Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes

The Soul of Barbecue will be a live demo, shot on the patio of Todd Richard's new restaurant, Lake & Oak BBQ. The demo, moderated by Jim Achmutey, will take place outdoors on Todd's Big Green Egg. In addition to cooking a favorite recipe or two from his award-winning cookbook Soul: A Chef's Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes, Todd and Jim will discuss the regional variations in BBQ and where the inspiration behind Lake & Oaks unique BBQ style was derived.

Chef Todd Richards is an award-winning chef known for his contemporary cooking style rooted in Soul and Southern cuisine. A native of Chicago and based in Atlanta since the early 1990s, Richards is a self-taught chef and two-time semifinalist for James Beard Foundation Best Chef: Southeast.

Richards is the Culinary Director of Jackmont Hospitality, overseeing One Flew South and Chicken+Beer, both located in the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. One Flew South is a two-time James Beard-nominated fine dining restaurant on Concourse E specializing in Southern-inspired global cuisine. Chicken+Beer, owned by hip-hop icon Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, is located on Concourse D and specializes in Southern food. Chef Todd is the chef/owner of Richards’ Southern Fried and has previously helmed the kitchens of prestigious hotels and restaurants including The Shed at Glenwood, The Pig & The Pearl, Rolling Bones Barbecue, White Oak Kitchen & Cocktails, The Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta, The Ritz-Carlton (Atlanta, Buckhead and West Palm Beach), Villa Christina and the Oakroom at the Seelbach Hotel, which garnered the prestigious AAA 5 Diamond Award for restaurant excellence under his tenure.

Chef Richards’ debut cookbook, SOUL: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes (TIME Inc., Meredith Corporation), was released to rave reviews in May 2018. Within the book, James Beard Award-nominated Chef Todd Richards shares his personal culinary exploration of soul food. The book has been named the winner for the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ 2019 Cookbook Awards and is hailed as one of Garden & Gun's Best Books of 2018 as well as Amazon's Best Cookbook of 2018. The book has also been included in the Publisher’s Weekly Best Cookbooks of 2018, Food52 Favorite Cookbooks of 2018, The Atlantic Best Cookbooks of 2018, and Grub Street (New York Magazine) Best Cookbooks of 2018. Chef Richards is the 2019 IACP Award winning recipient in the American Cooking Category. He is also the winner of the 2019 INDIES Cooking Awards. He has also won the award for the Georgia Author of the Year 2019. He has been featured in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, People, Esquire, CBS This Morning and more.

Todd is an active Board Member of Wholesome Wave Georgia, a member and supporter of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and is a founding council member of the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival.

Jim Auchmutey is an Atlanta journalist and author of Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America. A founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi, he has won awards for his food writing from the James Beard Foundation and was a guest curator for the Atlanta History Center's exhibition "Barbecue Nation." He spent almost 30 years as a writer and editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he was twice named the Cox Newspapers chain's Writer of the Year. His previous book was The Class of '65: A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness, a story of the civil rights passage in Georgia.

Soul: A Chef's Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes by Todd Richard available through local, indie bookseller

Soul on Grill with Chef Todd Richards Sponsored by Big Green Egg