Wednesday Watershed restaurant in Decatur announces the appointment of Joe Truex as its new chef and operating partner. He replaces Scott Peacock, who left the restaurant in February after 11 years to pursue a documentary film project and begin working on a memoir. Truex, who has run Repast restaurant with his wife, Mihoko Obunai-Truex, for the past four years, will assume the position June 1.
"I couldn't ask for a better place to get back to my Southern roots," said Truex, a Louisiana native. "It's where I'm at right now in my career and my life."
While many of the restaurant's signature dishes -- including its iconic Tuesday-night fried chicken -- will remain, Truex plans to change the menu more frequently than the restaurant did under Peacock's leadership. He also will introduce more daily specials that reflect seasonal produce and take a lead role in remaking Watershed's wine program.
Truex will join co-owners Ross Jones and Emily Saliers as a managing partner. Saliers, who is half of the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls, calls the hiring of Truex a "no-brainer."
"He has a local cultural sensibility about food," she said. "He's obviously classically trained and has all the accolades, but he's rooted. Also, we like his energy. He's going to infuse the staff with a renewed sense of inspiration."
Saliers believes that Truex's decision to pitch Watershed's set-in-Georgia-red-clay menu for a changing one is key. "I think people really like variety," she said. "I know foodies do. You can't let your menu remain the same for a long period of time or they lose interest."
One of metro Atlanta's earliest practitioners of farm-to-table cooking, Watershed grew from a gift and wine shop that served mostly sandwiches and cold food into a leading destination restaurant during Peacock's tenure. He brought the restaurant national exposure with his cookbook, "The Gift of Southern Cooking," which he penned with his longtime friend and mentor Edna Lewis.
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., Truex worked at Le Cirque under chef Daniel Boulud. Before opening Repast, he cooked at restaurants and hotels in Basel, Switzerland, Las Vegas and New York City. He was also the chef at Chateau Elan in Braselton. He and his wife live near Watershed, and he counts being able to walk to work as a major plus.
The job at Watershed, Truex said, "is about coming full circle for me and my progression as a chef. That's why I traveled and went to all these places. For me, it's all about coming home."
(Full disclosure: Truex is my neighbor and personal friend.)
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