by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

Jurors recently selected the Sewanee restaurants Judith and LUNCH for inclusion in the 2025 MICHELIN Guide to the American South. At a Nov. 3 ceremony at the Peace Center in Greenville, S.C., Michelin revealed the names of the 228 honorees, selected from restaurants in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Tennessee claimed 36 celebrity restaurants with 20 of those from Nashville, making the significance of the accolade earned by Judith and LUNCH all the more impressive. In addition to bringing fame to Sewanee, Judith and LUNCH share another distinction: origin stories that hark back to Sewanee long before Judith’s Julia Sullivan and LUNCH’s Mallory Tubbs ever dreamed of hanging out a shingle there.

Michelin inspectors base their recommendations on anonymous visits. Neither Tubbs or Sullivan were aware their restaurants had attracted attention of the Michelin inspectors until receiving email invitations to the Nov. 3 ceremony. “Being invited indicated to us we were included in some something,” Tubbs said. “It was shocking and exciting.” “It was amazing to be considered and visited by them,” Sullivan said. “For a destination restaurant in a destination like Sewanee, it’s really cool to be included in a guide like that.” Sullivan determined investigators visited Judith at least twice because the menu selections mentioned in the Michelin listing were from two different seasons.

Tubbs graduated from Sewanee as an environmental studies major in 2015. “I loved cooking since I was a young child,” Tubbs said. “That was my passion and what I wanted to do as a career. Being an environmental studies major, I made a lot of connections between sustainable agriculture, food traditions, and food anthropology. My major was really informative to my food ethic and approach to cooking and sourcing from local farmers.”

During a Sewanee summer break, Tubbs worked in a kitchen at a ranch in Wyoming and after graduation returned to the ranch as head chef for two years. Her food career took her to kitchens in Washington, D.C., and a few years later to Nashville, where she and her husband Trapp Tubbs, also a Sewanee grad, started a catering business, Hen of the Woods. A favorite venue was selling prepared foods at the East Nashville Farmers Market. “I found a sense of community by having a booth at the farmers market,” Mallory said. “During COVID, just like everyone, I felted limited in terms of my interaction and lacking community. I was inspired to move back to Sewanee in search of more of that small community and to make a difference in a small place and support local farmers.”

LUNCH opened in February of 2023. The “flexible” constantly changing menu is based on what’s available from the more than 20 local farms in LUNCH’s stable. “I plan our menu on a weekly basis,” Mallory said. “That allows us to be flexible and be ready for whatever proteins and produce farmers have an abundance of.” The week the Messenger spoke with LUNCH, the menu featured cabbage soup with lamb meatballs, with lamb from two local farms, and lots of vegetables.

Born and raised in Nashville, Sullivan credits studying abroad with spawning her interest in food. After graduating from Tulane University, the Culinary Institute of America in New York City became Sullivan’s destination. After nine years in New York working at several Michelin starred restaurants, Sullivan decided to move home. “I always wanted to open a place and do it in Nashville,” she said. Henrietta Red, an oyster bar also specializing in woodfire seafood and vegetables, soon garnered fame, named one of America’s 50 Best New Restaurants by Bon Appetit in 2017 and one of GQ Magazine’s Best New Restaurants in America 2018. Forty-nine weeks of meal delivery during COVID taught Sullivan, “I did not want to run a catering business.”

“I was waiting for the next thing, I wasn’t even sure it was going to be a restaurant,” Sullivan said. “A friend of mine sent me a listing for that building. I brushed it aside for six months, then she sent it again in February of 2024.” ‘That building’ was the former Steam Laundry and most recently home to the French restaurant Lumière. Sullivan’s father, a 1969 alum, linked her to Sewanee along with childhood visits to her father’s favorite professor and her godfather, author Andrew Lytle. Still, the remoteness of Sewanee troubled Sullivan, and she found herself asking, “Where is a person even going to live up there.” The precision and artistry of gourmet cuisine is what Sullivan knows and what she likes to cook, and a visit convinced her that was what the community wanted, “something that was elevated and very good quality but not unapproachable or inaccessible.” Judith opened in November 2024. The restaurant bills itself as “an American Tavern.” Illustrative is a favorite autumn entrée, a hanger steak with sweet potato, caramelized shallots, caramelized onion puree and hazelnuts.

Sullivan credits the first woman to matriculate from Sewanee, Judith Ward Lineback, with lending the establishment its name. After contacting Lineback to ask permission to name Judith after her, Sullivan later learned Lineback’s brother Tom Ward, former University Chaplain, had baptized her in a Nashville church decades before. “It feels very synchronistic,” Sullivan observed.

For both Sullivan and Tubbs, their Sewanee restaurants speak of coming home. Asked why she chose to open a restaurant focusing on breakfast and lunch, Tubbs said, “I wanted to open something that would be sustainable for me long term and allow me to accomplish other goals in life like having a family and being able to spend time with loved ones while staying passionate about and happy with my career.” Still the majority owner and chef partner of Henrietta Red, Sullivan splits her time between Nashville and Sewanee. “It’s really nice to get up and go for a hike, then go to work, and come home and go to bed instead of dealing with Nashville traffic,” Sullivan insisted.

LUNCH, located at 24 University Ave., is open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday and also serves a monthly dinner with tickets available on the website. The next LUNCH dinner is Dec. 13. Judith, located at 36 Ballpark Rd., is open 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday through Monday. The Michelin sleuths got it right! Pay LUNCH and Judith a visit. You’ll be glad you did.