Fire in My BellyReal Cooking

“Cooking is figuring out the great qualities of any food and making those qualities shine.” That’s the inspiring message of Fire in My Belly by Top Chef fan favorite Kevin Gillespie. Fire In My Belly celebrates good ingredients with more than 120 hip, accessible recipes presented in a cutting-edge design. This book taps into our national obsession with knowing where our food comes from. Kevin’s southern charm, passion, and funny stories guide readers through one-a-kind chapters, like “Foods You Thought You Hated,” “When I Want to Eat Healthy,” “My Version of Southern Food,” “World Classics Revisited,” and “Junk Food.” Fire in My Belly shows cooks what to do with fresh farmers’ market foods while providing a backstage pass to the life of a rising culinary star.

Chef Kevin Gillespie’s true passion lies in serving his customers quality food every day. This enthusiasm means incorporating the use of fresh, organic, and sustainable ingredients in all of his dishes. His goals as executive chef and partner of Woodfire Grill are to increase the usage of local products and make seasonal dishes more exciting. An Atlanta, Georgia, native, Gillespie began his culinary education at The Art Institute of Atlanta. After graduating with honors, he went on to hold different positions at several well-known Atlanta restaurants, including chef de partie at Atlanta Grill at The Ritz-Carlton, sous chef at TWO Urban Licks, and chef de cuisine at Woodfire Grill. In August of 2006, Gillespie headed to the West Coast, where he went to work as executive sous chef at Fife in Portland, Oregon. He came back to Woodfire Grill after a year and a half to continue to work for his friend and teacher Michael Tuohy. In the summer of 2008, Nicolas Quiñones and Bernard Moussa of Five Senses Restaurants, LLC purchased Woodfire Grill and made Gillespie the new executive chef. In early 2009, Gillespie joined Quiñones and Moussa as a partner in the restaurant. In addition to achieving this partnership at the restaurant, Gillespie also earned a spot on Bravo’s Emmy- and James Beard award-winning series Top Chef for the show’s sixth season in Las Vegas, in 2009. Proving to be a top contender by winning the most Quickfire Challenges and Elimination Challenges in the history of the show, he stood out as one of the season’s final three chef-testants who competed for the Top Chef title in Napa Valley. Gillespie was also voted fan favorite by the viewers of Top Chef.