THE SOUTH
Atlanta’s Top Chefs 2025: The Culinary Leaders Driving a Restaurant Renaissance
By Maria Rodriguez | June 12, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: With a day job that requires constant travel, Maria Rodriguez is likely a frequenter of your favorite restaurant. She’s reviewed restaurants since 2007 in publications from Barcelona to Bakersfield.
Atlanta’s food scene has always been a driver in Southern cuisine. But nowadays Atlanta is leading a national narrative, helping define the best of American restaurants.
That’s in part to these six chefs, who are building restaurant groups, launching careers, and forcing the question: who are the best chefs in Atlanta?
Breakfast places that flirt with Michelin, pop-ups turned mainline institutions, and kitchens designed as incubators—they’ve done it all. Ask around, and these names define how Atlanta eats today.
Erika Council
Bomb Biscuit Co.
Erika Council’s oversized, butter-slathered breakfast sandwiches dropped jaws even before the lines started forming daily at her brick-and-mortar restaurant, now in Grant Park. Her biscuits—think fried chicken slathered in honey with tangy pickles or the good old BEC—are simple but seismic in their impact on how Atlanta approaches breakfast. Within a year, she landed a mention in the Michelin Guide. She’s changed the morning game in this city. Why biscuits? She told Southern Kitchen: "They've never failed me, never treated me badly ... they're comforting in my time of need, anything you'd ever want in a partner."
Ford Fry
The Optimist | Superica | St. Cecilia
Ford Fry has built a restaurant empire from Atlanta—and kept each concept sharply defined. His 13 Georgia spots range from seafood-forward The Optimist to Mexican comfort at Superica and nautical elegance at St. Cecilia. In a 2012 interview, he said predicted Atlanta’s future by explaining that the city needs “less frills, and more technique.” That no-nonsense approach is in every one of his kitchens. And since many chefs and line cooks in Atlanta started out working for Fry, it explains why so many spots are excelling with that same ethos.
Kevin Gillespie
Gunshow | Revival | Gamechanger | Red Beard Restaurants
Kevin Gillespie turned Top Chef fame into a restaurant network built on high-energy service and serious mentorship. At Gunshow, carts become drama; at Revival, soul food is honored and elevated. His Red Beard Restaurants incubator is grooming the next generation of chefs. He told Food & Wine he wanted to create “a place where chefs could be chefs again.” And he did exactly that—over and over.
Linton Hopkins
C. Ellet’s | Holeman & Finch | Hop’s Chicken | H&F Burger
Linton Hopkins is Atlanta’s culinary brain trust. Through Holeman & Finch, he turned nose-to-tail sourcing into a city-wide ethic. Hopkins has also managed to stay one step ahead of trends, pivoting his fine-dining restaurant Eugene into the more casual but still excellent H&F Burger. Along the way, Hopkins and his wife, sommelier Gina Hopkins, built their restaurant empire without sacrificing home life. “Family and the way food plays in my life, are much more sacred than standing at the pass doing that world of food,” he says. That dedication to more than the industry shows in his restaurants, places that feel like you’re having more than just dinner.
Duane Nutter
Southern National
Duane Nutter brought Gulf Coast flair—and wit—to Atlanta when he opened Southern National. After making waves at One Flew South, he leaned into bold riffs: think pimento-cheese burgers with Delta oysters, coffee-rubbed pork chops, and broiled redfish slathered in herbed butter. He says, “I’m always thinking outside the box… Hell, I’m born outside the box.” That fearless, playful energy shows up in every plate.
Deborah VanTrece
Twisted Soul Cookhouse & Pours | Oreatha’s at the Point
Deborah VanTrece is Atlanta’s soul-food diplomat, weaving global influences into comforting staples. At Twisted Soul, she pairs Southern heritage with international flair—think collard-ramen and hoisin-glazed oxtails—while Oreatha’s uplifts home cooks from around the world. In the The Twisted Soul Cookbook, she writes: , “My cuisine has always been at the intersection of food and culture,” signaling that she’s not just cooking—she’s bridging worlds on the plate. Through her menus and mentorship, VanTrece gives flavor to stories too often left untold.
