Tag: Kevin Maxey

Chef Kevin Maxey boasts an impressive resume. The former vice president of culinary for Ford Fry's Rocket Farms Restaurants honed his skills at Tom Colicchio’s Craft and Danny Meyer’s Gramercy Tavern in New York. The past four years, he’s been helping other restaurateurs fine-tune their businesses; now it’s time for him to focus on his own. On March 18, Pendolino opens in the Chastain Market development, taking over the space previously home to Santorini Tavern. It’ll serve straightforward Italian cuisine with a Southern spin, focusing its fare on a wood-burning oven.

A modern Mexico City-inspired taqueria overlooking the central green opens at Atlantic Station on October 25. Azotea Cantina boasts 4,300 square feet with a patio, two bars, and a rooftop deck.

Located in Piedmont Heights in the old Anchor Bar & Tattoo space, Little Rey will offer tacos (including breakfast tacos), salads, and chicken al carbon, ordered at the counter or picked up at a take-out window.

Inspired by the Reynosa area of Mexico near the South Texas border where Ford Fry’s father and grandfather used to hunt, Little Rey will serve chicken al carbon platters and tacos in a casual environment.

“I always thought I liked my guacamole super limey because that’s how I ate it in Texas,” says Kevin Maxey, chef at Superica. “But since then I have found that it’s just as delicious even when it’s just avocado and salt. It’s all about texture.”

Chef Kevin Maxey's chilaquiles at Superica are a destination-worthy brunch dish. A generous heap of sauced chips is topped with two fried eggs, pickled jalapenos and carrots, crumbled queso fresco, sliced avocado, shaved radishes, and chopped cilantro.

With Mex-Tex spot the El Felix now open at Avalon, Ford Fry is moving on to his next projects. Superica, another Mex-Tex restaurant, is slated to open in late January in Krog Street Market, and he’s just announced the name of his first Houston restaurant: State of Grace. He’s also busy planning the “little sister” restaurant to the Optimist, slated to open at 280 Elizabeth Street next summer.

Rocket Farms Restaurants proprietor Ford Fry—the man behind the Optimist and King + Duke, as well as St. Cecilia, No. 246, JCT Kitchen and the soon-to-open Superica—will unveil his first OTP restaurant, the El Felix, November 3. A Mex-Tex spot, the El Felix is located at 1130 Avalon Boulevard in the new Avalon complex in Alpharetta.

The next restaurant to open in chef Ford Fry’s burgeoning empire, St. Cecilia will focus on light seafood and pastas influenced by Northern Italy. Its home, formerly Buckhead Life Restaurant Group’s Bluepointe, is being completely renovated, and as it enters the final stages of construction, Fry feels comfortable enough to announce a December—or at the latest, January—target launch date. Here, he shares the plans for the restaurant’s menu, atmosphere, and executive chef, as well as some new concepts he’s contemplating.