The funny thing about families: They grow, the members develop and change, but some things stay constant. Music and food are two constants for the Jonas family.
You may have heard from the family as part of the first, the three superstar Jonas Brothers have made a name for themselves over the past decade and a half. But follow the other thread a few generations back and you will find a family who loved making music together at the dining table while enjoying Mediterranean home-style cooking.
It will all come together early next year when Nellie’s Southern Kitchen – the second in the family – opens at the MGM Grand.
In an interview last week, Kevin Jonas Sr., the father of the famous brothers, said Nellie was his grandmother, the matriarch of the family in Belmont, NC, west of Charlotte. Jonas said Nellie had worked hard at one of the area’s 24 cotton mills since she was 14 years old. And their work didn’t end with the factory whistle.
“She came home, fluffed up (removed the cotton sticking from the mill) and cooked in the south,” he said in his soft Carolina lilt. “No matter where I went in the world, your chicken and dumplings – that was my home.”
In 2016, the family opened the Belmont restaurant to honor and celebrate Nellie and her food, and the tradition continues with the Las Vegas offshoot.
“It’s Southern comfort food, a bit more upscale, but we try to keep it where everyone can feel comfortable, like when they were visiting my grandmother,” Jonas said. The chicken and dumplings, made from cookie-like dumplings and pulled chicken in a creamy sauce, will be a signature.
“It’s hearty,” said Jonas. “It’s incredible value that you get.”
The menu lists a lot of chicken, he said, including fried chicken and “amazing” chicken sandwiches.
There’s also pulled pork with the vinegar-based barbecue sauce, which is a North Carolina tradition, the sandwich called Hawg Hill for a place that’s part of the family’s origin story.
With fried okra and fried chicken steak. Fried green tomatoes with a pecan crust (or without pecans, for allergy sufferers). Cookies, of which Jonas said, are “a direct hit for a southern restaurant”. Macaroni and Cheese.
Some recipes come from other family members. Caroline sweet potatoes, which have a pecan glaze, is one of his wife’s recipes.
“It’s almost a dessert,” said Jonas. “It was a staple food for our children.” Current desserts such as peach cobbler, banana pudding and hand pies are on the menu.
So becomes an iconic southern creation. “I’m really proud of our allspice cheese,” he said.
Jonas said there are also healthy and gluten-free options for those who need them, and the older recipes have been adapted to suit modern tastes. The food is made from scratch, he said, with some seasonal and locally sourced whenever possible.
“These 100-year-old recipes are some of the most popular at our restaurant,” he said, adding that he had heard comments from people who said the food there was like a hug from their southern grandmother. Jonas said the original Nellie’s has become a destination restaurant for the region. Some of those who come here for the food wonder why there is a “shrine” there for the Jonas Brothers.
But some, he said, travel from around the world specifically for the Jonas Brothers connection – one reason he is particularly looking forward to a Las Vegas restaurant with its abundance of international visitors. And yes, the brothers’ music is played in the restaurant, among other places.
He knows Nellie would be proud, both of the restaurants and of her great-grandchildren. While Nellie didn’t know the boys as “the Jonas Brothers,” he said her husband – his grandfather – wore a Jonas Brothers T-shirt when he was in the hospital towards the end of his life, and because he once did Band with two brothers who liked to say they were “the original Jonas brothers”.
His grandfather’s admonition “Live like below, even when you are upstairs” became the family motto.
Jonas said when the boys were singing at the dinner table and he took them out to kick off their careers, he knew they had potential.
“But I never dreamed that it would go where it went,” he said. “I like to say, ‘You traveled in my van before I took your bus or plane.’ “
Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at Hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.
