Mackensy Lunsford

mlunsford@citizen-times.com

The building boom continues on Banks Street on the South Slope. Elliott Moss, former chef of The Admiral, will open a sprawling barbecue restaurant at 32 Banks Ave. there this fall.

Molly and Meherwan Irani will be co-owners of the restaurant, which will be called Buxton Hall. The South Slope venue will bear no resemblance to the Iranis' other restaurants, Chai Pani and MG Road. Buxton Hall, rather, will focus on barbecue.

Moss has, for the past year, hosted weekly pop-ups in the Iranis' downtown bar MG Road, allowing both chefs time to get acquainted with each other's ideas and ideals. "We just are like-minded people, we just care very deeply about food, and we both thought this would be a great partnership," said Meherwan Irani, who was this year nominated for Best Chef in the Southeast by the James Beard Foundation.

The Iranis will run front-of-house operations, and bring over a team to help oversee the bar. "The things that we're good at, like the set-up and start-up of a restaurant," Irani said. "And Elliott can focus on what he will be amazing at, which is being creative, being in the kitchen, and doing his thing."

Moss' thing is whole-hog, wood-fired barbecue. "He's bringing a really artisanal, traditional approach to barbecue that he feels has been missing from a lot of barbecue in the south," said Irani.

Many Asheville barbecue restaurants, including 12 Bones, Luella's and Little Pigs Bar-B-Que, use smokers fired with both gas and wood, a system that makes it easier for cooks to control time and temperature while cooking.

Little Pigs Bar-B-Que, open since 1963, used to operate an all-wood system, but switched to an Old Hickory Smoker gas and wood smoker when the restaurant expanded in the '70s. And Bill Stanley's Barbecue and Bluegrass, which opened in 1979, where the basement of Pack's Tavern now stands, originally was a wood-only smokehouse, too.

Moss' all-wood, whole-hog system requires a very hands-on approach. Cooking an entire animal is no small feat; many restaurants rely instead on butts and the like instead of going whole hog.

"His passion for what he wants to bring (to Asheville) reminds me of what we were excited about when we wanted to open Chai Pani," said Irani. "We wanted to represent an underrepresented aspect of Indian food — go back to the roots and the authenticity of it, and kind of elevate it."

This is the continuation of a concept that Moss has been working on for a while. In 2013, the same year he was nominated for a James Beard award for Best Chef in the Southeast, he left his longtime chef post at The Admiral in West Asheville to open two new downtown restaurants. Moss left the first, Ben's Tune-Up, later that year. The second, Buxton Hill, which was intended to be a barbecue restaurant, never materialized.

His newest restaurant, Buxton Hall, will still pay homage to the area; Buxton Hill was to be built on a topographical feature of that same name. Now, mere blocks away, Buxton Hall will open in a former skating rink, a massive space with two 4,500-square-foot floors built in the '30s. Once completed, Buxton Hall will have floor-to-ceiling windows, a main hall with a small mezzanine level, and a basement for prep and storage.

"We wanted a name with a sense of place," Irani said. "The minute you walk into the barbecue restaurant, you'll immediately know why it's called Buxton Hall. Soaring ceilings, barrel-shaped roof, I think it's probably 25-30 feet at its highest point."

Buxton Hall will join Vortex Doughnuts and Public School, a new bar, in the 32 Banks building.