Culinary Magic

Written By: Marlene Osteen | Issue: March 2024 | Photograph By: Susan Renfro

Chef Rodney Smith

Late last summer, Chef Rodney Smith took over the head spot behind the stoves at the Ruffed Grouse Tavern, the restaurant housed in the Highlander Mountain House.

In the months since, he’s set about ushering the restaurant into a place of culinary excellence. He’s made a name for himself refining and interpreting regional dishes with creativity and the freshest seasonal ingredients, and installed a menu revolving around “field, forest, fish, fowl and farm” – nailing the classic ingredients of regional Blue Ridge farmers and growers.

Ruffed Grouse is indisputably Smith’s show now. One can see it in the personal take on the regional cooking of the South and Appalachia that he now offers, and in his dance between traditional dishes and envelope-pushing ones.

“I use the pantry of the locale, but I also use imagination – I like to play around and come up with something new,” he said of the menu.

Classic dishes like Brunswick stew, chicken pot pie, and short ribs are customer favorites. But Smith is by no means tradition bound. He’s introduced some of his favorites from places far afield, including an elk meatloaf burger, Ramen, Moroccan lamb, and Indian specialties.

Smith, who grew up in Chippewah Falls, Wisconsin, first discovered a love of food, as he listened to family tales about grandfather’s restaurant – of smoking ribs and pigs and chickens in the smokehouse.

And later he worked the soil in the family garden – tending to the beans and strawberries and rhubarbs in the family garden.

“We had a rule in the family that you had to fend for yourself – we all had to learn to cook and sew and do the basics. I literally learned how to cook from the ground up, and it stuck with me.”

He understood that his calling was in the kitchen.

When he was 10, the family moved to Minnesota and Smith got his first job at 15, cooking burgers and chicken tenders.

It lasted a month before the proprietor told him he had no future in the industry. Undeterred, he hung on. By 21 he was working as a line cook in an Island-style Café at the Mall of America, breading chicken tenders and making pizzas. He accepted a job as executive chef at a pizza place in town “to pay the bills “and spent three years there before realizing he needed a culinary education to advance.

He enrolled at the Art Institute of Minnesota, completing the four-year course in three, graduating with Bachelor of Applied Science in culinary arts.

After which, he began cooking in earnest, working his way through the culinary world. He moved to Puerto Rico for a year-long stint at an Alain Ducasse affiliated restaurant and then returned to Minneapolis, as culinary Director at the landmark First Avenue, once made famous by Prince and subsequently as executive chef of the US Bank Stadium.

By 2018, hungry for adventure and knowledge outside of the Twin Cities, he spent three years traveling and working as a freelance chef, specializing in large-volume events – like the PGA Tour and Staples Arena.

He eventually found his way to Atlanta and K5 Hospitality. During his tenure there he worked his way up to culinary director, overseeing the company’s 3 farm-to-table restaurants, and capturing the attention of the food press.
‘Ruffed Grouse has been awash in praise since Smith took over last July.

Now heralded as one of the best restaurants in Highlands, it doesn’t disappoint.

Some of this is owed in part to the location. Situated in a splendidly renovated 1885 former sea captain’s house, the restaurant maintains many of the period architectural details giving it a lived-in excellence that takes most eateries years to achieve.

Smith’s menu is clearly being shaped by being in Highlands. He tells me that, “If there’s a vendor bringing in a new ingredient, we’re eager to try. You can expect something tasty and extraordinary on every visit.”