Hugh Acheson

Chef-partner, Five & Ten and Empire State South
Athens, Georgia, and Atlanta, Georgia

When one thinks Southern cooking, kimchi doesn’t necessarily

come to mind. Chef Hugh Acheson, creator of the legendary Five

& Ten restaurant in Athens, Georgia, and the proprietor of the

new Empire State South in Atlanta, wants to change that.

“This is the burgeoning South,” says Acheson, from a table in

the dining room. “This is the South of Buford Highway [a main

artery of Atlanta known for its multiethnic community]; this is the

South as a mosaic. There are so many different cultures here, and I

want to use that to reinterpret the things that are the staples all

around us.”

Reinterpret Acheson does, with flair. In his kitchen, which is

large and full of excited energy, Acheson uses a hodgepodge of

techniques and ingredients that blend seamlessly together in his

elegantly composed dishes.

For example, that kimchi gets folded into rice grits, an ingredient

that Acheson’s executive chef Ryan Smith explains to me as he

begins prepping his mise en place. “Back during slavery times,”

says Smith, “the slaves would have to sift the rice. The owners got

the good rice, and whatever fell through went to the slaves. And

it’s from that broken rice that we get rice grits.”