This big boy here is a Wreckfish caught off the coast of the Carolinas. They are a deep sea fish that are named after being found around ship wrecks and caves.
Stepping away from the usual cod and salmon is a way to use your buying power to fuel a more sustainable and interesting aquaculture.
Without question, the process of opening Honeywood has become the greatest learning experience of my life. I’m fortunate to be working with Ouita, Chris and Roger, whose vision of operating restaurants is to celebrate the flavors from Kentucky’s small farms and producers, and to celebrate the value of those farmers’ contribution to our local economy and culture...
My mother was a poet. For as long as I can remember, we had green salad at dinner. It was my job from about the age of 7 until I was 50 and she was too sick to eat her beloved salads, to clean the greens and chop the vegetables. Our family joked and teased her about adding too many vegetables; she wasn’t satisfied until the lettuces were mixed with peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, radishes, onions, carrots, broccoli stems, anything and everything in her fridge...
Honeywood owner Ouita Michel, who owns several Bluegrass area restaurants, has been besieged with, “Why another restaurant?” As for me, a chef with a fine dining background, I am asked often lately, “Why did you agree to the executive chef position at Honeywood?” The underlying question is really, “Why are you, a champion of and chef in small, fierce, free-standing restaurants, opening a 150-seat restaurant in a shopping center?” In truth, the answer to that question revealed itself well after I agreed to participate in the project...
As a young cook, I didn’t want to think. After years of debating and writing papers, discussing and taking tests in college, all I wanted to do was work in a kitchen. In 1987, after graduating from the University of Kentucky, I headed to New York City and threw myself into cooking with a kind of innocent, reckless abandon...
