Home Plates

Forget peanuts and Cracker Jacks. One bite of Frito pie transports twins Jonathan and Justin Fox, co-owners of Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q and Big Tex, to their childhood baseball park in Houston, Texas.

Todd Richards, executive chef at the Shed at Glenwood, grew up in Chicago, but reminders of his Southern roots were as close as the kitchen table—especially on Friday nights.

Born and raised about forty miles south of Atlanta in Locust Grove, Woodfire Grill's Kevin Gillespie learned to cook by watching his paternal grandmother prepare gargantuan smorgasbords of humble South Carolina Appalachian fare for an army of relatives who wandered in and out of her house daily.

Basically, it’s a cross between a Sloppy Joe and a Frito pie; a chile-infused beef filling folded in a warm tortilla with grated cheddar, sliced jalapenos, and a sprinkling of crushed corn chips.

A native of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Evans moved to Atlanta to helm the kitchen at Buckhead’s now-defunct Craftbar. His focus at the Optimist is seafood, but he still craves the earthier Southern comfort foods of home: his mom’s biscuits and gravy, his grandmother’s chicken and dumplings, and most of all, North Alabama chicken stew.

Sonya Jones is the owner of Sweet Auburn Bread Company and the author of "Sweet Auburn Desserts: Atlanta’s Little Bakery That Could." Desserts were always in the house, and Jones often had a hand in baking peach and blackberry cobblers or apple pie.

The spacious kitchen of Mary Moore, founder and CEO of the Cook's Warehouse, in her Oak Grove home is fully equipped with Japanese knives, silicone spatulas, a sous vide water oven, and an electric grain grinder with variable texture control.

She was a Korean pop singer. He majored in biology and psychology at Georgia Southern. Today, Jiyeon Lee and Cody Taylor own Heirloom Market BBQ and Sobban, two restaurants where Far East flavors frequently...

Jennifer Levison, owner of Souper Jenny and Cafe Jonah—who was born in Atlanta, grew up in Los Angeles, and moved back to Georgia as an adult—is much more practiced at rolling matzo balls than cutting biscuits.

Cynthia Graubart studied journalism at UGA and earned her master’s degree in broadcast management at the University of Florida in Gainesville; one of her first gigs out of school was producing Nathalie Dupree’s PBS series 'New Southern Cooking' in 1985.