Two small but mighty restaurants that have us happily installed in our comfort zone .
By Karen Deutsch Photography by Angel Tucker
Hunky Dory
O ne response to regaining normalcy : Create a large enough distraction — big space , loud music , dramatic visuals — to drown out any memory of deprivation . Sam Duling and Joanna Ray ’ s approach ? Conjure tiny , intimate pockets in which food might lull us all back into meditative delight . Their restaurant , on Market Street in Warren , once housed Eli ’ s Kitchen ( at which they both worked ) and recently became their own small repository of Southern charm .
By any standard , it ’ s a diminutive space : seating for ten on the patio when the weather allows and twenty-four indoors . Primary colors punctuate the space in vibrant bursts but it ’ s Duling and Ray ’ s good will that permeates the air . Hunky Dory is more than a name , it ’ s a directive . This is a restaurant in which every gesture is public and kindness is the only viable option . Servers refer to diners as if they ’ re old friends — “ How ’ s it going , Bud ?” — and respond to requests with limitless grace . “ You don ’ t like vodka ? Let me see what other elixirs we ’ ve got .”
It ’ s no wonder Southern food has gained new ground in 2021 . An amalgam of comfort and community , it ’ s a quick trip to a better place , an immediate gift of the proverbial warm and fuzzies . And that ’ s exactly what Hunky Dory achieves . Guests run the gamut from a green-haired teenager FaceTiming with a friend to a toddler in a puka necklace , holding tight to a Tootsie Pop , to an older couple reliving the week over drop biscuits .
The food ’ s not fancy but it hits the heart in a way that feels both familiar and elating . Pimento cheese ($ 9 ) is served with dramatic triangular everything crisps , and smoked wings come doused in Alabama white sauce ($ 13 ). Corn on the cob is sheared into curled ribs and served spicy , a fitting seasonal manifestation of the homegrown hoedown . Entrees also gravitate toward the tried and true : a snappy smoked bauernwurst ($ 16 ) with green tomato chowchow and a mustard-rich barbecue sauce and fried chicken ($ 16 ) that will stand up to any national rollout . It ’ s these dishes that arrive at the table with virile machismo — a dare on every plate , both in portion size and reckless disregard for ramifications .
Duling , who oversees the kitchen , knows how to invoke intimacy in poetic form , as well . Grilled shrimp and fried green tomatoes , another seasonal dish , look as if they came out of a fairy ’ s garden dotted with hand-picked herbs , flowers and peanut-sized tomatoes straight from the yard . It ’ s a form of delicacy that embodies Ray ’ s front-of-the-house gentility . Each customer is thanked for their presence and , at a time when much of the country is hotly embroiled in dissent , this is a space that reminds us that the building blocks of American commerce are molded out of small and sincere businesses . In fact , the restaurant ’ s indoor dining room took flight with loans from locals and each table commits to the feats of this shop with raucous laughter and genuine enthusiasm for the neighborhood success .
Evenings end with small scoops of housemade ice cream ($ 8 ), an offering that appeals as much to the children as it does to the groups heading out for more drinks . Flavors offer retro appeal — chocolate cherry , root beer float , vanilla with rivers of caramel — and a reminder that simplicity often speaks loudest of all .
HUNKY DORY
40 Market St ., Warren , 245-1809 , hunkydoryri . com .
Open Thurs .– Mon . for dinner , Sun . brunch . Lot parking across the street .
MUST GET Pimento cheese , smoked wings and anything they ’ re serving on a bun .
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l DECEMBER 2021 93