BIRMINGHAM
The Six Chefs Who Turned Birmingham Into a Food City
By Eric Barton | May 3, 2025
I was at Saw’s one night talking to tableful of food writers about how Birmingham became such a dandy of a food town when a lady at the next table asked if she could interrupt. “It’s not just that folks here like to eat. It’s the dang chefs.”
The kind lady with a stuffed tater in front of her was right. Birmingham became a food town because a small handful of chefs decided to drag the city’s palate forward, one steak tartare or wood-roasted oyster at a time.
So our staff set out to identify the chefs who helped build Birmingham’s food scene. There are many, we know, but we narrowed it down to six who have been the mentors, the empire-builders, the ones with James Beard medals in drawers they pretend not to check too often. This isn’t a historical list either—these are chefs still bringing their finest sauces and pastries and big-city vibes to the city’s finest restaurants.
Here then are six of the most influential chefs in Birmingham.
Adam Evans
If you’ve eaten fish in Birmingham that didn’t taste like it was trucked in on I-20, there’s a good chance Adam Evans is the reason. He opened Automatic Seafood and Oysters in 2019, and three years later, the James Beard Foundation named him Best Chef: South. He earned it with Gulf snapper crudo, wood-fired swordfish collars, and oysters served so cold and clean they shut people up mid-sentence. He’s since helped launch Current Charcoal Grill and quietly built a little seafood empire. In an interview with Alabama NewsCenter, Evans said: “There are many other people that make it work,” which is either humility or the sign of someone who’s got even bigger plans.
Kristen Hall
Kristen Hall doesn’t cook like anyone else in Birmingham. She started as a pastry chef, then became one of the city’s most interesting restaurateurs with The Essential, La Fête, and Bandit Patisserie. Her menus are tight, high-gloss affairs — beef cheek au poivre, impossibly crisp puff pastry, and potato pavé that somehow deserves caviar. She doesn’t just run restaurants; she curates them, with the eye of someone who’s studied design and the palate of someone who obsesses over butterfat content. Hall was tapped for the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change, which tells you she’s not just baking tarts — she’s also thinking bigger. Hall was one of just 15 chefs chosen across the country for the honor. It won’t be the last list she ends up on. At the end of 2024, she sold her shares in The Essential to focus on La Fête, Bandit Pâtisserie, and whatever comes next — and based on her track record, what’s next is going to be worth watching.
Chris Hastings
Chris Hastings is what happens when your mentor is Frank Stitt but you decide to do things with more fire and duck fat. He’s best known for Hot and Hot Fish Club, which has been serving some of the best tomato salad in the country for more than 20 years, and OvenBird, where everything gets charred to within seconds of combustion. Hastings won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South in 2012 and famously beat Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America, which should be mandatory for anyone opening a restaurant. In a conversation with the Bocuse d'Or Foundation, he said American cuisine means “the freedom to dream and to be bold in your thinking,” which is the kind of thing you can only say if you’ve already nailed the basics.
Timothy Hontzas
Johnny’s in Homewood might look like your standard meat-and-three, but Timothy Hontzas is cooking something far more personal. The menu shifts daily, chalked up on the wall depending on what farmer Dwight Hamm brings in — collards, okra, sungold tomatoes. Hontzas calls it a “Greek-and-three,” a nod to his heritage and the Southern staples he grew up with. He once told Alabama NewsCenter, “That’s what I want to give to our customers – for them to know what they’re eating.” He’s not interested in trends; he’s interested in telling stories through food. The kind of stories that start with his grandfather arriving in America with $17 and end with a plate of lemon-tahini chicken souvlaki next to a scoop of lady peas.
Rob McDaniel
Rob McDaniel cooks like a man who grew up grilling over an open fire and just never saw a reason to stop. He cut his teeth at SpringHouse, came to Birmingham with Helen, and doubled down with Bayonet. McDaniel’s food is big on smoke and even bigger on simplicity, but don’t let that fool you. The guy’s been a James Beard semifinalist six times, and if you’ve ever had the coal-roasted chicken at Helen, you know why. He told Southern Living the secret was the team they put together: “We allowed them to do their job. We didn’t micromanage them. We didn’t waffle.” It’s a testament to how Helen can achieve a high level of consistency, by staying true to the original plan every single night.
Frank Stitt
If there’s a founding father of Birmingham dining, it’s Frank Stitt, the chef who basically dragged the city into the world of white tablecloths and proper béchamel. He opened the now-closed Highlands Bar and Grill in 1982, back when “fine dining” in Birmingham meant a blooming onion and a clean bathroom. Stitt brought French technique to Alabama ingredients and proved they belonged together. He followed that with Bottega and Chez Fonfon — two restaurants that still operate like the staff’s being graded. Highlands won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2018, a lifetime achievement in everything but name. “Mostly it’s just keeping the blinders on—really focusing on what we’re doing and what we’re after, and never being a hundred percent satisfied,” Stitt once told Garden & Gun, which might be the understatement of the decade from a guy who’s trained half the chefs in the city.
Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who splits his time between Asheville and Miami. He’s on a constant hunt for the best pizza, best places to bike, and for his next new favorite destination. Email him here.
