Central Arkansas native Jennifer Maune, who achieved national recognition as a second runner-up (out of 20 contestants) on Season 13 of TV’s “MasterChef,” will helm the new restaurant on the first floor of the Bob R. Brooks Jr. Justice Building at Capitol Avenue and Main Street in downtown Little Rock. Since appearing on the show, she has trained at some of Europe’s top culinary institutions and worked at several three-star Michelin restaurants.
Maune, in a news conference Monday morning, described the planned Restaurant Fleur as “a refined French-American lunch and dinner concept offering gastronomic cuisine rooted in classical technique” with “seasonal, locally sourced ingredients.
“Guests can expect soulful, elevated cooking that merges French elegance with Southern hospitality and cultural richness.”
Plans are for the restaurant open for lunch and dinner weekdays and weekends, including for Sunday brunch, with a January target to open.
Attorney General Tim Griffin, who is moving his offices to the building, joined the chef for the conference.
He explained his and Maune’s goals for the restaurant include keeping it open all day, at a price point that will make it affordable for employees of his office, other offices in the building and folks who work downtown. He pointed to Chris Tanner’s Samantha’s Tap Room & Wood Grill, two blocks north on Main Street, as an example of how to make money serving both weekday lunch and dinner.
“I love to eat, and I love food,” Griffin said. “When I knew when I wanted this building, I wanted an excellent restaurant that would have the excellence that I strive for on the 12th floor.”
Restaurant Fleur will be Maune’s first restaurant. She calls it a “flagship concept,” bruiting about the idea that it might eventually extend to additional locations.
It will have main-floor dining space and a separate private dining area and chef’s tasting room with Main Street access; a separate all-day coffee shop; and, eventually, a European-style pastry shop that will have entrances around the corner on Capitol Avenue. The total space will cover 6,500 square feet.
The main restaurant will include an a la carte bill of fare and a chef’s tasting menu, Maune said, but she is keeping a tight wrap on details. Based on conversations she’s had with contacts around the world, she expects the restaurant to attract culinary destination customers from Europe and even Australia.
Her goal, among others, is to eventually draw the attention of the Michelin Guide, which recently introduced a Southern United States regional edition that covers Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and incorporates an existing guide to Atlanta, but does not currently rate restaurants in Arkansas.
Maune, who had worked as a marketer and decorator before devoting her career path to culinary pursuits, is taking an active part in the restaurant design, which she described as “very chic” while evincing a Southern feel that is “approachable and elegant.”
Among other design elements, preservation efforts are under way for some of the building’s original 1909 tile remains in the basement, and she’ll work to replicate those features into the restaurant as a whole.
Price points will depend on “technique, skill and food cost,” she said, but added that she expected it to match other restaurants along the Main Street corridor.
Maune, who grew up in Central Arkansas and is a longtime Little Rock resident, began her culinary journey in her grandmother’s kitchen, according to the biography on her website, jennifermaune.com, “where she developed a deep appreciation for food as a form of connection and creativity.”
After a career in lifestyle blogging, design and media, she enrolled in the Culinary Arts and Hospitality Institute at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College, where she earned degrees in culinary and pastry arts. She earned gold and bronze medals from the American Culinary Federation and advanced her training at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where she received an Advanced Pastry certification.
Jennifer was one of only seven individuals accepted into the Expert Diploma in Culinary Arts program at the École Ducasse in Paris, founded by chef Alain Ducasse, and subsequently worked at The French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley (under Chef Thomas Keller), Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo, Monaco (under Ducasse) and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London, all of which have three Michelin stars.