Chef Ryan Allen has been hired as executive chef of Reid’s in SouthPark. Allen was the longtime executive chef at Myers Park brunch spot littleSpoon, before leaving to work at Whole Foods just over a year ago. Allen will oversee the restaurant, catering, and deli operations at Reid’s.

He decided to take a break from the restaurant industry and take the position at Whole Foods. The job gave him better work-life balance and the ability to spend more time with his family while working less than 40 hours a week and enjoying daytime shifts. Allen says he saw 35 concerts during his time as an assistant team manager, the equivalent of a sous chef, at Whole Foods.

He began to miss the creativity that came along with cooking in a restaurant kitchen, however. He stayed in touch with the team at Reid’s, and when they offered him the opportunity to return to the group as SouthPark’s executive chef, Allen said yes. With a strong staff in place, he found he could still maintain something of a work-life balance while getting to exercise creativity in the kitchen.

“The biggest thing was just getting back into the environment where I can teach people what I know about food and have the camaraderie of hanging out and talking about food,” he says.

Allen has slowly been putting his touches on the restaurant’s dinner menu, adding more seasonal dishes that use produce from local growers such as Boy and Girl Farm and adding more dishes that are inclusive of special diets.

“I’m not going to say elevate, but [I plan to] push to a more seasonal menu, cooking with what’s in season, going a little bit healthier and changing the mold a little bit to what it was before,” Allen says. “Finding that common ground between what our regulars are going to like, but also trying to get that new millennial clientele in here that does eat a little bit healthier.”

Menu mainstays, such as the restaurant’s beer cheese, will stay, but with tweaks. The accompanying pretzels for the beer cheese, for example, now come from Charlotte bakery Duke’s Bread. The blackened salmon has been replaced with North Carolina trout. And with the quality of ingredients improving, dishes are getting a little simpler. Allen is also adding options for vegan and vegetarian diners to the menu.

The deli case will see similar changes, with heavy, mayo-based salads becoming a little lighter and more local produce becoming available for sale to customers. Allen says educating his colleagues and customers is one of his favorite parts of the job, and he hopes to do so by having unique local ingredients for sale.

“People like to gain knowledge, especially when you start talking about food and what you’re going to start putting into your body,” he says. “It’s becoming more popular, so I think us as chefs are doing a great job helping break that barrier in between a farmer and a customer that doesn’t really know what they’re growing or what to do with what they’re growing.”

Allen also hopes to get wine dinners and special events up and running at Reid’s again soon.

This latest position marks Allen’s third stint working with Reid’s. He first worked at the Myers Park location’s deli, before leaving to be sous chef at Nolen Kitchen. He was eventually promoted to executive chef at the restaurant before realizing he wasn’t quite ready for the job, and returned to Reid’s as sous chef overseeing the wine bar. He became executive chef at Reid’s before moving to the executive chef role at littleSpoon. —Kristen Wile

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