28 OCTOBER 2017S T A R T E R S
Chef Edouardo
Jordan cracks a
smile at his
restaurant,
JuneBaby.5
You grew up in
St. Petersburg, Florida,
but this is your first Southern
restaurant. Why? “I kind of
ran away from Southern
cooking because that was the
only thing that I knew. I was
chasing the dream of learning
the culinary arts from the
best. And the best at that point
in time were all French chefs
or American-French chefs.”
Did you find a lack of
diversity in that world?
“There aren’t many people
like me in the industry. The few
[black chefs] out there aren’t
getting recognized. And those
who are always need to be
Southern chefs. I guess [my
first restaurant, Italian-French-
Southern–inspired] Salare was
kind of me saying, ‘Look, I can
do more than Southern food.’”
Why do Southern food
now? “I had an opportunity
to embrace who I am and the
food I grew up on and tell a
story that’s been missing. It was
a chance for me to have a big
voice for my food, for its history,
for chefs who are similar to
me and act like me and talk
like me and came from the
same places that I came from.”
It’s not like Southern food
isn’t popular. It seems you’re
saying the cuisine’s origins
have been divorced from the
food. “Yeah, they’ve been
diluted. They also have rarely
been told, at least in the media,
by black chefs. There are
dishes that people avoid, like
chitlins. I have chitlins on
my menu. That’s a dish I grew
up on. I don’t think of it as a
poverty dish, but it is. But we
made something out of nothing,
and that’s the food I’m
presenting here at JuneBaby.”
Is that why you wrote a
glossary of Southern
ingredients for JuneBaby’s
website? “I realized, Oh man,
I’m in the Northwest and
I think a lot of people don’t
have a clue what some
of these ingredients are.”
How do you balance
telling a story with showing
people a good time? “We’re
not preaching to them. We’re
preaching with food that is
hopefully good for their body
and soul. We’re a restaurant,
not a museum.”South by
Northwest
After making his name
at fine-dining heavyweights
like the French Laundry,
chef Edouardo Jordan is
returning to the Southern
cuisine he grew up with
at Seattle’s buzziest new
restaurant, JuneBaby. The
37-year-old tells us why he
chose to serve pulled pork
and buttermilk biscuits—
with a side of history.
NIKITA RICHARDSONB
A
Q
&
APHOTOGRAPH BY CHONA KASINGER