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After fifteen years of rising in the ranks of some of the best fine-dining restaurants throughout the southeast, Jackson County native Kurt Jones returned to the place that he calls home to take over the reins as Executive Chef at The Lodge on Gorham's Bluff.
Kurt grew up in nearby Stevenson, Alabama, where his father was the plant manager of Mead Paperboard. He spent his childhood and adolescence like a lot of boys and young men in northeast Alabama-hunting and fishing and eating good home-cooked meals. His mother ran the household, and her schedule revolved around planning and preparing the family table. Her repertoire was steeped in traditional Southern fare-breakfasts of hot biscuits and fried apples were a specialty-but she loved to experiment with other culinary traditions. That experimentation exposed Jones to new tastes and techniques, and it got him interested in cooking.
Kurt's professional apprenticeship included stops in restaurants in Tuscaloosa and Alabama's Gulf Coast before he took a position as First Cook with the award-winning Pano's and Paul's in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. His time at Pano's and Paul's gave him a chance to work with an unlimited assortment of fresh gourmet ingredients surrounded by some of the most talented chefs in the southeast's largest city. The move to Atlanta also afforded him the opportunity to pursue formal study of the culinary arts at the Art Institute of Atlanta.
This steady professional rise got an additional boost in 2002 when, after four years at Pano's and Paul's, Kurt moved to New Orleans to work at the Ritz Carlton. There he was able to cook with some of the world's finest chefs in one of the great culinary cities on earth. Kurt would eventually go back to Atlanta to take over as Executive Chef at a succession of popular eateries, including the well-known McKendrick's Steakhouse.
At The Lodge on Gorham's Bluff, Kurt has returned to the roots of his mother's table: blending the best local ingredients and Southern cuisine with time-honored cooking techniques from all over the world. He is particularly interested in shepherding the continued development of the Gorham's Bluff garden and greenhouse and in showcasing the fine meats, produce, and dairy products of area farms and growers.