Unless you end up in one of the island community enclaves, crossing over DeRenne Avenue can be a discouraging dining crusade if only for the prevalence of chain restaurant choices. Heretofore, I have snidely labeled the entire region ‘SoD’ – ‘South of DeRenne’ – an area that is not home to much food that is worth the drive and the traffic.

Since it opened in August of 2020, Oak 36 Bar + Kitchen was decidedly different, a food phoenix that rose from the pandemic’s aftermath and that has survived and thrived in the Twelve Oaks Shopping Center, rather an anomaly on Abercorn SoD, if you will.

“We’ve always considered ourselves one-of-one, not being downtown,” said co-owner Brad Sellers. “If you want a really good elevated meal, scratch kitchen, amazing craft cocktails, plenty of parking, we’ve loved the fact that we’ve been able to be that destination.”

Earlier this week, the modern American gastropub launched new lunch and dinner menus that herald Luke Mattis’s recent appointment as executive chef, and the revamped brunch carte rolls out on Saturday.

“Where our menu is right now, we’re just so stoked that Chef Luke is going to take it up a notch to make us even more the go-to spot in midtown Savannah,” Sellers added.

What Sellers and partners Kara and Jason Ford have created is “the neighborhood go-to local restaurant with an elevated feel,” and Mattis aims to raise a high bar even higher.

Oak 36’s top chef chuckled: on the job three weeks and he has three new menus rolling out in Week Four.

NOT A BAD THREE-YEAR PLAN

Restaurant roots and relationships run deep in what has become ‘new’ Savannah’s culinary scene, and though he has lived here for only three years, Mattis’s Coastal Empire CV is already impressive.

“It was a little crazy in Chicago,” recalled Mattis of what spurred his relocation after the worst of the pandemic passed. “Everything closed and opened and closed every week, so we wanted to get back to some stability.”

Initially planning a move to Charleston, he and his girlfriend visited Savannah and agreed that this must be the place. After touching down in the 912 in June of 2021, Mattis landed a sous chef spot at Common Thread, and they signed a lease on a place to live.

Change ‘Windy’ to ‘Hostess’. Done.

After cheffing at East 37th Street’s fine-dining darling, he became chef de cuisine under Ryan Whyte-Buck for Folklore’s ephemeral existence, where he met and worked alongside Nicholas Chambliss.

When Folklore closed, Mattis cheffed dinner parties and then helped Chambliss and D.H. Bathon open Das Box before the Oak 36 triumvirate came calling. Technically, this is his first executive chef role, though at Folklore, his day-to-day duties were much the same as what he does now.

“Most of the time when you’re a CdC, you have total control,” he said. “You’re just answering to an executive chef who is managing you.”

Now running the show at a well-established restaurant, Mattis said, “It’s about getting more equipped and giving these guys the tools and the knowledge to get it done faster and get it done right.”

LOCAL FARMS TO OAK 36’s TABLES

“That’s where I met most of my farmers, at least a handful of them,” Mattis said of his time at Common Thread and of the purveyors he has brought into Oak 36’s lineup, “and then I branched out from there.”

“Literally, all my produce comes from Tuten Farms (Hampton, SC),” he said happily before also noting Bootleg Farm (Springfield), Billy’s Botanicals (Richmond Hill), and Rainwater Mushroom Farm (Jasper, SC).

“We’re bringing in people slowly, seeing where they fit in” these reimagined menus that are “upscaled”: a little healthier with fewer fried items and more vegan options while keeping some Bar + Kitchen staples.

“We’re shortening the lunch menu so that we don’t have all these big, heavy entrées on it,” Mattis explained. “It’s going to be more salads, more sandwiches, and we’re going to have rotating soup and salad with a sandwich every day.”

Without a sign spot on the Twelve Oaks marquee, he hopes to draw in plaza patrons with a “play on Bob’s Burgers,” writing clever concoctions on the sandwich chalkboard out front of the resto.

“The rotating burgers and specials, I’ll leave up to my sous chefs and my cooks. That’s where they get to be creative,” said Mattis, adding, “That’s where Brad comes in. He’s so full of puns and dad jokes.”

Can I put in a request now for the Don’t You Four Cheddar ‘Bout Me Burger (comes with four kinds of cheddar)?

BRAND-NEW MENUS

“Brunch is totally different. It’s more breakfast-forward food,” Mattis said. “We’re adding a lemon cheesecake stuffed french toast, overnight-oats bowls, different Farmers’ Market omelets, and pastries that we’re going to be making every day,” including house-made cinnamon rolls, donuts, and other sweet treats.

“That’s me,” Mattis humbly said when I asked the name of Oak 36’s pastry chef.

“I have people here who are really interested in it,” he said. “That’s going to be another place where I’ll teach them, and if they have ideas and they want to run with it, cool. I don’t want to have complete control over it.”

Some of the new menu items are Mattis’s own creations, and others are the outcome of the R&D he did during his early days at Oak 36, asking servers and kitchen crew members for their input.

“For my first two weeks here, I was like, ‘Alright, what sells here? What doesn’t?’” he said.

The dinner menu is also completely changed, featuring brighter and lighter fare. To wit, Mattis has gotten rid of one fryer because he and his team will not need it.

“Again, farm-forward, trying to utilize as many [farms] as we can,” he continued. “I just try to play off of what’s in season and will I be able to get it.”

Among the new entrées is a pan-roasted chicken served with dill spaetzle dressed with brown-butter chicken jus and an apple slaw.

“For the kids’ menu, I’m doing spaetzle mac-and-cheese,” Mattis added. “They’ll like it.”

Another addition is a swordfish schnitzel with a mint and olive oil potato salad topped with a caper-aiolied arugula salad.

Mattis momentarily ducked away from our conversation to check on something in the oven.

“It’s porchetta, and I just take a thick salsa verde and roll it,” he explained when we returned. “On the bottom will be Anson Mills farro, charred okra, pickled serranos, and shaved Brussel sprouts.”

Downhome Southern meets rustic Italy.

Sellers is clearly excited about Mattis’s “really well-rounded menu[s]” that allow Oak 36 to offer diners everything from a “healthy option, a vegan option” to “be[ing] bad with a good beer-cheese cheesesteak.”

“I want to bring nicer restaurants this side of Victory,” Mattis said confidently.

For the last four years, Oak 36 already has upped that ante, and its new head chef is poised to make this SoD exception exceptional.

Oak 36 Kitchen + Bar (5500 Abercorn St Suite 36) is open for lunch Monday through Friday (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.), for brunch Saturday and Sunday (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.), and for dinner seven days a week (3 p.m. to 10 p.m.).

Neil Gabbey is a food columnist sharing his take on Savannah’s food scene one bite at a time.

This article appears in Connect Savannah I April 2024.