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11/7/2017

 

Chef Alexis Hernandez enjoys cooking New American cuisine in his quaint Chamblee restaurant.

Celebrity Chef celebrates 4-year anniversary in up-and-coming Chamblee

By Darris Pope

            Chef and reality-show winner, Alexis Hernandez, is thankful for all the little things that led him to owning a restaurant in Chamblee. Now celebrating it’s 4-year anniversary, Hernandez’s “Union Hill Kitchen,” pays homage to his old high school in New Jersey. The “New American” cuisine it serves inspired by his childhood and the many cultural tastes Hernandez was exposed to during his culinary journey.

“My parents fled Cuba during the Castro regime in the 60’s. I was born in Union Hill, New Jersey,” said Hernandez.

Born in a foreign land, Hernandez and his siblings had to teach each other English.

“My sister and I would watch old TV shows like Love Boat and learned from that. To this day, our parents still don’t speak English.”

Hernandez became more familiar with American food during high school. For his senior year, he took a Home Economics class giving him the chance to cook these “foreign foods.”

“Growing up I never heard of muffins or pancakes. I only knew about Cuban food. I would tell my mother to cook them. She would say, ‘I don’t know what that is,’ she only knew pan.”

Hernandez recalls his teenage days eating Chef Boyardee Ravioli or ramen noodles with his sister.

“We cut the ravioli in half to try to make it last longer. We’d add chicken stock to ramen noodles,” he said. Today, Hernandez still enjoys these favorites and integrates them into his menu.

“We serve a strawberry salad with a ‘bread’ topping made of ramen noodles.”

Hernandez had different plans for himself after high school. Upon graduation, he attended Moody Bible Institute majoring in theology. As a gay man, he decided against joining the ministry using the time instead to“reinvent himself.”

“I started working in an art gallery, then went into retail. I became Regional Manager at T-Mobile, overseeing twenty-two stores,” he said.

Shortly after, his husband Marty’s mother grew ill and the two returned to her farm in Southern Indiana. Hernandez cooked occasionally, but hadn’t considered becoming a chef until Marty sent in an application, unknowingly to Hernandez, to Sullivan University’s Center for Hospitality Studies. That Christmas, Marty gave Hernandez a chef’s coat. Underneath the coat sat an acceptance letter to the school. Hernandez quit his job and began studying.

“I was coming in as an adult student. I was in class early and stayed late to shadow the head chefs. I know they were sick of me, but they opened up, seeing my desire to learn.”

After graduating, Hernandez beat thousands of applicants and became a finalist on “The Next Food Network Star.” His bold personality landed him a callback to compete on “Cutthroat Kitchen,” where he won the fifth season. “The experience was surreal,” said Hernandez.

“They give camera time to the people that are showy,” Hernandez says and laughs. “I would make problems or instigate situations and cameras would turn to me.”

After “Cutthroat Kitchen,” Hernandez wanted to open a restaurant. “Marty needed to relocate to a bigger city for work. We moved to Atlanta.”

Hernandez loved the city, but quickly learned owning a restaurant is expensive.

“We looked at Midtown and Buckhead. Too expensive,” said Hernandez. He accidentally got lost in the “sleepy town of Chamblee,” and never looked back.

“I had friends saying ‘you want to open a restaurant in Chambodia?” I replied, ‘I don’t know what that is.” “[Now] I love Chamblee. The people are sophisticated and  ask ‘how you’re doing,’ not like New York,” he jokes.

“I had this opportunity to cook and God gave it to me. It’s evident. I have this restaurant. We just finished our 4-year anniversary in Chamblee, where there was nothing. Now Whole Foods is here!”

Hernandez was in luck when he bought the small space on the corner of Pierce Drive and Peachtree Road. Chamblee has seen a wave of development as new housing and businesses see an uptick in construction. Chamblee’s newest shopping plaza houses a large Whole Foods, in the same town where a new Wal-Mart was once a big deal.

Hernandez resides in Atlanta and is the executive chef of Union Hill Kitchen in Chamblee, Georgia.