When Todd Kelly joined Atlanta’s Cherokee Town and Country Club as Executive Chef, Michael Wheeler, MCM, CCE, Cherokee’s COO and General Manager for nearly two decades, advised him not to make any changes the first 90 days. In hindsight, Kelly says, it took much longer to fully adapt to Cherokee’s culinary operation.
“There are so many nuances, and clubs are very cyclical,” says Kelly, who’d spent most of his career in independent restaurants and hotels. “Michael Wheeler says orientation is 90 days; [but] I think [it takes] at least a year until you really see what happens at a place like Cherokee.”
Cherokee is a massive operation, and food and beverage is its largest department. Spanning two clubhouses, 12 miles apart, F&B revenue today totals $17 million.
Cherokee has long been an example of excellence in food and beverage and beyond. The club has had its share of influential leaders through the years, and many of its staff have been there for decades. Still, when Kelly joined mid-2017, following 11 years at the award-winning Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza, he took the operation and his new team of 100 culinarians to another level.
Best Experience In Town
One of Kelly’s preliminary objectives was to create consistency across Cherokee’s two clubhouses and vast array of dining venues. He began to streamline the club’s recipes, processes, and procedures. He then overhauled the chef’s table experience.
The club’s original chef’s table was started in 2010 by then-Executive Chef J. Kevin Walker, CMC, AAC. At the time, it was called ‘Table One.’
Table One’s goal was to present creative dishes inspired by the culinary team. Each cook would work on a dish; if approved, they’d prepare it and present it to the table. The team hosted 16 of these dinners in 2010.
“When I arrived in 2017, they had never changed it, and it was going great,” Kelly clarifies. “[But] it had become less about the cook; they were doing 40 or 50 [per year] at that point.”
Kelly started rethinking Cherokee’s chef’s table process, refining menus and adding chef-inspired cocktails. By 2021, he and his team were hosting 190 chef’s tables per year—never duplicating a dish.
“It became taxing on the team,” Kelly admits. “I felt we weren’t delivering the experience I thought we should.”
He went back to the drawing board.
“On average, members would come in every six to eight weeks,” Kelly says, “so we [decided] to run a menu for six weeks instead of changing it every day.”
Kelly increased the number of courses from about five to 15. He also doubled the price.
He thought the move would cut the number of reservations in half—but his chef’s table experience is more popular than ever before.
“It kind of backfired because we’ll have members come in two Saturdays in a row,” he adds, “so we’ll change 15 courses, along with all of our regular, weekly menu changes. … We started to open three months of reservations at a time; if we don’t, people will book a year, two years in advance. It can add a bit of extra stress, but for the most part, it’s been amazing.”
“It’s still at a 97% occupancy rate even though we doubled the price. That was all [Kelly’s] doing,” notes Wheeler. “I personally take my wife to the chef’s table on our anniversary because I know full well it’s going to be the best experience she’s ever going to have in any restaurant in town.”
Kelly also uses chef’s tables as a training tool for his team.
“When we unleash a new menu, we go through it with the entire team; they’re seeing techniques and disciplines they wouldn’t normally see, even in our fine dining restaurant,” says Kelly. “I take it as a personal challenge to make sure there are a couple of components or ingredients that most people have never seen, or that they’ve never worked with.”
Kelly’s incredibly methodical in both his leadership and his culinary style. He is a self-taught chef with a quiet confidence and precision honed through decades of success in the fast-evolving world of fine dining.
“He’s very creative, and he’ll never let you rest on your laurels,” notes Scott Miller, who leads the culinary operation at Cherokee’s golf-focused clubhouse, the Country Club. “As soon as one thing is mastered, he’s thinking, ‘What are we doing next?’”
Kelly describes his culinary style as relatively minimalistic; he lets ingredients shine, careful to avoid overly manipulating products. Through the years, he adds, his cuisine has grown increasingly vegetable-forward.
“The longer I spent in kitchens, the more I realized that’s where the great opportunities are,” he says. “We have this dish—sauteed morels, smoked chicken hearts, pomegranate, shimeji mushrooms, crispy chicken skin. The chicken skin and hearts are the meat protein, but the mushrooms are the true star. One of our sommeliers said, ‘It’s amazing how much people love morels so much that it outweighs their disdain for things like chicken hearts.’”
Looking for Longevity
Cherokee’s leadership believes in hiring for culture. Every cook who applies works there for a day, a process Kelly sees as a two-way interview.
“We’re looking for longevity because we invest in our staff,” Kelly says.
Cherokee encourages certification and ongoing education for its culinary team. Kelly also hosts specialized, hands-on training sessions. Recently, he brought in two whole pigs for a butchering demo.
“I like to think of the big picture, utilizing every aspect [of a product],” he says. “The byproducts, I think, end up being the most important. … Everybody will take a portion of that animal and start to own it, then we’ll go through the whole process. It teaches attention to detail and a different skill set. It also helps people to understand the importance of waste. When you spend six weeks making a three-pound piece of meat, you don’t waste any of it.”
Kelly does a major demo like this about every two months, but there are smaller versions that happen more regularly. The culinary team also takes trips, about once a month, to a market, a restaurant, different farms and breweries.
“It’s all part of engagement,” Kelly says, “and it’s what keeps people wanting to stay at Cherokee.”
Under Kelly, Cherokee makes its own butter. All of its pastas are made by hand. He and his culinary team cure and ferment a variety of product.
“On our new menu, we have hams that we cured and have been aging for a year,” he says. “We have the luxury of space. These hams are unbelievable.”
Thanks in part to Kelly’s experience and a few modifications, such as adjusting the length of service, formal dining at Cherokee continues to thrive, an increasing rarity in the industry.
“When I started, [the F&B operation] was two-thirds banquet, one-third member dining and member events,” notes Wheeler. “Today, it’s two-thirds member dining and member events.”
Living the Standard
“You hear ‘the Cherokee Standard,’ and you might think it’s just a saying,” notes Sam Stavely, Chef Tournant, who began his career at Cherokee as an intern. “It’s really a way of thinking—is it good, or is it great?”
From Stavely’s perspective, the culinary program at Cherokee has come “leaps and bounds” since 2017, the year both he and Kelly arrived.
“We take everything we do to the next level—food, service, cleanliness,” Stavely says. “We do almost everything from scratch. Everything’s been refined. Everything has a purpose.”
Kelly is calm. He’s strategic. He puts out fires before anyone can smell the smoke.
“Mother’s Day was a good example,” says Wheeler. “We had a cooler go out overnight—the banquet cooler for Mother’s Day. I said, ‘I think I have to tell the membership about this.’ Kelly said, ‘Give me 30 minutes.’”
“In that time frame,” Wheeler continues, “he confirmed what he already knew. He’d been working with our vendors to gather the product we’d lost. He said, ‘Don’t send anything to the membership. They’re never going to know.’ And it was one of our best days of the year. A lot of people can’t recover from something like that—but [Kelly] and his team can.”
Executive Pastry Chef Alex Hwang, CEPC, is also well-known for her consistency, her talent and her commitment to ‘the Cherokee Standard.’
“Alex Hwang has spent over 20 years here at Cherokee,” says Kelly. “She is incredibly talented, and there’s nobody who could live the Cherokee culture more than her.”
Hwang began her career in her native South Korea. In 1999, she moved to the U.S. to attend the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y. Six months prior to graduating, in 2002, she was recruited by Walker. She began as a pastry cook at Cherokee; two-and-a-half years later, she became the assistant pastry chef. In 2011, she won the American Culinary Federation’s (ACF) Pastry Chef of the Year competition—coincidentally, the same year Kelly was named ACF’s Chef of the Year. In 2012, Hwang became Executive Pastry Chef.
It’s opportunities for growth and creative freedom that keep Hwang—and others—at Cherokee for decades.
“A few years ago, I was really inspired by Chef Amaury Guichon,” says Hwang. “He made a life-sized cello out of chocolate. I was so busy already, but I really wanted to try it.”
Hwang had never seen a cello up close and personal before—so she bought one. She then created an entirely edible version, fully to scale.
“I’ve been in the pastry industry for 30 years,” Hwang says, “doing [much of] the same things: wedding cakes, bonbons, ice cream. A showcase is different. I can [make] my own creations and [demonstrate my] skill level.”
Firing On All Cylinders
Cherokee has a culinary internship program, with about three interns per season, who rotate through different departments. The club is also in the process of launching a new two-year leadership and development training program specifically for culinary.
“The program is similar to the intern program,” Kelly notes, “[but] the length and longevity is a lot [greater]. They’ll spend almost four months in each of the kitchens going from station to station. … At the end of that two-year program, they’ll become the supervisor that oversees the pool kitchen. Ideally, we’ll have a management position for them when they graduate. … One of our winter interns from last year will be coming back after he graduates from CIA in January, and he will be our first. We’re really excited.”
Considering the average demographic of new members skews younger, with kids, Cherokee has been planning a renovation of its pools.
“It’s the last part of Cherokee that hasn’t been touched over the years,” says Wheeler. “It will be the largest capital project we’ve ever done.”
Although plans are not yet final, the project will impact culinary through the modernization of its snack bars.
No matter the venue, Kelly’s goal today is the same as it’s always been: Provide the highest-quality food and beverage experience possible to Cherokee’s members.
“I’m in my seventh year here,” he says. “We had a really awesome first three years, [followed by] a really hard two-and-a-half years. Right when we were hitting our stride, when we were firing on all cylinders, COVID happened. But it’s bounced back. Right now, we have the best staff we’ve ever had in my time here. We’re really hitting our stride once again.”
