JOHN CURRENCE

Currence was born and raised in New Orleans, LA to a family that loved to cook and spend time in the kitchen. His mother's travels with his father during his childhood brought the dishes of the world to their dinner table. Time spent hunting and fishing in South Louisiana began the education in the foods of his home. His first cooking job was while working offshore as a deckhand on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico. Currence saw his first kitchen job while in school at UNC where he started washing dishes at Bill Neal's Crook's Corner. An immediate fascination with the business prompted several supplemental jobs (baking bread at an Italian restaurant, butcher shop at a local grocery store, salmon smokehouse, etc) and ultimately led to his return to New Orleans to help a high school friend, Larkin Selman open Gautreau's. He moved on to the Brennan family of restaurants to open Bacco before finally settling in Oxford in 1992 and opening City Grocery. In the time since the City Grocery Restaurant Group has seen a number of openings, including Nacho Mama's, Kalo's, Ajax Diner, City Grocery Catering Company, Bouré, Big Bad Breakfast and Snackbar. He was awarded the James Beard Foundation medal for Best Chef South for 2009 and was the 2008 winner of the Great American Seafood Cookoff in New Orleans and the 2009 Charleston Food and Wine Festival's Iron Chef Challenge.

He is a contributing editor for Garden and Gun magazine and an avid outdoorsman who enjoys bird hunting of all varieties, fishing and golf.