Lambert Givens, the footballer turned Meals Community star at Hunter’s Kitchen & Bar, talks taking over one of many greatest names in eating places.
Picture offered
“I’m very aggressive,” says Boston chef Lambert Givens—and that spirit has served him properly. First, on the soccer area, the place Givens, a lifelong New England Patriots fan, used to dominate the gridiron enjoying for his alma mater, South Carolina State College.
Extra not too long ago, although, Givens’s competitiveness powered him to victory in a really totally different area: Final week he managed to Beat Bobby Flay on the hit Meals Community present, a cook-off that pits the titular movie star restaurateur in opposition to a unique visitor chef in each episode. What was Givens’s game-winning dish? His gumbo, a mainstay on the menu at Hunter’s Kitchen & Bar in South Boston, the place the previous athlete and present culinarian has been spinning out American South-spanning delicacies ever for the reason that restaurant opened final yr. “It’s like being within the Tremendous Bowl,” Givens says of his Beat Bobby Flay expertise. “I really feel on prime of the world.”
For good cause. Boston is a great distance from the gumbo-soaked restaurant scene of, say, Louisiana, however Givens’s spicy seafood stew—loaded with crab, shrimp, okra, and andouille sausage—has scored the form of nationwide bragging rights that places our city’s Southern cuisine on the map.
Not unhealthy for a man who grew up in Connecticut, the place Givens spent a ton of time studying to prepare dinner from his mother and father and, particularly, his grandmother. Right now, lots of the plates on the menu at Hunter’s—together with the gumbo, in addition to the collard greens—are cheffed-up variations of the very recipes that Givens’s household delivered to New England after shifting right here from Georgia and Alabama.
Though he inherited that very same ardour for meals early on, it wasn’t at all times clear that Givens would develop into a professional chef. The truth is, he studied Shopper Science Enterprise at SCSU—though he continued to show himself to prepare dinner utilizing the crockpot, the toaster oven, and the fryer he stored tucked away in his dorm. (“I used to have to cover them throughout room checks,” Givens provides with amusing.) After commencement, Givens moved to Quincy to work for a telecom firm. He shortly realized, although, that he actually needed to spend his profession in kitchens. “One thing simply clicked,” Givens says. “I used to be nonetheless younger sufficient to have the ability to change my life, and I knew if I didn’t do it now, I by no means would.”
Via some contacts within the hospitality world, Givens bought a job as a line prepare dinner at Capo—an Italian eatery from the Broadway Restaurant Group, the crew behind a few of Southie’s hottest spots. He labored his means up by means of Broadway properties, together with sushi-oriented Fats Child and ingenious gastropub Lincoln Tavern & Restaurant, earlier than opening Hunter’s as govt chef in August 2021.
It was an thrilling anniversary reward when, one yr later and armed with one among Hunter’s signature plates, Givens managed to take down Bobby Flay on his residence turf. Due to all that observe enjoying soccer earlier than 1000’s of stadium spectators, quick-fire cooking for TV cameras and a dwell studio viewers got here naturally to Givens, he says—and what’s extra, the nonetheless early-career chef even bought just a little behind-the-scenes teaching from one of many greatest names within the biz. “[Bobby] informed me there can be robust instances,” Givens shares, “however if you happen to persist with it and keep passionate, you’ll get by means of it.”
That recommendation echoes the strategy Givens takes within the kitchen at Hunter’s, the place he faucets his soccer expertise to maintain his workers on the ball in a high-pressure, fast-hustling business. “It’s all about the identical crew values and ensuring we work collectively like a well-oiled machine,” Givens says. “In these moments once you’re drained, you simply have to provide just a little extra.”
So what extra does Givens need, now that he’s beat one of many best-known cooks within the nation at his personal recreation? For one factor, with the kickoff to soccer season forward, he hopes that Hunter’s turns into the “number-one spot” for game-day eating; he’d additionally wish to open his personal restaurant someday. That mentioned, his aggressive streak received’t stop: Givens would love to provide Man Fieri a run for his cash on Man’s Grocery Video games (hear that, Meals Community?), and if Bobby Flay is ever up for a rematch, he is aware of precisely which Hunter’s dish he would convey to the desk for a second spherical.
“Our mac ‘n’ cheese,” Givens says, with out hesitation. His is a three-cheese mix with shell pasta, topped with a cheddar-biscuit crumble, the chef explains. “And it’s among the finest within the metropolis.”
Recreation on.
The profitable gumbo. Picture offered
