Longtime Atlanta chef Zeb Stevenson has been named culinary director of Oliva Restaurant Group, which includes several popular local restaurants.
Stevenson most recently served as chef/co-owner at the recently-shuttered Westside restaurant Redbird. Brandon Hughes, who previously served as Oliva’s executive culinary director, has left the restaurant group.
Founded by Tal Baum, Oliva Restaurant Group includes the soon-to-open Carmel in Buckhead, Atrium and Bellina Alimentari at Ponce City Market, Aziza and Falafel Nation on the Westside and Rina on the Eastside Beltline (with a second location to open soon in Alpharetta).
In his role as culinary director, Stevenson “lives out his lifelong focus of coupling creativity with craftsmanship,” and “has been instrumental in setting up the kitchen for success...at Carmel,” according to a press release.
Stevenson has been in kitchens for more than two decades, starting at a Waffle House in his home state of Indiana, where he washed dishes for a week before switching to a role as a line cook. He arrived in Atlanta in 2001, taking a job at Little Gardens Restaurant and Lounge, an eatery in Lawrenceville that has since become a reception venue.
In 2004, he took a position at the now-defunct Dick & Harry’s in Roswell, where he met his mentor, Harold Marmulstein. He went on to work at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Spice Market Atlanta, The Livingston at the Georgian Terrace Hotel and Parish in Inman Park, before coming aboard at Watershed in 2014, where he worked until opening Redbird.
Stevenson did not immediately respond to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s request for comment.
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