Smoked heirloom tomato gazpacho, marcona almonds, Spanish extra-virgin olive oil; marinated beets with sotto cenere cheese, micro celery and truffle oil; spit-roasted Gum Creek Farm pork loin with Anson Mills grits, lady pea succotash and peach jam.

A chef's Atlanta career culminates in these few things —- the last supper for chef-owner Michael Tuohy at Woodfire Grill. Tuesday marked Tuohy's last night in Woodfire's kitchen, where he has strived, sometimes at the detriment of his profit margin, to create seasonal, farm-to-table menus, from the iconic restaurant's opening six years ago.

Tuohy, a California native, has opted to sell to Nicolas Quinones and Bernard Moussa of Five Senses Restaurants and return to his home state to serve as executive chef of the Grange, a farm-to-table concept at the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento.

Though the new owners will keep Tuohy's kitchen intact, including the appointment of chef de cuisine Kevin Gillespie to executive chef, it's hard to imagine Woodfire without him.

Influenced early in his career by the seasonal cooking of California chef Joyce Goldstein of Square One Restaurant, Tuohy moved to Atlanta 22 years ago, launching his lauded Chefs' Cafe in 1986. After a solid 10-year run, he closed that restaurant and joined Tom Murphy at Murphy's in Virginia-Highland, retooling the food toward seasonal appetizers and entrees and away from the soup-and-sandwich combos so prevalent on the popular spot's menu.

He opened Woodfire in 2002 and quickly became the chef most known for his involvement with Georgia Organics, spearheading the state's long overdue farm-to-table movement by developing ongoing relationships with local farmers and growers, making his own breads and sausages in-house, and breaking down hogs and fish rather than relying on purveyors to do it for him.

Fresh and local has been his mantra at Woodfire, and it hasn't always been easy.

"I couldn't cook any other way," he says, smiling. "This is the right way to do it. Pure. Honest. Fresh cooking tastes better and is better for the earth."

It's closing in on 2:30 p.m., and Tuohy, Gillespie and Jared Pyles, a cook from Home restaurant in Buckhead who used to cook at Woodfire Grill and has come to help and say goodbye, are prepping feverishly for the night ahead. A booked dining room of more than 200 customers will begin arriving at 6 p.m. Since 11 a.m. the crew has been preparing, having prepped the day before, too, which is normally a day off.

Tuohy is making a pickling liquid of cider vinegar and sugar spiked with coriander, mustard seed, star anise, cinnamon and clove for a salad of marinated beets served with sotto cenere cheese.

Pyles peels and cuts cucumbers for a salad to be served with wood-grilled hangar steak. Gillespie shucks corn, leaving some ears for roasting —- the savory sweet kernels will be used for a relish to accompany Woodfire's famous crab cakes, one of four appetizers offered on the evening's prix fixe menu.

The welcoming aroma of the restaurant's wood-burning oven wafts through the dining room the moment you walk past the hostess stand. A collection of artisanal cheeses on the right gives way to the oven and spit roast on the left.

"The oven is what I will miss most about Woodfire Grill," says Tuohy. "It smells like home to me."

It's closing in on 4 p.m., and servers and other front-of-the-house staff are arriving —- workers from Repast and Whole Foods who once worked for Tuohy have returned to work one last night with him. Dan Lindsay, Tuohy's bartender for almost three years, peels lemons and readies the bar. "It's a sad day," he says. "But I'm happy for him."

In the kitchen, Gillespie is still awaiting a shipment of cuerno de torno peppers to arrive from Jenny-Jack Sun Farm in Pine Mountain. Part of working with farmers directly is the headache that they may not be able to adhere to a set schedule or provide exactly what was ordered.

"Supply and consistency are Georgia's biggest problems for growers and meat suppliers," explains Tuohy, who is quick to admit that the state has come a long way since he started 22 years ago.

By 4:30 p.m., only four things remain on the kitchen's prep list, and cooks from Trois and newly opened Dogwood are organizing and portioning crab cakes, dropping the meat into flour and placing the patties on sheet pans.

While selecting the cheeses for the evening's artisanal cheese plate, Tuohy tastes a new cheese he's just ordered from Flat Creek Lodge Dairy, a producer in Swainsboro. Repairmen were in earlier to talk with him about one of his reach-ins. Even on a last day, incidentals must be dealt with.

By 5 p.m., Seth Roskind, the restaurant's general manager and wine director, brings Tuohy one of what will be three "final" menus for approval. Minutes later, Tuohy takes small bits of the four cheeses he's chosen upstairs to have a pre-meal meeting with the staff —- the cheeses are for their tasting.

Tuohy has changed into chefs' whites. The moment he begins to explain the menu, servers jot down notes. Questions come: What's the herb served with the crab cake? Where did the lamb in the ragu come from? Is it ice cream or fromage blanc mousse to be served with the butterscotch pudding (Tuohy's favorite)? Tuohy basically recounts what he's been doing all day —- a bittersweet list of love that he must now review as if tonight were just like any other night.

After a short toast, it's curtains up. Customers are arriving, and there's no time for sentimental goodbyes.

But for Atlanta, the mark Tuohy has made will remain, and one can only hope others will carry on in his stead.