Who is the chef at Herons and what is his background?

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    Scott Crawford serves as both the executive chef and the food and beverage director at The Umstead Hotel and Spa. While Crawford has become a big name in the culinary community in the South, he’s actually a native of the north — Guy Mills, Penn., to be exact, a small town with less than 200 people. 

    Post-high school, Crawford moved to Florida, where he learned about food from working in restaurants and taking classes at a community college. He eventually landed at the now-debunked American Culinary Academy before landing gigs with acclaimed chefs Norman Van Aken and Scott Howard. After cooking stints in San Francisco and Atlanta, Crawford worked at Woodlands Inn in Summerville, S.C., as its executive chef. In 2006, he moved on to a similar post at Georgian Room at The Cloister Hotel in Sea Island, Ga., where he earned the restaurant a Five-Star rating. He left for The Umstead in 2009, and he has been dishing out his seasonal menus and farm-to-table cuisine at Herons ever since.