Cody Suddreth, former executive chef at King’s Kitchen and Rooster’s before leaving Charlotte to work at Husk, is launching a pop-up dinner series.

The series, launching in August, will be called Ralentissez Supper Club. Ralentissez means “slow down” in French. Suddreth is kicking off the series on August 3 to honor his wife Dorine, who passed away last year. Growing up around restaurants in Lyon, France, Dorine continued to use hospitality to enhance the lives around her in her life. When Dorine and Cody came up with the idea for the supper club, they wanted it to be something they could do together while treating guests to the hospitality they grew up around.

“We really wanted to find time for ourselves, you know? It derived from just essentially me and her just spending all of our time in the restaurants, and really not spending any time together,” Suddreth says. “We were like, ‘You know, this would be an awesome opportunity that we could put this together and spend time together and do food we believe in and her picking wines she believes in and just working one-on-one together.”

The five-course dinners will cost $130 a person, with a portion of proceeds going to a local nonprofit called HUGS, and include beverage pairings. The location will be disclosed after guests purchase tickets. There won’t be a menu published ahead of time; Suddreth wants to have the ability to purchase local, seasonal ingredients and cook on a whim each weekend. The dishes will center on modern Southern, French, and Italian cuisines and allow Suddreth to “play with techniques.”

Each dinner will be limited to a dozen guests, allowing Suddreth to interact more closely with guests.

He and Dorine moved back to Charlotte from Atlanta last spring to be closer to family. Suddreth’s mom was having health issues at the time, and his sister got in a car accident.

“It was a reset for both of us,” he says. “We were like, ‘Okay, this is career on pause — let’s slow down a little bit… Thus the name Ralentissez, slow down.”

For the last four months, Suddreth has been working in the fields at New Town Farms, working on healing after his wife’s death and learning more about the products he cooks with.

“I’ve been trying to get some wind under my sails, just trying to get back into the groove of things right now,” he says.

Purchase tickets or learn more about the series here. —Kristen Wile

 

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