Joseph Lenn
American chef
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Lenn is an American chef and restaurateur. He is the chef and owner of J.C. Holdway, a restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee, named after his great-uncle. Lenn is the first chef from Tennessee to receive the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Southeast, which he won in 2013 for his work at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee.[1]
Career
Lenn worked at Blackberry Farm for ten years and served as Executive Chef for five of those years.[1] In 2016, he opened J.C. Holdway, a wood-fire restaurant in downtown Knoxville focused on Appalachian ingredients and Southern cooking traditions.[2] The restaurant is located in the historic Daylight Building on Union Avenue.[3] Lenn was featured in the PBS television series The Mind of a Chef (Season 2, “Roots”), where he appeared alongside Sean Brock and Anthony Bourdain in a segment filmed at Blackberry Farm.[4]
His work and culinary approach have been profiled by national outlets including The New York Times, Eater, Esquire, and Forbes Travel Guide.[1][5][6]
He has also contributed original recipes to The Wall Street Journal, including features on grilled lamb chops with eggplant tapenade, wax bean salad with cucumber, blackberries, and mint, pancetta-wrapped quail with tomato-pesto salad, and grilled shrimp with watermelon, basil, corn, and burrata.[7][8][9][10] His recipe for gochujang barbecue ribs with peanuts and scallions was also published in The New York Times.[11]
Awards and honors
James Beard Foundation Awards
- 2013 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southeast[1]