About the Chef

Chef John Huggins

Chef John Huggins, a Pensacola native, began his cooking career in Richmond, Va., in 1990 at a small French bistro-style restaurant called Bistro Express. While there, he learned some core fundamentals from the owner, Chef Robert Ramsey, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. After two years at the Bistro Express, Huggins followed Ramsey to his next venture, the elegant Fox Head Inn, where Ramsey developed a fixed-price, single-menu style for adventurous diners. At Fox Head, you eat what the chef cooks. “Under Chef Ramsey,” Huggins said, “I got my first real exposure to the elements of fine dining.”

Huggins later pursued another fine-dining venue at the Berkeley Hotel in Richmond under one of the local celebrity chefs, Jay Frank. There he learned two different cooking styles, along with two different management styles, that helped him develop his own. During that time, recognizing his gifts, he started thinking seriously about going to a good culinary school.

“I gravitated toward cooking at a young age,” Huggins said. “While growing up here is Pensacola, my grandparents owned a house on Gadsden Street that had a gas grill in the kitchen. It was fascinating to watch my grandfather cook. In fact, I was lucky to be exposed to a lot of good cooks in my family.”

He began his education at Johnson & Wales College of Culinary Arts in Norfolk, Va., and later transferred to J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, in Richmond, to complete his education in culinary arts.

His development during that time in Richmond revolved around small establishments. During college, he was a working chef for Capers Catering and was a kitchen manager for The Bistro R Restaurant and Catering, and his last job in Richmond was kitchen manager for the Red Oak Café. He worked there two years prior to returning to Florida. It was not until moving to Florida in 2002 that the venue size increased exponentially. Upon his return, he worked for McGuire’s Management Group for three years in a variety of capacities, and started working with the Great Southern Restaurant Group in December 2007.

Huggins continues to refine his management and cooking styles. “Like most chefs,” he said, “I am still learning, driven by curiosity.”

Chef Jim Shirley

Jim Shirley is co-owner with Collier, Will, and Burney Merrill of the Great Southern Restaurant Group, Inc., which owns The Fish House, Atlas Oyster House, and The Fish House Deck Bar in Pensacola, Florida, and is co-owner—along with the Merrill’s—of the Great Southern Café in Seaside, Florida. For years he wrote a weekly column, Good Grits!, for the Pensacola News Journal, and now writes on a regular basis for the newpaper’s columns Chef’s Corner and Wine Time.

Chef Jim is a member of the state board of directors of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association (FRLA) and vice president of the Northwest Florida Chapter of FRLA, founder and president of the Society of Great Southern Chefs, and a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance. As an active community leader, he dedicates time to many charities, including the Children’s Home Society of Florida (a board member of the Western Division) and is a board member of the Autism Society of the Panhandle.

Jim opened his first restaurant, Madison's Diner, in Pensacola in 1995, opened the Screaming Coyote in 1997, and the Fish House in 1998. His style of cooking is one that he calls modern Southern cuisine. As the son of a Navy pilot who was stationed all around the world, Jim learned to enjoy a variety of cuisines from many cultures. But he always went back to his roots—his grandmothers' traditional Southern cooking. His expertise is combining different flavors in ways unlike anyone else. He has appeared on the Travel Channel's show "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern." He was also chosen to go to Washington, D.C., to feature his signature dish, Grits à Ya Ya, in “A Taste of the South” event.

Jim uses Southern accents with great skill and spirit, traveling far afield to graze and glean, absorbing culinary ideas and selecting wines. As a Pensacola native, Chef Jim uses his knowledge of local waters and his families’ farming history to promote the “new ruralism,” a movement to promote sustainable agriculture at the urban edge. Jim is the author of "Good Grits! Southern Boy Cooks" available here.