Some kids want to be doctors or lawyers when they grow up. Chris Demant wanted to be a metal fabricator.
“I’m a hands-on kind of guy and I’ve always been bad at school, but I’m very good at this,” Demant said.
Today, he’s the owner of Grills by Demant, with a fan base of chefs from Atlanta to Singapore. Walk into the kitchens of Delbar, Minero and Kimball House and you’ll see Demant’s stainless-steel creations.
Credit: Savanna Hall
Credit: Savanna Hall
Demant grew up in Denmark, where he studied metal fabrication and built industrial equipment for factories in Asia. However, Demant and his wife, Ann, longed to move to the U.S., and in 2014 they sold everything and relocated to metro Atlanta, where he lived briefly as a child.
“I always remembered Atlanta and had good memories. I wanted to move back again,” Demant said.
After moving to the metro area, Demant tried his hand at building industrial restaurant equipment, as well as more artistic endeavors, such as lighting fixtures. He saw a gap in the restaurant grill market, however, and realized it was a field in which he could combine his passions for design and function. He founded Grills by Demant in 2016.
Credit: Savanna Hall
Credit: Savanna Hall
Working out of a 12,000-square-foot warehouse in East Point, Demant and his team of fabricators create customized, built-to-order grills. “I’m from the country of Legos,” Demant said, “so it’s kind of ingrained in me that the grills need to be modular.”
The grills are scalable, so they can become bigger or smaller, depending on what a chef needs. “If you wanted to start with the most basic stuff and then add to it as your menu changes, you can do that,” Demant said. “It’s not welded; it’s very much finger screws, so you can take stuff in and out.”
The design even takes into account the way the oven doors open and the small-radius corners, “so they’re easy to clean,” he said, with “no sharp edges anywhere.”
Credit: Brandon Amato
Credit: Brandon Amato
When Kevin Gillespie opened his Scottish-inspired restaurant Nàdair in May, a grill by Demant was at the top of the must-have list. “You could tell this guy knows what he’s doing when it comes to the actual building of these grills,” Gillespie said. “It seemed like he was taking the feedback from professionals really to heart.”
Gillespie described the design process as “casual.” He visited Demant’s East Point showroom and studio and gave him a rundown of what he hoped to accomplish with the grill.
“I wanted more flexibility,” Gillespie said. “That meant working in a system that allowed us to move the height of the grates that we’re cooking over as often as we wanted to.”
Nearly every dish at Nàdair touches the 36-inch grill at some point, whether it’s grilled pineapple for a salad or smoked tomatoes served with sole. “We’re still able to use the fire to very slowly cook these heirloom tomatoes that concentrate and get super rich and tasty, and that makes for an end result that is way better than it would be if we were simply popping these into the oven,” Gillespie said.
Parnass Savang, co-owner and chef of Talat Market, first heard of Demant while visiting Napa, California. He later went to Demant’s workshop and was smitten. Savang and his business partner and co-chef, Rod Lassiter, opted for a standard box grill with grates. “It’s like, whatever your imagination comes up with, it can work with this little box,” Savang said.
Talat’s grill has a range of uses, from quick-fire cooking of steaks and octopus to smoking coconut husks and pork jowls in a sweet soy glaze. “We leave it on the rack where it’s the furthest away from the charcoal, and it takes about an hour,” Savang said. It’s slow enough, he said, that the sugar is caramelized, rather than burned.
Credit: Andrew Lee Thomas
Credit: Andrew Lee Thomas
Even when Demant, who lives in Stone Mountain, isn’t designing or building grills, he can’t seem to sit still. “I’m constantly building stuff at home,” he said. “I built my whole house and renovated everything myself.”
His house also is where he tests and critiques his grill prototypes — and where he cooks, especially American barbecue. “I enjoy brisket, ribs and all the sides,” Demant said. “In Denmark, we do cold smoking, so I like to cold smoke fish, too.”
Although Demant’s grills are known in the chef community, he considers his company a “best-kept secret.” Diners know when their food is farm-to-table, but when their food is cooked on a Demant grill, it adds to the sense of place. “Being able to cook over something that was made by hand, by a local artisan, who made this specifically for us, I think that’s incredibly special,” Gillespie said.
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