.

... for letting us come in today and watch you prepare your wonderful dishes.

Tell me, why in the world did you want to have a place right here?

It's another landmark.

When I saw this location, it was two, three years ago, and they was thinking about tearing it down and just making it into a parking lot.

So I was like, "This could be perfect for Hen and Egg."

It's a landmark.

I love the big yellow sign.

Yeah.

I was like, this is something that is a part of our legacy.

That's what we want to be a part of, about special things.

And this is a special place.

It has so many memories in this place.

The dining room.

So here we have, this is almost like, I really want my dining room like this to be at home.

Yeah.

I want something like this.

Yeah.

Nice and cozy.

So we're just featured with a lot.

My mom is on the wall with me with Southern Living.

A lot of these articles goes all the way back to I was 21 years old.

All right, y'all, walking in.

Shrimp and grits, chicken omelet.

No mushrooms, no tomatoes, walking in.

Tell me more about you.

You've been around for a while.

Who inspired you to be a chef?

So, my grandmother.

She was that first initial one.

She is like that beaming light in my heart.

Her name is Ms.

Lynell Donald, and that's my dad's mom.

I grew up on a farm there.

It wasn't a huge farm, but it's on the backside of Cal-Maine Foods in Edwards, Mississippi.

It was only a few houses that was in this neighborhood.

So we had to crop share.

We did a lot of this.

Yeah.

So if the lady down the street wasn't growing collard greens, we were.

Yeah.

And we did a lot of sharing.

And who was responsible for walking up and down the street, pulling weeds, was me.

But I'm so glad that I got all those life lessons of dealing with the animals and I just had some magical moments.

I think that's what Mississippi's all about.

It's like we can talk about it, but we also can show it, too.

We can talk about it, we can show it to you and then we can feed it to you.

There you go.

I love it.

I love it, too.

Over here, you have Chef Rodney.

Rodney is the executive chef of Hen and Egg.

You have Twan, and you could come here and kind of see and hear all of this love being shared.

I just want your pretty face to be on camera, now.

They're pumping out food, they're talking, but you can be able to see and hear this.

And this is probably one of the best seats in the house, and this is the kind of bar seating.

And you can see the team.

Yes.

Because right now, they're over there prepping, getting ready for their specials today.

Dinner and a show.

Well, I can't wait to get in the kitchen and cook with you, Chef.

You know what?

That's my favorite part of today.

Let's go.

All right, let's go.

Well, Chef, what are we making today?

So we're going to start with, we're going to do a shrimp and grits.

Sounds fabulous.

All right.

Let's make it.

So we use some palm oil, so we're going to do some palm oil in the pan.

And once we get hot, because you know we can't cook with a cold pan.

No, absolutely not.

So how much do you cook?

All the time.

That's what I'm saying.

All the time.

I love to cook.

All right.

I'm going to come over to your house for the holidays.

Come ahead.

Come ahead on.

I'll cook for you.

Sounds good.

So we're going to start off, all of our peppers and all our... We put it in a pickle bath.

Right.

So we really focus on flavor, but also preservation too.

Yeah.

Quick pickle.

Because we pickle our blueberries here, we pickle our peppers, we pickle onions, we pickle serrano peppers.

We're pickle crazy here.

Do you pickle any eggs over here?

But we have, yes.

We don't pick them here, but we do love to pickle.

Yeah.

I've always got a jar of pickled eggs in my refrigerator.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

So delish.

Always.

So we're going to do a little bit of onions- Yeah ... in the skillet also.

Looks good.

Looks good.

We use my house seasoning.

I took this seasoning on “Top Chef” on Bravo TV.

It's called Nick's 26.

So this is our house seasoning almost everywhere we go.

Can't beat that.

Yeah, so we'll start off with just a little bit of house seasoning in there.

All right now, are your vegetables locally sourced?

Yes.

We try to- That's great ... we try to source as much.

We work a lot with Footprint Farms- Right ... in West Jackson.

They're- Right.

I've been there before.

Great place.

Well, Hen and Egg, that's an interesting name for a restaurant.

It says, "Slow food served fast."

Yes.

I like that.

Yes.

How'd you come up with that?

Throughout my time being involved with James Beard Foundation and cooking on TV, slow food movement- ... is a really big deal.

Slow food is really just using your hands, and it's braising things.

Those are the curing.

It's salt curing, smoke curing.

Pickling is a big thing.

It goes with the preservation, too.

My grandmother wasn't really big on going to the grocery store a lot.

Only for things that we may be depleted on, like dairy and things like that.

But she cooked almost every single thing in the house.

Right.

Are any of the things that you serve foods that she cooked for you as you were a child, as you were growing up?

Yes, a lot of our maple syrup, it has a lot of cane syrup elements to it.

Syrups was a big thing.

And I suppose these are Gulf shrimp too that we're going to be having.

All Gulf shrimp, yes.

That's it.

And it's identified on our menu.

Right.

So... Close to home.

Keep it close to home.

Yep.

This looks so good.

Beautiful.

Woo.

Getting happy in there.

Yeah, it looks good.

A little fireworks display.

Totally.

Fourth of July.

Here we go.

I hope you came hungry too.

Go ahead and ladle me- The sauce?

Yep.

That's our bacon broth there.

Yeah, I'm left -handed.

Do you mind?

Oh, you're left-handed.

Okay.

I'll work with you.

Just keep ladling.

All right, how many?

Just keep going.

All right, you say when.

Give me one more.

One more.

One more.

There you go, look.

Perfect.

That's perfect.

Perfect.

Looks good.

Right behind you, chef.

Looks good.

All right, so we're going to just let that reduce down just a little bit.

Our next thing we're going to add is, this is some of our homemade sausage.

Oh, yay.

We're going to add in the sausage.

Oh, good.

So we just change up this shrimp and grits a little bit.

And it's just pretty perfect.

Yeah.

Got a lot of flavor going on there.

Yep.

I'm going to add in a little herbs to this.

A lot of flavor.

It's beautiful.

All right, we're coming over to start plating up the shrimp and grits.

Beautiful.

Very easy to do, really quick.

Yeah.

A lot of flavor in there.

That is the bomb.

Perfect flavor.

Just a little different.

Instead of all that cream- ... we just do a little bit of- ... make it brothy.

Mm-hmm.

This is a religious experience, Nick.

I love it.

I love it.

Hallelujah.

I love it.

It's great.

Fabulous.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for letting me taste that.

You're welcome.

I came up with this concept about 10, 11 years ago, and my mission was just to find a location that we was able and financially able to open, that I could be able to represent her, for her to walk through the doors.

Unfortunately, I missed it by a year.

Oh.

She transitioned.

I know she's still looking down on it, but The Hen is Ms.

Lynell.

Your grandmother.

And the egg is me.

Wonderful.

So everything that we do here, even from the hot sauce to we make our own ketchup, everything is off of my memories of a childhood, and I put my spin on it, so it's like past and present kind of meet.

But that pickled pepper recipe would make her smile.

I bet.

Yeah.

Because it's pretty close.

I think you make her smile.

She's watching you.

She's amazing.

>> Landmarks like the Sun and Sand Motor Hotel help define a city and preserve its history.

Just like Chef Nick Wallace, another chef is preserving a local landmark right off the shimmering shores of the Gulf Coast.

The skyline of Biloxi, Mississippi wouldn't be the same without this historic restaurant's giant White Pillars.

Hello, Chef Austin Sumrall.

Welcome to White Pillars.

Thank you.

It's a great pleasure to be here.

Yeah.

Happy to have you.

I want to see all around.

Let's do it.

My name is Austin Sumrall.

I'm the chef and owner of White Pillars Restaurant and Lounge.

Chef, tell me about this wonderful restaurant.

How did you come to be here?

So I grew up in Mississippi.

My wife and I really wanted to be able to give something back to our state.

This building became available, and we came and looked at it, and we just fell in love immediately.

This space is so historic.

How old is this building?

Dr.

and Mrs.

Fowlkes built this home in 1905, and it's got a lot of really cool elements that are still here.

Like right behind us, this hand -carved fireplace is original.

This is the way this home looked in 1905 when it was built.

It's wonderful.

And then next to that, which we got from the library, here is a picture of Dr.

and Mrs.

Fowlkes on their honeymoon in Niagara Falls in 1899, six years before they built this.

So it was open originally as the White Pillars from 1969 to 1989 as a restaurant, and it grew to be really popular in the area.

This is actually what the restaurant would've looked like in 1969.

So you can see the slanted roof coming off the front of the building- ... which was right here.

A little bit different than it looked back then, but you have still a lot of the same kind of pieces involved as well.

The name White Pillars, I think that is an interesting name.

So many people have always heard of White... Why did you choose to keep that name?

Right.

Well, we chose to keep it because it had so much acclaim.

It was something worth bringing back.

Right.

That it was something that we could give back to the Coast.

And then, I felt like that there was so much history in the building- ... not only as a home but as a restaurant, that we wanted to keep that name.

Now, the name comes from, there's big white pillars on the front of the building.

I don't know if you saw that.

Yeah, its easy to spot it when youre ... coming down the highway, you can say, "Oh, that's White Pillars."

Big columns out front.

I grew up in a family where meals were important.

Whether we were eating a meal together that we had cooked or we were going out to dinner, it was always just more than just sustenance.

It was a time for gathering and socializing with friends and with family.

Are any of your recipes a result of this upbringing?

Yes, several things.

My mom has lots of stuff that I grew up eating that made it onto our menu.

I just think that when you can pull in the nostalgia and you can pull in the the real memories, and you can cook from a place that's not just, "Oh, I want to take this and make this" that it really comes from the heart, and it comes from your soul.

Everybody grew up eating crab rangoons, and it's just got this kind of takes you back to another time kind of taste and flavor to it, so we kind of wanted to flip that on its head, and we put it into a pasta dish.

So we're going to combine the flour and the eggs.

That's right.

Then we're going to add a little kosher salt in, and then we've got some hot water here that I've put turmeric into.

It's going to give it a great color.

And it's good for you.

That's true.

One thing that's really important when you're making pasta is that you don't want the dough to end up too wet.

There's not really much that you can do about it after that.

If it ends up too wet, it makes it really hard to work with.

Kind of once it pulls up from the bottom, we'll know that it's ready.

People ask me all the time, like, "What do y'all cook at White Pillars?"

Well, we cook the food that I like to eat.

Here in Biloxi, we're in a real melting pot of cultures, so we have a lot of different influences in our local area.

And taking those local fish and local seafood and all these local vegetables and kind of just flipping them on their head and doing all kinds of different crazy stuff with them.

We're kind of tying in this American Chinese dish.

We just really end up with this very cool product.

It pulls from different flavors, but really the most important thing is the nostalgia that I think it brings back.

We take Southern ingredients, and then we kind of just do whatever we want with it.

We like to call our cuisine Southern nouveau.

It means whatever you want it to mean, right?

This is called laminating the dough.

Laminating.

Laminated pasta.

Very fancy.

We're going to try to end up with this being about as wide as possible.

Just want to feed it through, so you're going to feed it through with one hand and you're going to catch it on this side.

The whole thing?

Then you're going to guide it- This way?

... with your other hand.

So you just want it to stay straight, you know.

All right.

Right there.

There you go.

And don't let your fingers get caught in there.

It's almost like a scarf.

We could have a ravioli scarf.

It's beautiful.

The food that you prepare is so fresh and so local.

Can you tell us how important that is to White Pillars?

I think everyone should know where their food comes from.

We like to know who our food comes from.

So one of the first things that we did when we moved to the coast was we started hitting farmers' markets and meeting actual farmers.

And they're able to say, "Hey, this is what's coming up.

This is what looks great."

So really to have that relationship makes my job so much easier.

And then the other part of it too is that we're between one of the most nutrient-rich bodies of water in the world- Right ... and one of the most densest farmlands on the- Correct ... on the north side of us.

It's a powerhouse for food.

So this is our filling.

All right.

And we're just going to put it right there.

A little dollop, about what, a- Just a little bit ... like a big teaspoon?

That's right.

So it has the cream cheese that you make yourself.

That's right.

And it has the crab that comes from the Gulf of Mexico.

And what sort of herbs have you got in there?

Yeah, so we've got a little bit of lemongrass.

We've got some scallions, got garlic and ginger, a little bit of sugar and soy sauce.

Yeah.

Sounds good.

All right, so here's where your artistry can come in- Oh, wonderful ... in handy here.

This is going to kind of help our pasta stick together when we put the top on there.

Just put really light water in between all of these.

Okay.

I can do that.

So this has got a spring load in there so it gives it a shape.

And then so we're just going to put it right on there.

Right.

Line it up, and then we push really hard.

It's like- And isn't that just the cutest pasta you've ever seen?

Oh, it's adorable.

Now, it does take some hard push, but if you want to do some.

And then you just give it a very slight wiggle.

Very slight wiggle.

There we go.

All right.

So we're popping out our last last few here.

Seven per order for this dish.

This was team effort.

We did this together.

One cool thing about when you're making fresh pasta is that it cooks a lot faster.

Like- About how long will this take?

... dried pasta, you're looking at seven to 10 minutes, and with fresh pasta, one to two minutes.

So it's pretty quick- So pretty quick ... once you get so there.

We've got our broth here.

This is a coconut milk Parmesan broth, so it gets a little bit of red curry, coconut milk, that Parmesan rind.

You get some more of the aromatics in there as well, like lemongrass and ginger and garlic.

And then that cooks for quite a while, and then you get what we see here.

Now, I noticed as I was coming in the door, you have a lot of accolades.

Apparently, you've won some things.

You want to tell us about that?

I did.

I've gotten the opportunity to do a lot of cool stuff, a lot of competitions.

I got to do "Chopped," ended up getting second on that.

And then I got to do "Alex vs.

America" not very long after that.

And then I won that one, so that was pretty cool, out in California.

Kind of along with all of that, we started getting James Beard nominations.

It's crazy.

That's like some of the biggest awards out there for chefs.

To just see your name up there with people that I feel like are out of my league, it's awesome.

And then it kind of brings us back to really wanting to bring something home to Mississippi- ... and be able to represent our state in a positive light.

So that, to me, is just all a really exciting part of it.

So we've got our sauce and our pasta in the bowl.

Now all we have to do is garnish with some of those fresh jalapenos that we cut up.

This kind of gives it a little bit of texture and also a little bit of that just warmth and heat there.

Chili crisp, which I could really just eat on anything, because I love it.

We can go right on the plate with that.

Look how pretty that is, too.

Looks like a party in a bowl.

That's right.

And then we're just finishing with some fresh cilantro.

Now, there'll be some young people who are working for you, that down the road, they're going to talk about you the same way you hold older chefs in esteem, and I think that's great.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I think it's important, too.

I really do.

Yeah.

It's the love shows.

Thank you.

Are we ready to taste?

I think we are.

All right.

Get in there.

I'll try to get, like, one whole ravioli with a little bit of everything on there.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do.

This one has almost- That one might be extra spicy.

That one's got a lot of good stuff on it.

All right.

Here we go.

Mm.

Pretty good.

And I helped.

It's very good.

Excellent, in fact.

Definitely want to order this the next time I'm here for dinner.

Thank you, which could be tonight.

Mm-hmm.

Could be tonight.

I hope it is.

>> In this episode of "Southern Dish," we saw how two internationally acclaimed Mississippi chefs chose to stay home and preserve history.

At Hen & Egg, Chef Nick Wallace is keeping the doors of the iconic Sun & Sand open with a bowl of shrimp and grits.

And at White Pillars, Chef Alex Sumrall is keeping history preserved one crab rangoon at a time.

Our food tells us about who we are, where we came from, and where we're going, because here in the South, every dish tells a story.

"Southern Dish" is brought to you by these sponsors: Atmos Energy, proud to support the flavors and the stories that make Mississippi a one-of-a- kind culinary destination.

Mississippi Beverage Association.

This program proudly brought to you by Mississippi's own Foundation Gaming and Entertainment, owner and operator of Fitz Casino Hotel in Tunica and Waterview Casino Hotel in Vicksburg.

Foundation Gaming and Entertainment, Mississippians proudly supporting Mississippi.