By Donna Cornelius
Birmingham’s very first FOOD+Culture Fest has a star-studded lineup of special guests. Two of them, David Bancroft and Jonathan Harrison, have a few things in common. Both are Alabama-born, both went to Auburn University, and both had success on popular cooking competition shows.
They also will be among the talented folks who will be heating things up in the FOOD+Fire segment of the festival, which features barbecue, live fire cooking and a staple of the South – tailgate food.
But the two men have different twists to their stories. Bancroft began his career as a chef early on and now has two highly regarded restaurants in Auburn plus recognition from the James Beard Foundation. Harrison never imagined that his dream of cooking would get a jumpstart thanks to a fellow he likely never thought he’d meet – British chef Gordon Ramsay.
David Bancroft: Living the Dream
Although Bancroft (pictured) grew up in San Antonio, his ties to Auburn go back a long way. He was born in Mobile, and his parents, brothers, and other family members all went to Auburn University. He followed them there to study business – but his heart pulled him in another career direction, one that was rooted in his childhood.
“My grandparents had a farm in Hartford, and my grandfather had a restaurant attached to his farm,” Bancroft said. “He raised catfish, and he would dip the fish out of his pond and take them into the kitchen to cook.”
Like many Texas teenagers, Bancroft was into sports, playing football and baseball. But he also loved another Lone Star State tradition – barbecuing and smoking meats. And he loved watching Food Network.
His Beta Theta Pi fraternity brothers at AU voted him their kitchen steward. One summer, he worked in New Orleans on a barge.
“We cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner – things like gumbo, etouffee and redfish,” he said.
While still a student at Auburn, he wanted to switch gears and go to the Culinary Institute of America, one of the premier culinary schools in the U.S. But his mom and dad weren’t too enthusiastic about this game plan.
“My parents said, ‘Finish school first, and then we’ll talk,’” Bancroft said. “My senior year, the itch to cook still hadn’t gone away.”
He applied at Amsterdam Café, a favorite among Auburn locals and visitors, becoming executive chef there in 2005, and then left to start his own restaurant, Acre, which opened in 2013.
“I went from my first job to building my own restaurant,” Bancroft said.
Acre quickly won a name for itself, and Bancroft achieved one of his two early goals – recognition from the James Beard Foundation. He has been a semifinalist for the award program’s Best Chef: South honor multiple times.
The other goal? Appearing on one of the most well-known TV cooking competitions, “Iron Chef America.” That aim was realized in 2017, when he was selected for an incarnation of the show called “Iron Chef Showdown.”
In the first round of “Showdown,” he and fellow competitor Roxanne Spruance were tasked with making apples the star of their dishes. Spruance was a formidable opponent. She had worked under two big culinary names, Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 restaurant and Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, before opening her own New York restaurant, Kingsley, to rave reviews. But Bancroft came out on top of their duel with his combination of sea bass with a sweet potato-apple hash, apple pot liquor that used kale instead of turnip greens, and an apple slaw.
“I admire a man who brings a bass to an apple fight,” joked Alton Brown, the show’s host.
After besting Spruance, Bancroft had to face Iron Chef Jose Garces in a battle of ribs and racks. Both chefs had to prepare five dishes for the judges, who voted Bancroft the champion of the contest.
Bancroft said squaring off against Spruance and Garces was intimidating.
“But I felt ready for it,” he said. “I tried to look at it as a football player preparing by learning a playbook.”
In an interesting side note, one of Bancroft’s sous chefs for the show, Adam Evans of Birmingham’s Automatic Seafood, also will appear at the FOOD+Fire event.
In 2019, Bancroft opened his second restaurant in Auburn, Bow & Arrow, his interpretation of and tribute to a South Texas smokehouse.
“It was more the dream restaurant, with homemade tortillas, brisket tacos, brisket enchiladas,” he said. “It quickly became a hot spot in Auburn.”
Bancroft is looking forward to taking part in the festival’s FOOD+Fire event.
“I do as many of these types of events as my schedule allows,” he said. “It’s fun to interact with guests and with the community. In Alabama, we don’t have a whole lot of these events involving pit masters and chefs.”
He’s already brainstorming about what he’ll be cooking at the festival.
“This is subject to change, but I’m thinking of making one of the rib dishes I made on ‘Iron Chef,’” he said. “We lacquered the ribs in honey hot sauce, which is a smoky, hot sauce, with fried chicken skin streusel.”
While food is an important part of Bancroft’s life, his family and his faith take priority. He and his wife, Christin, have two children who are ages 12 and 10.
“I grew up in a Christian household and was baptized early in life,” he said. “My wife and I try to provide a good, stable life based on a Christian home as much as we can.”
Jonathan Harrison: What Happens in Vegas
Born and raised in Columbiana, Harrison didn’t make the leap into full-time cooking until after an experience in a far different city – Las Vegas. That’s where he competed, and made a strong showing, on a TV show called “Next Level Chef.”
“I always wanted to cook,” Harrison said. “I started at Jeff State, but my scholarship didn’t cover the school’s culinary program, so I went to Auburn and got a journalism degree. I was a bartender in college and cooked for friends – mostly no more than 10 people.”
He gained more kitchen experience during the COVID pandemic, when a neighbor who is with the Columbiana Senior Center recruited him to help provide meals there.
Jonathan Harrison“We set up tables far apart so people could eat together at a safe distance,” Harrison said. “They didn’t have to pay anything. That was my first experience cooking for a lot of people, and they seemed to enjoy my food. It gave me a little more confidence.”
His next step came with “Next Level Chef.”
“Like everybody else, I watched ‘Chopped,’ but I have a friend who is obsessed with cooking competition shows,” he said. “She sent me an ad for a new show for professional, social media and home chefs called ‘Next Level Chef.’
“I’d had a bad day at work and said, yes, I’m going to do this. I got a call about one week, 250 videos, 500 pictures and about six to 10 interviews later; I was in the top 30. A month later, I flew out to Vegas for the show and was there for 28 days.”
Harrison had to take time off from his job as an educator and administrator at the Alabama 4-H Center’s Science School.
“I had enough off time and an understanding boss,” he said.
The show, which has completed two seasons on Fox and is slated for a third and fourth, has a difficult format. Contestants are divided into three groups, each under the leadership of a very high-profile chef – Nyesha Arrington, Richard Blais or Ramsay.
The competitors are assigned to cook in one of three kitchens stacked on top of each other. The top kitchen has top-notch equipment, the middle is a standard commercial kitchen, and the lower space is not exactly an ideal spot for concocting winning dishes.
“We all were line cooks or from home cooking backgrounds, so nobody was used to great equipment,” Harrison said. “I started in the middle kitchen. The bottom kitchen was like my grandmother’s kitchen. Two burners would just cut off for no reason.”
“Next Level Chef” has a variety of challenges in addition to cooking in different kitchens. Each episode has a theme – steak, pasta or brunch, for example. Once the chefs are stationed in their assigned kitchens, a moving platform travels from the top space to the bottom, and contestants must quickly grab their ingredients before they can start cooking.
“There were so many ingredients I’d never seen before, like a truffle or $3,000 worth of Ahi tuna,” Harrison said.
Harrison was on Blais’ team but had warm words for all three mentors, Ramsay included. The British chef has a reputation for being, well, somewhat volatile in the kitchen.
“I was so happy to be around him and so in awe of him,” Harrison said. “I realized that he really wanted to help me. He’s such a nice person – he wants you to do well.”
Blais and Arrington, both successful restaurateurs and chefs, had both appeared on Bravo’s “Top Chef,” another prestigious TV cooking competition. Harrison said he thought that made them sympathetic to the “Next Level Chef” contestants.
“I learned a lot from all of them, but Nyesha really hammers home visualization and encouraged us to cook with intention,” he said. “It changed the way I look at what I’m doing day to day, in life and not just in cooking.”
Harrison did Alabama proud, making it all the way to the seventh episode. As luck would have it, the theme for the very next show was one he’d loved to have tackled.
“I so wished I’d made it to pork week since we’re a pork-centric state,” he said. “I’m good at the pig!”
Harrison said the show “completely changed my life.” He quit his job and now is a full-time private chef. His new gig has taken him around the world, including a stint in Poland to cook with World Central Kitchen, chef Jose Andres’ nonprofit organization that provides meals to those affected by humanitarian, climate and community crises.
“I’ve been to Portugal to cook for a corporate group, to Utah, New York, Texas, California and South Florida,” Harrison said. “I’m the poster child for leaning into your passion.”
At home in Columbiana, he lives in a renovated 1938 Craftsman-style house. His partner is Carlos Hernandez of Hoover, and he calls his two cats, Patti and Dottie, “the greatest.”
Harrison is excited about being a part of the FOOD+Fire event in October.
“This will be my first big food festival,” he said. “I’ll be doing game birds instead of cow or pig.”
One member of the team that will be working with him at the festival is Josh Lapidus of Piggly Wiggly, and he’s looking for others. Just as he got his chance with “Next Level Chef,” Harrison wants to extend opportunity to others who want to advance their cooking careers.
“I want to give people a shot,” he said.
FOOD+Culture Here’s the Scoop
Tickets are now on sale for the first-ever Birmingham FOOD+Culture Festival, set for Oct.12-15. To buy tickets for the events and for more information, visit bhamfoodplus.com.
The festival will feature several signature events over four days, including more than 10 dinners, an amplified farmers market experience and more than 50 featured chefs, mixologists, brewers, pit masters and more. The fun will be spread out over venues around the city, primarily at Pepper Place and Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark.
Here’s a rundown of the special events that will be high points of the festival:
• FOOD+Flair: Changing the Menu (Thursday, Oct. 12): a seated, multi-course luncheon at The Haven celebrating an all-star lineup of women chefs; $85.
• FOOD+Frank (Thursday, Oct. 12): the presentation of the inaugural Frank Stitt Award for Industry Excellence, this year to the iconic chef himself and in future years honoring other recipients. The event will be at the Birmingham Museum of Art; $75.
• FOOD+Heritage (Friday, Oct. 13): a seated dinner in the streets of Pepper Place celebrating Black culture, cuisine and the influence the community has had on Alabama’s foodways, with guest chefs and presenters from around the Southeast; $150.
• FOOD+Farmers (Saturday, Oct. 14): an amplified farmer’s market at Pepper Place, including a book fair featuring cookbook authors and food-focused reads, several chef demos, participating chefs from the festival setting up stations and giving out samples, and an emphasis on healthy eating and healthy living. No tickets are needed, and the event is free to the public.
• FOOD+Fire: The Great Southern Tailgate (Saturday, Oct. 14): presented by Southern Living; a walk-around tasting event at Sloss Furnaces celebrating the barbecue community, live-fire cooking and Southern tailgate culture. Highlights include live music, a Southern Living demo stage, regional and local breweries and giant screens to watch live college football; $75.
• FOOD+Funk Brunch (Sunday, Oct. 15): biscuits, brass and Bloody Marys, featuring pastry chefs, bakers, mixologists and New Orleans’ Grammy Award-winning Rebirth Brass Band; special guests include Birmingham’s Martie Duncan, cookbook author and Food Network Star finalist, and Chadwick Boyd, a food and lifestyle expert; $75.
• FOOD+Friends (October 12-15): public dinners around Birmingham, featuring surprise pop-up menus from visiting guest chefs in participating restaurants, celebrating camaraderie in the culinary industry; unticketed.
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