Food is Life

The Polished Chef Is on a Mission

By Jordan Staggs | Photography courtesy of The Polished Chef

“Work ethic, humility, and discipline are three things that a chef needs to succeed.”

Chef Nathan Davis has forged his path in the culinary industry with those three traits in mind at every turn, from becoming the sous chef for a top Nashville hotel restaurant at age twenty-three to becoming an entrepreneur and private chef by age thirty. He works with affluent clients along the Northwest Florida Gulf Coast and beyond. His mission is to bring good, healthy meals to his clients via The Polished Chef, a private dining experience wherein Davis cooks in his clients’ homes for special occasions and on a regular basis.

“These days, people don’t have a lot of choices or options, but food is one of those choices you do have. You decide what you put into your body,” says Davis, who has formed relationships with local farms, fish markets, and other food purveyors to ensure he knows where each ingredient comes from. “For so long, America has completely forgotten about the source of food and knowing the processes it goes through before reaching the grocery store. By the time it reaches your house, most food has been processed to the point that all the nutrients have been stripped. At The Polished Chef, we source food locally because it supports families, has great health benefits, brings a community together, and brings life to each meal. That is what I mean when I say ‘Food is a way of life.’”

That lifestyle started at a young age for Davis, who grew up in Bucksnort, Tennessee, just west of Nashville. “I spent much of my time when I was younger with my grandmother in the kitchen and garden, where I learned the importance of paying attention to detail and maximizing every ingredient,” he says. “The produce has several seasons and various uses, from lettuces for a fresh salad to canning tomatoes for sauce during the winter. I mastered our family recipes and skills passed down from generation to generation and learned that creating a beautiful meal was always more meaningful when shared with family and friends.”

Becoming a sous chef for John Besh at the Thompson Nashville hotel was “like a dream come true,” Davis recalls. “It was like I had won the Oscars and finally stepped onto the big stage.” The mentorship and experience he gained in that position, learning how the fine restaurant industry worked and discovering how much he truly loved creating great meals for guests, were invaluable in helping the young chef know this was the career path he was meant to take. Although he had much to learn, he says, “We were doing what we loved, and the result was magical.”

Craving a new atmosphere and a lifestyle away from the city where he could spend more quality time with his daughter, Davis packed up and headed south to the Gulf Coast of Northwest Florida. He worked under famed chef Emeril Lagasse at Emeril’s Coastal in Miramar Beach, which led to higher positions as chef de cuisine for Stinky’s Fish Camp and the award-winning Cuvée Kitchen + Wine Bar.

“Working for Emeril was amazing,” Davis says. “At that point in my career, I had already learned the technique and was cooking at a high level, but the great thing about working for Emeril was there were no shortcuts. He had a way of teaching you untraditional things and flavor combinations that he learned from his travels around the world, unlike anything you could learn in a culinary school or cookbook.”

Still, a restaurant’s long hours and typical day-to-day operations differed from what Davis ultimately wanted. This led him to take the high standards instilled during his career in fine dining and start his own company. He began catering meals as a private chef, working in clients’ homes along the Emerald Coast, but realized he could be doing more with the knowledge he’d gained. “It was the summer of 2020 when I was working as a private chef during COVID and realized that I could get started in a market that wasn’t quite tapped into and that no one was doing at a high level,” he explains. “I was extremely excited and had zero intimidations because, at that point, I had already seen how lucrative it could be and made great connections with clients from the previous year, so I knew it would work.”

The Polished Chef was born, blending the invaluable skills Davis learned from the restaurant industry with his desire to be more personally involved in his patrons’ dining experiences and spend more time with his daughter. “Through sharing my love for food and family, I designed The Polished Chef to help others create those moments that will last a lifetime,” he says. Davis curates menus for his clients based on their likes and needs and brings everything into their homes to create beautiful, convenient, and memorable meals, whether for a special event or just a typical Tuesday night. He and his staff are committed to excellence and crafting a polished, fine-dining experience in the home.

At The Polished Chef, we source food locally because it supports families, has great health benefits, brings a community together, and brings life to each meal.

“When we prep our food, we make everything from scratch on-site for each event, so it is extremely fresh, from the produce to the proteins and everything in between,” he explains. “We control exactly what we put into each item. We build menus focused on local farmers’ products that are healthy and good for you. We use traditional French techniques, from our knife work to our cooking process, to maximize flavor, texture, and color. We also build a menu specifically based on the client’s vision and dietary needs. This process allows the clients to be in control of what they eat and get exactly what they want, which has a great impact on our ability to capture them and get them to book with us again.”

Thanks to the proximity to the Gulf, fresh seafood makes a regular appearance on many of The Polished Chef’s menus. Oysters are another staple for Davis, who has a special connection to the saltwater mollusk.

“Oysters have always been a part of my life,” he explains. “When I was a kid, during our trips to the Gulf Coast, my family would always do an oyster roast at the end of the week. Fast forward fifteen years, and I would find myself needing a job at twenty-one years old when I moved back to Nashville, and the Oyster Bar was the job I decided to take there. I fell in love with all the different varieties and learned there was more than just one type of oyster—and that oysters are big business. I love how every type has a different flavor, texture, farming method, and story. It’s one of those things that you can’t fake. I believe the oyster is God’s food; He’s already perfected it for us, and it needs nothing else.”

Typically sourcing Gulf Coast oysters, such as those from Murder Point Oysters in Alabama and Indian Lagoon Oyster Company in Port St. Joe, Florida, Davis says the cooler waters of the East Coast help keep bacteria from growing in the oyster beds, but the regulations in Alabama and the Gulf areas are some of the strictest in any location, allowing them to easily rival the cleanliness and saltiness of farms on the East Coast.

When we prep our food, we make everything from scratch on-site for each event, so it is extremely fresh, from the produce to the proteins and everything in between

“I work with Murder Point Oysters because I love to tell the story behind it—how the old man killed his neighbor over an oyster bed,” he says, having formed a close relationship with the nearby farms. “I also work with Indian Lagoon because they took the original Apalachicola seed, and they’re farm raising it right next door, so it’s almost like a resurgence. The great thing about the oysters is that even though they’ve been replenished over the years through farming techniques, they can rebuild the natural beds and make them stronger and better than ever.”

Starting a business and being an entrepreneur is extremely tough, as Davis and many others in the area know well. He says there are no blueprints for creating a private chef company, and each person needs to figure out what works best for them and what they can bring to the table—literally, in his case.

“I’ve been fortunate to partner with a few key local companies and some that aren’t local. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he shares, “from my partnership with Chef Allen at the Ice Market 30A in Inlet Beach to the relationship created early in my business with Jill Tanner, who helped me create the brand into what it is today. I was a young chef at twenty-seven when I first dreamed of starting my business, and many people laughed at me. Everybody wanted to tell me how to do things their way. Luckily, Jill believed in my brand and vision and has stood by my side, and Chef Allen has worked directly with me to ensure our clients are getting the best products in the country. We constantly strive to show our clients from start to finish on social media exactly what a Polished Chef dinner will look like, no smoke and mirrors. When we say ‘farm to table,’ we mean it. We can tell you the farmer’s name or the kind of cigarettes the captain smokes on the boat. We know where everything comes from, and our clients ultimately deserve to know as well.”

Davis says his favorite thing about being a high-end chef is working in the most beautiful homes all over the country and meeting incredible people, whether they’re famous athletes, musicians, TV stars, doctors, or executives. “Most of my clients invite my family to join and encourage me to bring my daughter along to play with their kids,” he says. “The challenging part is the logistics—organizing the products, the menu, and everything needed for a successful dinner, getting it all in one place at the right time without any hiccups, and delivering a flawless experience. It seems to be something we have done very well because we travel to different states and do a lot of events. Our clients love that we have a system in place because it guarantees that their event will go smoothly if the Polished Chef is there.”

Still, as many have seen in popular media, we know that being in charge of a kitchen can be high-stress, and not everything will always go perfectly. Davis says that sometimes he laughs and wonders why he chose this career. The stakes can feel high when you’re in the thick of an event and something goes wrong. “There’s something about being a chef that I feed off of, and it motivates me and keeps me driven toward the goals I had early on in my career,” he explains. “I would sometimes let stress get the best of me and not handle it well—we’ve all seen the angry chef they idolize on TV. The best way for me to mitigate the challenge of stress is to find outlets and surround myself with a team with the same goals as me. Everyone’s on the same page, working hard to achieve a great event, and when there are kinks in the chain, you learn to let them go and move on. It’s the tough part of doing business, but finding the right people is just as important as having the right systems. Another big thing is that we are a God-fearing company. I run the business knowing that without God, nothing is possible and that ultimately, He already has a plan for us at hard times, whether in business or life—that’s where I put my strength, knowing that God and Jesus can handle it.”

With an entrepreneurial spirit and mind that never slows down, Davis says he is constantly dreaming up new plans, trying to find investors, pitching ideas, and meeting new people to see how he can propel his business. The Polished Chef has already grown into something bigger than he imagined, and building on his success is at the top of his mind. A market-meets-catering company and a restaurant business plan are in the works, and the chef-preneur says he has faith it will all come together the way it’s meant to. In the meantime, his core mission is improving and growing while spending as much time as possible with his family. “When I’m not working, we enjoy going to the beach and fishing—but let’s be real, I’m a small business owner three-and-a-half years in. Most of what we do revolves around the company, and we’re able to mesh the two together. If we’re traveling for work—for example, when we recently went to Marco Island—we stay an extra day and make a mini vacation out of a work trip.”

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To learn more or book an event with The Polished Chef, visit ThePolishedChef.com or follow Chef Nathan Davis and his team on Instagram @polishedchef.