Richard Neal
Five & Ten | Athens, GA
FEBRUARY 2018
Hailing from Atlanta, Richard Neal’s entry into the restaurant industry was of the short order variety, followed by a busy job on the fry station at Stagebrush Steakhouse. Neal was drawn to the work and wanted something more, so he enrolled in Atlanta’s Art Institute and used it as a platform to find work in some of the city’s best kitchens. Posts at Anne Quantrano’s Bacchanalia and Linton Hopkins' Restaurant Eugene followed, as did positions with Shaun Doty and Todd Immel.
Neal left Atlanta for the bright lights of Nashville, where he worked for Mentor Tyler Brown at the Hermitage Hotel for four years, further refining his technique and learning how to manage the kitchen in a juggernaut of a property. Neal returned to Georgia to work as Hugh Acheson’s traveling chef, as the “Top Chef” master cooked across the country and promoted his cookbooks.
After a year on the road, Acheson turned over the reins of his first restaurant, Five & Ten, to Neal. As executive chef, Neal is narrating an open interpretation of Southern cuisine and ingredients—one where boiled peanut tahini nestles up to crunchy beef tendons and cured radishes and turnips. With Neal leading the kitchen and pushing boundaries, Five & Ten received a 2017 James Beard semifinalist nomination for “Outstanding Restaurant.
