Last Friday, on the night before the full moon, we experienced a dinner so different ... so rare ... that even now, days later, it seems hard to adequately describe.

It's called Monospace.

What's Monospace?

Let's start here, with a long communal table in the St. Elmo Fire Hall.

Outside, Chef Sansa Sandile is cooking, having traveled here from Johannesburg where his Yeoville Dinner Club is known across South Africa.

He and his sous chef Alexei Mejouev are preparing a Pan-Africa-meets-Chattanooga menu: regional trout, sweet potato leaves, okra, pumpkin seeds, rice, Egyptian chicken, cabbage, Tanzania-inspired coconut curry.

As he cooks, he tells stories of Mandela, Bourdain, jazz clubs and the power of dining together.

Soon, guests arrive. Outside, the light begins to dim-glow, as afternoon turns to evening.

Inside the fire hall, on an elevated platform in the corner, the Thrill Sergeant himself: DJ Applejac from Atlanta, who begins creating this seamless musical thread from tall speakers near the windows and door.

It feels like Brooklyn meets South Africa to the sounds of underground Atlanta ...

Wine bottles and candles rise up from the long table like stalagmites. White chairs, blue tablecloths, a soft red glow from baseboard lights and easy fog from smoke machines.

All the right things are in the right place:

Food. Music. The table. A South African chef. A DJ from the ATL.

And all of this is happening in the middle of the St. Elmo Fire Hall.

It's called Monospace. Again, like the old fable of blind men each trying to describe parts of an elephant, I can't adequately do it alone.

What's Monospace?

"Monospace is a flexible modular creation framework of experiences that brings together culinary expression, musical expression and opportunities for joy, community and culture," said Christopher Knowles, the architect of it all.

Heard. What's Monospace?

"It's a mash-up of good music, good food and hard-to-find memories," said Bill Reed, owner of Pedestrian Wine & Cheese.

"What a better place to celebrate our wedding anniversary than a one-off dinner that we can never repeat again," he said.

"And the chef is fucking awesome."

Copy that. What's Monospace?

"There's not two of these going on anywhere else tonight," said Erric Unger.

Circle the world, and last Friday, there was only one of these:

Forty of us eating around the long table with Chef Sanza big-smiling and Applejac yes-nodding and deep bowls of something called Naughty Gumbo as women in backless dresses toasted before flickering candles that got smaller as wine glasses stayed full.

What's Monospace?

Sarah only needed three words.

"It is magnificent."

Christopher Knowles, 42, has been DJ'ing for years, from Atlanta to Asheville to New York, with three lasting loves: hospitality, music and design.

He'd throw house parties along the way, cooking for friends, playing vinyl, talking books and ideas through the rich night.

"I just love it," he said. "That's my favorite thing to do: cook for people, have them over, check out music, DJ for them at the house."

Over time, his dinner parties gained steam: more crowds, more music, even things like Techno Breakfast with food trucks from 7 am to 7 pm with music in a park.

Artists and chefs traveled through, these one-day pop-ups gaining attention and fan-love.

In 2023, he and partner Eric Mason moved to Chattanooga. A shift from house parties led to a more formal business plan.

They needed a name.

"Monospace," said Christopher. "If you sum it up: one space for all," he said.

One space for food, music, community.

"Meaningful experiences centered around these very visceral senses. Sound, taste, sensation. That's really stimulating," he said.

Chef Craig Richards from Atlanta's Lyla Lila joined as a partner; they dotted the town, talking with investors, who, frankly, needed to see this in flesh more than just an idea.

So, Christopher and Eric, Monospace's operations coordinator, started hosting events during 2024. More than a dozen - Stove Works, The Boneyard, Club Exile - each experience an original combination of guest chef and guest DJ.

"It's breathing," Christopher said. "It's alive."

Imagine a bone-cold winter; Monospace takes deep January - the sound, feel and taste of it - and builds an experience: a menu with osso bucco, or nitrogen-activated oysters, paired with a DJ's soundtrack that is bare-trees and white-snow.

"The blending of that sound and that tone in the room with what's happening on the palate and each bite, it massages two very intense human sensations," Christopher said.

"How those two mix is what is the art to me."

Last Friday, Chef Sanza kept one foot in South Africa and another in the southern US with a menu held together in this respectful, surprising, authentic way while - please catch this - DJ Applejac did the very same thing with music.

"This is amazing," said Chef Sanza. "This is beautiful."

He grew up in '80s Sowetto, then moved to Yeoville, one of the most diverse places in South Africa.

There, he began to cook, honoring his own culinary history while exploring others'. Soon, his dinner parties and storytelling became the Yeoville Dinner Club.

Africans paid attention. Then, the rest of the world.

"Anthony Bourdain came to my neighborhood," he said.

In 2013, Bourdain's Parts Unknown featured Sansa and the Yeoville Dinner Club.

Earlier this month, Sansa launched a 10-night Yeoville Dinner Club Cooking Tour: Atlanta, Jackson, New York (Aug. 22-23)  Baltimore (Aug. 28), Greensboro (Sept. 7 and 8.)

Chattanooga was the first stop. (A prior Monospace chef had made the connection.)

"I want my food to invoke thought," he said. "To fill up the eyes and ears and belly and heart."

Plates served, family-style. For 20 minutes, Sanza told stories, with the echoes and ghosts of Yeoville, Mandela and Bourdain somehow there, too.

The menu was gorgeous.

FirFir rice and Egyptian Chicken and Mozambican fish and something Sansa called "Inspirations of Egusi" and Mandazi, Naughty Gumbo, Achar Aubergine and cassava leaf stew with a rainbow of cocktails: ginger and rum, cranberry hibiscus, sparking cranberry.

I took notes. The night took me.

Across from the smoke machine, The Thrill Sergeant began to play DJ Satelite and Jessica Gaspar's Fufu.

The night shape-shifted, as nights do, from soft to expansive. Applejac met the change with music, putting a soundtrack to the early build of first drinks turned to Sanza's stories which led to first bites, second helpings, third drinks and - rising like a crescendo - the pause, fires lit outside - then, the finale: dessert matched with Jimetta Rose's Let the Sunshine In.

This was more than just records playing while folks ate. It was a symbiotic experience, as if Applejac and Sansa were somehow jointly communicating through music and food.

(Join us on Saturday, October 4, for our inaugural Food as a Verb + Monospace dinner. More info can be found here.)

The Monospace plan continues to grow:

Christopher is locating a permanent space that could offer residencies for chefs and artists. During the day: a coffeeshop selling rare vinyl, merch and small plates; at night, the shift to Monospace with guest residencies for chefs, DJs and artists.  

Chattanooga's taught him two big things.

"The first? People really do actually love to engage with something that's different," he said.

And?

"There is much more of an appetite for breaking down barriers and comfort zones in Chattanooga than some people think," he said.  

It all boils down to this.

"Food and music," Christopher said. "They're the most essentially human and visceral forms of art or expression that we have.

"They are ultimately like a universal language. They together break down assumptions, barriers and divisions. They carry within: tradition, culture, narrative. You mix those two together?"

That's Monospace.

Magnificent.

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.

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