Ricky Moore reminds the world that North Carolina, Southeast is culinary powerhouse

There’s more than meets the eye with James Beard Foundation Award winning Best Chef: Southeast chef Ricky Moore of Saltbox Seafood Joint in Durham, NC.

“I’m gonna flip the script a little bit and I’m going to march my own beats, my own cadence,” Moore said of his career trajectory.

Moore accepted the best chef award on June 13 in Chicago at the James Beard Foundation’s first in-person celebration since 2019. As one of 13 Black finalists for what has been dubbed the Oscars of the food world, his win helps to solidify the Southeast and North Carolina as a powerhouse in the industry.

After a career cooking in the U.S. military, Moore knew he wanted to stoke his passion for cooking. His more than 30-year career has spanned the country from Arizona to Chicago, New York and D.C. But it was the Old North State that called the culinarian home.

Moore started serving North Carolina seafood in a small building off Mangum Street in 2012, and turned his restaurant into a piece of cornmeal-breaded history with national recognition. In addition to his restaurant, he’s filmed The Hook, a PBS documentary tracing Saltbox’s fare back to the aquaculture of the N.C. coast. He’s also published a cookbook.

He began Saltbox because he tired of working for others and wanted to work for himself.

“I got burned out on being executive chef here, executive chef there,” Moore said. “It got old to me. It got boring. I could run somebody’s kitchen. I can run somebody’s business. No big deal. So, I told my wife, ‘I gotta figure something out.’”

Inspired by hawker stalls and street food in Singapore, Moore decided to turn to the growing fast-casual sector of the food industry and the rest is history.

“I know if I wake up every day and do everything intentionally, my return will be there,” Moore said. “I feel like I’ve done everything I’m supposed to and everything that’s coming to me, I deserve it.”

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This story was originally published July 1, 2022 at 9:00 AM.