How One Mississippi Chef Makes Farmers the Star of the Show at Upscale Elvie’s Restaurant

Many chefs say they’re passionate about the farm-to-table movement. But not many go as far as Hunter Evans when it comes to putting words into action.

The 31-year-old executive chef/owner of all-day café Elvie’s in Jackson, Mississippi, is a hometown boy who went to culinary school and cut his teeth in kitchens around New Orleans and New York City before returning home in 2015. Like many others of his generation, it took leaving to bring out his appreciation for where he grew up. “Getting rooted in Southern food and moving away made me miss it,” Evans says, “but when I [came back] here to cook, I wanted to showcase the South differently.”

Elvie’s, which is named for his late grandmother, is indeed divergent from the general restaurant scene in Jackson, which leans toward classic, comforting, heavier Southern food. It’s no surprise he faced some skepticism before opening Elvie’s doors in January 2020, weeks before the pandemic began. “I was told by other people, ‘if you don’t have a blue-plate lunch special, you won’t have the lunch crowd,’” Evans recalls.

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He went so far as to say he was creating a restaurant that would make people feel like they weren’t in Jackson, introducing concepts such as a natural wine list, seven-course tasting menu and even escargot. But the irony of this big-city-in-a-small-town philosophy is that at its essence, Elvie’s provides the ultimate sense of place through the plate.

Pasture to Plate

Ask Evans about the farms he works with, and the farmers he starts talking about sound more like chums than colleagues. While the chef says he can’t grow anything to save his life, his relationships with farmers are what drives the culinary program at Elvie’s.

Take John Jordan Proctor of Home Place Pastures, which supplies the restaurant with high-quality pork, beef and lamb. “We hit it off since we’re both in the food world and have become good friends,” says Evans, who’s catering Proctor’s wedding in June 2021. While working on menus, he texted Proctor about a less-common cut of beef called ossobuco. “I asked him, ‘Is anyone buying ossobuco?’ He told me no, so I bought it all,” Evans says. Removing the middleman from sourcing ingredients helps to make the process that much easier, he adds. (And that ossobuco? It’s now on the menu, cooked in a red wine braise with mirepoix and tomato paste.)

“Without the farmers, there is no Elvie’s. There is no fine dining. The day I can just sit on my couch and order everything I need [for the restaurant] is the day I think I will be done cooking, because there won’t be any joy left.”

–Hunter Evans, executive chef/owner of Elvie’s 

Another local farmer, Gabriel Porter of A Little Time to Grow, supplies Elvie’s with “insanely flavorful” mushrooms, as Evans describes, which end up sauteed alongside potato puree with the ossobuco. Recently, he’s expanded what he’s sharing with the restaurant — much to Evans’ delight. “He shows up with grocery bags full of flowers and weeds, and says, ‘Eat this,’” says Evans, who admits he’d never seen the stuff Porter delivered before. Those “flowers” were actually the blossoms from plants gone to seed, bursting with flavor. For example, arugula blossoms are the “pure essence of arugula,” Evans says of their spicy, peppery flavor.

Seeds of History

And then there are the seeds. For Evans, you could say they’re an example of his obsession with preserving the history of his homeland, which ironically started back when he was working in Brooklyn. “I lived near the library and wanted to know, what is Mississippi cuisine? That started a very long journey,” he explains. He dove into history books, learning who had lived near Jackson before him and what they had eaten. It led him to start placing want ads in area newspapers: Local chef seeking heirloom seeds.

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When one older man responded to his ad, Evans drove two hours south of Jackson. They met up in a gas station parking lot and spread sandwich bags filled with all kinds of ancient seeds, including one he called white velvet okra, on the hood of his car. The man had received the seeds on his wedding day, 45 years prior, and had been storing them in a deep freezer. “He told me, ‘my kids aren’t going to grow these, so if I don’t give them to you, they will die,’” Evans recalls.

The chef turned around and dialed up another farmer buddy, Gregg Davis, who runs a sustainable operation called Cedar Tree Farms in central Mississippi. He planted the white velvet okra and brought bag after bag into Elvie’s last summer. So great was the bounty that Evans, who canned everything he couldn’t use fresh, filled up every last shelf in his cooler with the plant. Today, any guest in the restaurant can taste it by ordering a charcuterie plate off the menu, which comes with bread, mustard and what’s known now as Mr. Dicken’s pickled okra. All the servers know the story of how it came to be at the restaurant and eagerly share it when asked.

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For Evans, the process of growing and sourcing food for his kitchen is what makes it worthwhile. “Without the farmers, there is no Elvie’s. There is no fine dining,” he says. “The day I can just sit on my couch and order everything I need [for the restaurant] is the day I think I will be done cooking, because there won’t be any joy left.”

He aims to share his respect for the farmer and his bounty with his staff, taking them out to experience local farms so they can feel and touch items from the gardens. The reverence he demonstrates for something as humble as an onion or a turnip is rare, even for a chef — and instills a little bit of magic you can feel from the moment you walk through Elvie’s’ doors. “If I’m trying to be the best restaurant in town and want to have the best tasing food,” Evans says, “Why not find the best farmers? They’re doing all the hard work.”