By Donna Cornelius
Early in his cooking career, chef Adam Evans learned about the James Beard Awards and hoped that one day he’d “get on a list” for consideration for the honor, one of the food industry’s most prestigious prizes.
Evans did just that in 2020. His Birmingham restaurant, Automatic Seafood & Oysters, first made the long list of semifinalists and then the short list of finalists for a Best New Restaurant Beard award. But the awards weren’t presented because the program took a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other concerns.
“We had planned to go to the ceremony, so we were really disappointed,” Evans said.
This year, the awards returned, and the winners were announced June 13 in a glittering ceremony at Chicago’s Lyric Opera. And Evans, accompanied at the event by his wife, Suzanne Humphries Evans, heard his name announced as Best Chef: South.
“I think I just sat there for about 30 seconds,” Evans said. “A guy sitting close to us said, ‘Oh my God, is that you? You’d better get up there.’”
The chef said he doesn’t really remember what he said in his acceptance speech. But a video shows that his first word succinctly expressed his feelings: “Wow!”
Evans’ food journey began in Muscle Shoals, where he grew up.
“From a very young age, I cooked with my mom,” he said. “I had two brothers, and we all had chores. I always wanted to cook; I hated washing dishes.”
In addition to his vivid memories of watching his mother cook, his grandfather’s garden made a lasting impression.
“I got to see the whole process, from planting to cooking,” he said.
Evans graduated from Auburn University with a psychology major but worked summers at Point Clear’s Grand Hotel.
“I gained the skills to be able to move to New Orleans and cook there,” he said.
In NOLA, Evans worked at Ralph and Cindy Brennan’s French Quarter restaurant, Bacco, and other eateries. He landed a job in New York City at Tom Colicchio’s flagship restaurant, Craft, in 2004.
“I worked for Tom for about seven years,” Evans said. “I learned a lot from him about cooking and running a restaurant.”
Their association also led to Evans’ appearance on a guest panel in an episode of “Top Chef: Boston,” the Bravo TV show that stars Colicchio as its lead judge.
“Tom had the opportunity to open Craft Atlanta and asked if I’d like to be the chef there, knowing I was from the South,” Evans said. “I took that job in 2010.”
He later worked for Craft’s Los Angeles restaurant and then returned to Atlanta in 2012 to open The Optimist with Ford Fry.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution food critic John Kessler wrote about the award-winning restaurant: “Ford Fry and chef Adam Evans got the tone exactly right for their Westside seafood restaurant. … This is the best kind of restaurant – one that keeps getting better.”
Evans opened Atlanta’s Brezza Cucina with another well-known chef, Jonathan Waxman, in 2015.
“Jonathan is quite a character and a very intelligent chef,” Evans said.
Coming Home
Evans decided in 2017 that it was time to go home to Alabama.
“We started looking for a spot in Birmingham,” he said. “It was the right time and the right place.”
When he took a look at a building in Birmingham’s Lakeview neighborhood, he knew he’d found the location he was looking for.
“I saw it before my wife, and I told her, this is it,” he said. “We fell in love with it.”
Suzanne Evans is the restaurant’s co-owner and was its project designer, transforming the former home of Automatic Sprinkler Corp. into a welcoming, attractive space.
Automatic Seafood & Oysters opened its doors in 2019, immediately making a splash not just in Birmingham but nationwide. It was named one of Esquire magazine’s and Thrillist’s Best New Restaurants in America.
Fresh Local Ingredients and Proper Technique
“One thing that defines our restaurant is using the whole fish,” Evans said. “There’s a lot of waste in the seafood world, a lot of fish parts that could be used but often aren’t. We don’t buy fish filets. We made a commitment early on to use as much of the fish as possible.”
Automatic’s fish collar, for example, isn’t a cut that’s typically found on many seafood menus, but it’s one of Evans’ most notable and tasty dishes.
Evans emphasizes top-quality ingredients and simple but vital cooking techniques. One preparation he likes is roasting “the freshest fish we have, such as snapper, grouper, triggerfish – nice flaky white fish – in a pan with olive oil and basting it with butter and thyme. It’s the technique of properly roasting it that makes the difference, of doing the little things right.”
He’s an ardent supporter of Southern oyster farms and the Oyster South coalition, a nonprofit organization that connects communities and provides resources to foster the success of oyster farming in the southern United States.
“I’m really proud of Southern oysters and how they taste,” Evans said. “We always have one East Coast oyster on our menu, and then the rest are Southern oysters.”
The chef plans to use his voice as a James Beard Award winner to hopefully change people’s thinking about seafood and how it’s harvested.
“I have a stronger platform now to look at how we consumers buy seafood from the Gulf of Mexico,” Evans said. “I want to do something bigger than just cook the food.”
He’s a proponent of spear fishing, which he thinks is a harvesting method superior to hook-and-line and net fishing.
“It’s more humane and results in better quality,” Evans said. “Spear fishing is a common practice in Japan, where they have such high-quality sushi. With the right practices, we can sell sushi-quality fish out of the Gulf of Mexico.”
Birmingham’s Food Legacy
Evans is the latest addition to an impressive roster of Birmingham restaurants and chefs recognized with Beard awards. Highlands Bar and Grill was named Best Restaurant in America in 2018. Highlands’ Frank Stitt and Dolester Miles and Hot and Hot Fish Club’s Chris Hastings also have won, as has the Bright Star in Bessemer. This year, Timothy Hontzas of Johnny’s Restaurant in Homewood was one of the five finalists for Best Chef: South.
There was another Birmingham connection of sorts at the awards ceremony. Evans heard his name announced as the winner by chef Kwame Onwuachi, who early in his now-skyrocketing career was the featured chef at a Dinner Lab event in the Magic City in 2015.
In his acceptance speech, Evans gave shout-outs to Colicchio, Waxman and others who have helped him along his culinary path: his family, including Suzanne and their son, Hank; the team at Automatic Seafood & Oysters; and to Birmingham for its support.
“It was pretty unreal just to be nominated,” Evans said. “I’ll be excited about this for a long time.”
