Two of Savannah’s most seasoned chefs take their skills to a whole new canvas.

Two artists at the Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center work under a particularly challenging set of circumstances: Their paintbrushes are sharp and made of metal, their paints are perishable and from the earth, and they create their artwork every day, in a tiny, hot studio for a set of buyers with a seemingly insatiable hunger for their work. Their names are John Deaderick and Michael Pritchard, and together they’re the chefs behind Café Zeum.
Last year, when the Jepson Center decided to open up their in-museum cafe to outside restaurateurs, Pritchard and Deaderick were high on their culinary wish list and approached the pair with the idea. Evidenced by a cult like following at their other restaurant, the Starland Cafe, the chefs were comfortable with the lunchtime setting, but had their doubts about how they would fit into the museum environment. “We walked into the meeting just to see what they had to say,” Deaderick says. “For about an hour and a half, they described our business and our philosophy. It was a perfect fit.”

DINING DISCIPLES

The chefs say the partnership with Café Zeum made good sense for a number of reasons (like the optimal kitchen setup and lunchtime hours), but the truth is they felt the museum was ultimately the perfect place because the presentation of their food is downright artistic.
The pair started perfecting the art of the lunch menu 15 years ago at their first Savannah cafe, Good Eats, where they solidified their style. “The general theme for our food has always been global,” Pritchard says, adding that global cuisine, however, does include its share of Southern comfort food. But for these chefs, comforting doesn’t mean fried or baked, greasy or starchy—it means fresh vegetables and food made entirely from scratch—soups to salad dressings–the way your mom might have made things– if she spent hours carefully arranging lettuce leaves on your plate.
“If it’s not labor intensive, it’s not good,” Pritchard laughs. “We can take something simple and add five steps to it anytime.” Their famous Kitchen Sink Salad is a good example of this practice. Sure, they could simply pile on the ingredients—dates, grapes, apples, asparagus, artichoke hearts, golden raisins—and they’d have a tasty salad. But instead, they carefully chop each component into bite-sized portions, taking the time to build an edible masterpiece. “We do think about balance on the plate—how our colors work together, how the textures work together, what the plate is, what the space is, and how they all work together,” Deaderick says. “When you’re building the salad, how each ingredient falls on the salad is important because you really want a distribution—all of those pieces come together to make one beautiful plate of food.”

Want to read more? Check out the full article in the February/March issue of South Magazine.

For an exclusive, behind the scenes look at the making of “Masterpiece Meals”, check out our video.