Austin Sumrall on Inspiration and Memory
Photo by Rory Doyle
EHC: Tell me a little about how your background continues to influence your approach to food?
AS: My love of food and cuisine began with my family.
In our family, food and gathering around food was much more than just filling a need of sustenance, it was the way we connected with one another and it held great importance. It mattered what we ate, where we ate, and who we ate with. The meal itself was revered.
My mom’s side of my family is from south Louisiana and my dad’s is from central Mississippi. Both sides, while very different, had the similarity of putting such an emphasis on meals. Hunting was bigger on my dad’s side so we ate a lot of wild game... On the Louisiana side, they would gather from the bayou and we ate things like oysters, soft shell crabs and crawfish. My style tends to land somewhere between them along with chefs and mentors and other cultures natural to the areas we have lived in since sprinkled in.
EHC: What does Early summer/Late Spring taste like to you? (what does it smell like? What texture is it?)
AS: Spring tastes green to me in the best way; Like the delicate new growth of the flora around us, spring has a delicateness to it that the rest of the seasons can’t match. I grew up near Louisiana so I think Louisiana strawberries are one of the most delicious things out there. I enjoy cooking in all of the seasons, but spring is one of my favorites.
Oh yeah, and MF’ing crawfish - Spring also tastes like crawfish.
Growing up, cooking for the holidays was always a big deal - Roasted leg of lamb, fresh asparagus from the garden and deviled eggs always remind me of big Easter meals with my family (Plus strawberries and crawfish.)
EHC: Let’s talk about White Pillars and your new project, Siren Social Club - How do these projects reflect who you are not only as a creative, but as a person?
AS: White Pillars is my creative outlet. Anytime I’m in a rut, coming up with a new dish or a new approach to an old or classic dish usually gets me out of it. Then I ran out of room on the menu, so I had to open a second restaurant.
EHC: Where does inspiration find you?
AS: At the corner of experience and memory. I love to take something that you might not even recognize and try to emote some sort of nostalgia. To try to introduce people to who I am through food is my goal, and it’s my favorite way to express myself, so that prospect is especially exciting.
EHC: Tell me about a significant food memory of yours - a moment when it really clicked that this food and dining was special.
AS: I always wanted to have a restaurant even when I was young, and I think it really came more from a want or even a need to host than it did from the food side early on. I was 3 years into a mechanical engineering degree (with the plan in the back of my mind to open a restaurant after I had saved enough money), when I realized that it just wasn’t what I wanted to do. So I called my folks and told them that I wanted to change my major to Hotel and Restaurant Management and go to culinary school. Thank goodness, they were very supportive, but they each had a stipulation. My dad’s was very practical, he wanted me to get a job in a restaurant to see if it was the right fit. Mom wanted me to finish on time.
So, with these two ideas in mind, I got special permission from the dean to take extra hours to stay on schedule and then I called my cousin’s brother (because Mississippi) who worked for John Currence and begged for a job. I was taking 23 hours of classes and working 3-4 days a week at Boure and I was hooked; I loved every minute of it.
On one of the very few evenings that I had off, I was hosting a dinner party at my house and it hit me. I was studying about the hospitality industry, I was working for a James Beard winning chef and I was cooking and hosting people at my house in the very limited free time that I had and I knew right then what I wanted to do with my life.
About Austin Sumrall:
About Chef Austin Sumrall
Austin Sumrall, the chef owner of White Pillars has been working in restaurants for many years and has had a passion for cooking most of his life. Austin grew up in McComb, Mississippi, attended Parklane Academy and went on to graduate from the University of Mississippi with a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. He received classical training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York and has worked for three different James Beard award winners with the title of “Best Chef: South”.
Since opening White Pillars in 2017, Chef Sumrall and his cuisine have been recognized and awarded both locally and nationally. In 2020 he was nominated as a Semi-Finalist by the prestigious James Beard Foundation in the category “Best Chef South.” He was crowned “King of American Seafood” when he won the acclaimed Great American Seafood Cook-off in New Orleans in 2021. In 2023 Chef Austin was recognized by the alumni association at his alma mater as an Ole Miss 40 under 40 recipient. You can watch Chef Sumrall bring home the gold for the South on Food Network’s latest season of Alex vs America, a high stakes cooking competition that pits experts in a certain cuisine against Iron Chef and all around competitive powerhouse Chef Alex Guarnaschelli.
White Pillars and Chef Austin Sumrall can be seen in many notable publications, podcasts, and televised shows. Read about him in Garden and Gun, Food and Wine, Eater New Orleans, The Locale Palate, USA Today, Mississippi Magazine, and the SunHerald just to name a few. Watch him on Cooking Channel’s “Southern and Hungry”, Food.com’s “Carnivorous”, Food Network’s “Alex vs America”, Food Network’s CHOPPED, MPB Radio’s “Now You’re Talking with Marshall Ramsey”, SuperTalk Mississippi, EATYALL and local news Networks WXXV and WLOX.