Should you be fortunate enough to find yourself in the Black Walnut kitchen one morning, happily inhaling the scent of herb-strewn breakfast potatoes and crisp bacon pieces, you’d be hard-pressed not to notice a prominent feature parked within reach of the line. 

Shelves brimming with cookbooks, some noticeably well-loved, cover the west wall. Like any good bookshelf, each board smiles gently with the weight of its selections, packed tightly together in colorful rows. This dizzying array of tomes brings more than inspiration and technique to the table. It offers telling insight into the minds and personalities of chefs Chase and Zack.

Here, a veritable who’s who of the modern culinary world — Dominique Crenn, René Redzepi, Masaharu Morimoto, Max Alajmo and more — rubs shoulders with “The Hungover Cookbook” and “Recipes from the Woods.” Chef Chase’s Texas roots loom large, with selections on Hill Country cooking, the preparation of offal, and any number of volumes detailing smoking and curing techniques.  Zack’s love of Japanese cuisine is evident here, as is his deep interest in fermented foods. These seemingly disparate titles are evidence of an openness and curiosity found in the best of chefs, and of humans.

Learning is a lifelong pursuit, fueled by natural curiosity and a desire to broaden our horizons. This is true from both a personal and a professional perspective. As a team, we take time to travel, converse, and read — filling our minds with new and intoxicating ideas about how to improve your experience as a guest of The Inn. 

Not content to rest on our laurels, we look forward to delighting you with each new discovery and every bright idea possible. Whether pulled from those kitchen bookshelves, plucked from the woods, or inspired by recent travels, we bring our collective knowledge, a bit of our personality, and our natural curiosity to work each and every day.