In the spotlight: With another James Beard nod, this Wilmington chef champions local seafood

“How do you feel about clams that were still in the water this morning?”

Chef Dean Neff is talking about one of the specials recently available at his Seabird restaurant. The clams were foraged earlier in the day by Ana Shellem, of the Wrightsville Beach based Shell’em Seafood Co. Neff served them raw topped with a spoonful of green tomato ceviche and a couple of handfuls of seaweed-dusted Anson Mills popcorn.

For the chef, it was a fun dish that could, depending on the diner, introduce the texture of raw, fresh clams and maybe a new way to experience local seafood.

Neff loves to talk about the virtues of these ingredients. In this case, it’s the almost indulgent fatty experience of the clams, something that could be lost when cooked. On another day, it might be a similar conversation about whelk or sea beans or beets from Red Beard Farms.

Seafood restaurants are common in the Wilmington area, but Neff’s hyperlocal focus has now helped him become the first local chef to land on the list of Outstanding Chef semifinalists from the James Beard Foundation.

The 20 chefs named in this category, and others, were announced on Jan. 24. Wilmington’s restaurant scene may be growing, but it hasn’t been mentioned often in these Oscars of the culinary world. Chef Keith Rhodes of Catch has been on the list of semifinalists for Best Chef: Southeast twice and was the first Black male from the state to receive the accolade in 2011. Neff, too, has twice been up for the best regional chef.

Now, Neff -- and Wilmington -- are on a list along with chefs and restaurants from all over the country, from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Atlanta and New York.

“For me, this isn’t about what we do, but where we are,” Neff said. “This is as much about the whole sustainable seafood culture that’s happening here now.”

Do it yourself: Learn to make chef Dean Neff's Wild Clams Ceviche and where he likes to eat in Wilmington

Making a chef

Neff, 46, started cooking professionally at 16 after an early departure from high school. He worked at a teppanyaki style restaurant, so he was cooking in front of people from the start.

He tried going to a traditional college, but it wasn’t for him. Instead, he attended culinary school at The Art Institute of Atlanta. His experience also included working at a bed and breakfast on Tybee Island, a Caribbean restaurant that served lots of fresh fish, at the Pricci Italian restaurant in Atlanta and a brief stint at a country club.

After moving to Athens, Georgia, Neff started working with acclaimed chef and cookbook author Hugh Acheson at his Five & Ten restaurant.

“I worked there a long time, maybe nine years,” Neff said. “It really showed me seasonality of ingredients, and heirloom vegetables and heritage breeds of animals. It made me realize how much room there was for a passion for those ingredients.”

It was also where he met Lydia Clopton -- his now wife -- when she started working in the pastry department.

“I remember, I was sitting there with Hugh and she walked into the office,” Neff said. “She was asking if we needed help in the pastry department. Hugh asked her if she had any experience. She said ‘No.’”

Acheson told her to come in the next day and Clopton succeeded thanks to the focus and intensity she brings to everything she does, Neff said. Eventually, the couple realized that they needed to make a change and moved to North Carolina. Neff became the chef de cuisine for John Fleer’s Rhubarb restaurant while Clopton was at Chai Pani and then the opening team for Katie Button’s Nightbell. All of which have earned their own culinary honors and James Beard nominations.

The possibility of co-owning PinPoint Restaurant brought them to Wilmington. That’s where Neff was working when he earned his first nomination for Best Chef: Southeast in 2019. Neff said, though, that he always wanted to open his own restaurant and fulfill his own vision. He and Clopton opened Seabird in 2021.

Inside Seabird: Go inside new Wilmington downtown restaurant Seabird

More: Behind the scenes with Wilmington’s two James Beard Awards semifinalist chefs

Building a business

With the help of others, the couple took on the ambitious project of taking two existing businesses and making one restaurant. With his partners, they renovated the building at 1 S. Front St. in downtown Wilmington, recreating a historic storefront and creating a unique restaurant space inside – and winning preservation awards in the process.

Neff and Clopton's original intention was for Seabird to be an all-day restaurant, with coffee and pastries in the morning, lunch service in the afternoons and then dinner. They've experimented with all of that in this light-and-bright space filled with leather, wood and tile in blue, white and brown. Now, Seabird serves brunch and dinner.

There's an active bar area, where you can participate in Oyster Happy Hour on Mondays and the seasonal ramen night on Thursdays. A chef's table looks into the busy work of the kitchen and small groups can reserve a curtained private dining area.

Two of the restaurant's local fans, Mike and Oz Nichols, say they love the restaurant for its thoughtfully curated atmosphere and the attentive, but not pretentious, service.

"And the food is soulful, heartfelt and genuine," Mike Nichols said.

Oz Nichols adds that Neff is a chef who is humble, and willing to do what he can to make a dining experience special, whether that's cutting up a plate of fruit for a child or calling a diner when some unique seafood comes in.

The couple lives in Wrightsville Beach but will travel to Italy, France and Denmark to try different restaurants. They've eaten at NOMA in Copenhagen, which has been named the world’s best restaurant, and loved the now-closed Blackbird in Chicago.

“It’s a big deal to see Wilmington on this kind of list,” Mike Nichols said.

They know that there are others like them who might plan a trip to Wilmington just to try one of their local favorites.

Keeping it local

Landing on the James Beard list can make a big difference for a restaurant – and a city.

"It can really put you on a wonderful trajectory of opportunity,” said Ricky Moore, who was named Best Chef: Southeast in 2023. He owns Saltbox Seafood Joint in Durham. “And Dean in my mind is a consummate professional. ... And outside of that, he is a good man.”

As two chefs who both work in seafood, Moore believes that this latest accolade will bring more deserving attention to what the area has to offer.

“Wilmington’s food scene needs to be recognized,” he said. “And the state’s seafood is a natural resource that has not been showcased enough.”

Bringing home the Outstanding Chef award would bring a valuable spotlight to the Wilmington dining and hospitality community as a whole, said Ashley Christensen. The Raleigh based chef, and owner of restaurants like Poole's Diner and Death and Taxes, is also a past winner of the regional James Beard award and one of the few North Carolina chefs to be nominated, and win, the Outstanding Chef category.

"The Best Chef regional award celebrates what makes you shine as a chef in the place you live and work," she said. "I think the Outstanding award celebrates culinary leadership contributions and practices that inspire and set a standard for the industry nationwide."

Winning would "surely move the needle of interest and attention to the downtown dining scene. There will be more food-focused tourism, and increased coverage and celebration of what makes Wilmington so special," she said. "Dean is the kind of person who will be most excited about what it will do for his community, and I love that about him."

More: Your guide to N.C. oysters, from the salty sea to the half-shell

And, true enough, Neff is quick to mention not only his staff, but also the purveyors he works with, like Shellem and Matt Schwab of Hold Fast Oyster Co., who grows the special Seabirdie oysters served in the restaurant.

“The way I’m perceiving this is that it’s a nod to Wilmington seafood and our sustainable aquaculture. Sustainable oysters. Sustainable caviar,” Neff said. “It has to do with the area. It’s our responsibility to shine a light on all the things that are happening here, in this region.”

But this new designation does come with added pressure.

“It’s always hard owning a restaurant," Clopton said. "On the one hand, this is so good for us and for our staff."

“My usual way of operating is to under promise and over deliver,” Neff said. “With that being out there, there’s a real expectation of excellence every time.”

Next, five nominees from each category will be announced on April 3. They won’t know if they’ve ultimately won until the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards Ceremony takes place on June 10 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

“It is a huge honor, no matter what happens,” Neff said. “Now, we’re just putting every ounce of everything we’ve been doing and pushing though to April. But this time, it’s hard not to think ‘How cool would that be to go to Chicago?’”

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Allison Ballard is the food and dining reporter at the StarNews. You can reach her at aballard@gannett.com. 

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Seabird restaurant's chef Dean Neff is nominated for James Beard Award