By Anne Ruisi
When other kids were glued to Saturday morning cartoons, Chris Kennedy was watching Graham Kerr and Julia Child’s now-legendary cooking shows.
And when his grandfather, who grew up on a farm, took him fishing, they’d trade the catch for fresh fruits and vegetables from area farmers, foods he’d help prep for the dishes his grandmother created.
“I come from a long line of good cooks,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy, who is now the head chef and general manager at Farrelly’s Southern Style Bar and Kitchen at The Grove in Hoover, will put his love of cooking to the test Feb. 29 in an Iron Chef-style competition.
He and three other Hoover-area chefs will compete in the prelude event to the 2024 Hoover Restaurant Week, which will be held in July.
The chefs he’ll face in the culinary showdown are Brian Mooney from Tre Luna Bar and Kitchen, Andrew Hatcher from Bellini’s Ristorante and Bobby Beard from Merk’s Tavern & Kitchen at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham-Wynfrey Hotel, according to a press release from EnjoyHoover.com.
The Hoover Iron Chefs will prepare three dishes: a shrimp appetizer, beef entrée and specialty dessert.
Kennedy is planning to make a shrimp and corn fritter for the appetizer, and for the beef, which will be a tri-tip cut, he’s hoping to introduce “a little smoke flavor” in his preparation, he said. If there’s not a smoker available during the competition, he said, he can make a small one on a stovetop.
The tri-tip will be interesting to work with, he said, since it’s not a common cut here. It’s often used out West for barbecue and can be chewy if it is overcooked, he added. Avoiding that will be key to its outcome.
Shrimp and beef will be provided for the chefs to cook, so will staple pantry items. Contestants also will be allowed to bring their own special ingredients to create a dish.
The dessert portion of the contest can be prepared off-site. Kennedy said he’s contemplating what to prepare.
Food and Family
Kennedy is a Hoover native whose family moved to Marietta, Georgia, when he was in the sixth grade and then moved back to Hoover for his senior year at Berry High School. After graduation, he “did a little bit of drafting work” at his father’s engineering firm.
“I realized that sitting all day was not going to be my thing. I always loved to cook,” he said.
He opted for culinary school and attended the two-year program at Johnson and Wales University in Charleston, South Carolina, for his training. Since graduation, he’s worked in a variety of culinary settings, among them Arman’s Park Lane, where he was sous chef; Bottega; the Hoover Country Club; and The Club, where he worked for 15 years.
It was at The Club in 2003 that Kennedy met the woman who would become his wife, Angela, who was the pastry chef at The View restaurant. Like her now-husband, she knew what it was like to visit a family farm. Several years ago, she inherited an 80-acre farm that is less than 15 minutes from Farrelly’s.
It’s a haven where the couple and their two sons, Luke, 15, and Colton, 13, carry on the family farming tradition with a huge, mostly organic garden they plant every year. They also keep chickens, goats, donkeys and some cows.
They also grow a variety of mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes and squash in the garden, and there are wild blackberries and persimmons, too. The family’s homegrown squash was the first cooked food the Kennedy boys ate when they started on solid foods, their father said.
“We really love to grow things ourselves that we cook with,” Kennedy said. “It’s really farm to table.”
He hopes to use some of his family’s homegrown, seasonal produce at Farrelly’s, which is owned by George and Eileen McCluney, this summer, especially tomatoes, squash and herbs.
“I love to introduce people to different things,” he said, and he hopes that will include setting out restaurant displays of different varieties of vegetables, such as zephyr summer squash, that diners might not be familiar with.
“It looks like a straight neck yellow squash has been dipped in a light green paint, like halfway up. It’s really interesting,” Kennedy said.
He got the idea from Californian Alice Waters, who he described as one of his favorite chefs.
A 120-year-old year old fig tree on the family farm produces about 25 gallons of Celeste figs every year, some of which Kennedy hopes can be used in the restaurant’s desserts and perhaps salads or appetizers this summer.
The love of cooking already has passed to the next generation of Kennedys.
Colton, for example, enjoys making fresh pasta and started making it by himself when he was nine or 10, his father said. He even makes his own ravioli. Luke likes the restaurant business and is working part-time at a Moe’s Original BBQ.
