Chef Ben Vaughn remembers the first time he ever cooked. He was about eight or ten, and the menu consisted of pancakes. He relates, “My mom worked all the time. I made breakfast, lunch and dinner for my sister and I.” Chef Ben Vaughn learned how from the back of the box. “I think I ruined plenty of my mom's Corning ware or whatever she was using at the time.”
He relates that an old family friend was his first cooking influence. “He would take me around as a child, 12, 13 years old, to these really interesting Greek diners and restaurants in South Florida. He would swing me back through the kitchens and I'd get to see all the stuff going on behind the scenes. It was very cool.”
The decision to become a chef was a natural one. Chef Ben Vaughn admits that he always was motivated to do something with the arts. His mother was an artist, so Chef Ben Vaughn grew up with a strong art and music influence. But his options were limited by the fact that he couldn’t sing, dance or act. According to Chef Ben Vaughn, he was about 15 years old when he decided to cook for a living. “It was definitely a drive. It was something I wanted to do.”
Chef Ben Vaughn’s first job was at a well-known eatery in Florida called Mario's. He was sixteen years old and found himself in the kitchen, baking. Later, he was offered the opportunity to work with award winning Mark Militello as well as the Food Network's Sara Moulton. He gives Sara Moulton the credit for teaching him that the key to success was to remain in the kitchen. Chef Ben Vaughn recalls her saying, “You know the chefs that open restaurants and all of a sudden you see them in the front and the back? Stay in the kitchen.”
Vaughn's culinary influence comes from the diverse cuisine of South Florida. Chef Ben Vaughn was voted as one of the top 5 “Best Chefs in Memphis Tennessee” and tied with Chef Wally Joe for the 2nd Place Silver winner. Chef Ben Vaughn garnered acclaim during his stint as chef and partner at the Memphis, Tennessee award winning River Oaks Restaurant. In the fall of 2009 he opened his own restaurant, called Grace after his daughter.
Grace Restaurant serves Southern food cooked with French techniques. A popular dish on a recent menu at Grace Restaurant included Apalachicola oysters stuffed with ciabatta and Roquefort cheese. Other items offered by Chef Ben Vaughn have included basil ice cream, crawfish toast, scallop pappardella, rack of lamb, oysters, and halibut and grits.
“Grace will be known for providing Memphis with menus
designed around seasonal ingredients, creating an exciting dining experience
that brings together resources from Tennessee and other Delta farmers,” Chef
Ben Vaughn states on his blog. “The goal will be to extend the creative
boundaries of any meal by diversely matching local components. Food and wine
will be paired and then matched with culinary discipline. We will maintain the
integrity of the raw ingredients and their basic cultural characters and use.”
Chef Ben Vaughn has started a blog at www.gracememphis.com and the restaurant’s Facebook page has over 1200 fans in just a few short months. Grace Restaurant is open six days a week and closed on Sundays.