Capital City’s Justin Ferguson

Top Louisiana Chef
Text and photos © 2008 by Scott W Clemens

April, 2008

As a journalist covering the Southern Breeze Wine & Culinary Festival on the old capital building grounds in Baton Rouge, I was with a group that had reservations for lunch at Capital City Grill a block north.

Before the Grand Wine Tasting extravaganza we gathered in an open tent to watch the Gulf Coast Chef Challenge, an Iron-Chef-style competition for title of Louisiana’s Top Chef. The winner will go on to compete against winners from Alabama, Florida and Mississippi in the fall for the title of Southern Breeze’s 2008 Gulf Coast Chef Challenge Chef of the Year. Each chef was charged with turning out the best duck dish.

The chef from our lunch venue, Justin Ferguson, was competing with Gerard Hemery of Bernadette’s, Chris Nealy of Mansur’s on the Boulevard, Scott Varnedoe of Varnedoe’s Carriage House Restaurant, Michael Loupe of The Hilton Baton Rouge Capital Center, William Wells of Culinary Productions, Martin Clear of Baton Rouge Country Club, and Joel Robert of The Cabin Restaurant. We watched for awhile, and then the wine tasting started and I wandered off to taste the Pinot Noirs

Then it was time to go to lunch. Ferguson was late and apologetic — it seems he’d won. Over the next hour we discovered why. The 26-year-old Ferguson, who was raised in Southern Louisiana, has an unusual background for a chef. He was a Reconnaissance Scout in the army through a tour in Iraq, and on a pass through Europe he discovered fine food. He returned home, attended the Louisiana Culinary Institute in Baton Rouge, and worked for six months in Boston, before returning to Baton Rouge to become the Executive Chef of Capital City Grill.
You can tell by talking with him that Justin is not a technical chef; he’s an intuitive chef. He seems to have that indefinable ability to know when to step back and let the food speak for itself, and when to jazz it up a bit. Through a meal of salad (with fruit), shrimp with creamy polenta, crab cakes, herbed mash potatoes and filet mignon — nothing particularly complex — it was obvious that he has an innate ability to work with the nuances of sweet and savory elements within a dish.

No matter how he fares in the final competition for Top Chef of the Gulf Coast, he’s a chef to watch. Click here for his winning Duck with Foie Gras and Sage Polenta recipe.