Gary Caldwell named executive chef of One Flew South
The Chopped winner leaves Marcus Samuelsson's Marcus Bar & Grille to run the kitchen at Atlanta airport's James Beard-nominated restaurant, back with his former employer Jackmont Hospitality.
Gary Caldwell is the new executive chef of One Flew South, the James Beard Award-nominated restaurant in Concourse E of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
The move, confirmed in early October, returns Caldwell to Jackmont Hospitality, the company that runs One Flew South and also operates Chicken + Beer, the Ludacris-backed spot elsewhere in the same airport where Caldwell once worked his way up from sous chef to chef de cuisine.
He arrives from Marcus Bar & Grille, Marcus Samuelsson's restaurant in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward, where Caldwell spent his tenure as executive chef. Under his lead, the restaurant was named one of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's 50 best in the city. Marcus Bar & Grille has not named a successor.
He calls his cooking Modern Bayou, a label he now brings to an airport kitchen that already mixes Southern food with sushi.
From grandmother's stove to Chopped winner
Caldwell is a Louisiana native who learned Creole and Cajun cooking from his grandmother before training at the Culinary Institute of New Orleans and working high-volume kitchens in New Orleans and Las Vegas. In 2024 he won Food Network's Chopped, a credit that now sits alongside a James Beard-nominated address on his résumé.
He calls his cooking "Modern Bayou," a label he plans to bring to a menu that already mixes Southern cooking with sushi rolls, a combination that has defined One Flew South since it opened.
Why Jackmont is betting on a familiar face
"One Flew South has a real reputation with travelers and people in the restaurant business," Caldwell said in a statement, adding that he is glad to be back with Jackmont and ready to work with the team.
The airport restaurant has built its name partly on speed: travelers on tight connections, a kitchen that has to plate fast without cutting corners. Caldwell's background in high-volume service made him a logical hire for Jackmont, which has now moved two Atlanta chefs between kitchens it owns inside the same terminal.
No start date was given beyond "now," and the company has not detailed menu changes. For a restaurant that already draws attention for being a serious kitchen behind airport security, the test is whether Modern Bayou survives the pace of a concourse at boarding time.
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