CheFarmer Matthew Raiford wears many hats. Most recently, he again donned his ‘toque blanche’ as the owner and executive chef of the newly-opened Brunswick, Georgia restaurant, Strong Roots Provisions – serving Port City food with jazz, rhythm, and blues. His first restaurant, The Farmer and the Larder (opened 2016), was featured in Garden & Gun as one of the South’s most exciting new restaurants.

Raiford recently served as Program Coordinator and Associate Professor of Culinary Arts at the College of Coastal Georgia, is the former executive chef at Little St. Simon’s Resort. He and his family own and operate Gilliard Farms, where he is the sixth generation to farm the land since 1874. First established by great, great, great grandfather Jupiter, Gilliard is a certified organic farm growing under Matthew’s watchful eye with his sister, Althea.

Raiford holds a Bachelor of Professional Studies degree in culinary arts from the CIA in Hyde Park, New York. He is a certified ecological horticulturalist (University of California Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems).

He was named a James Beard semi-finalist: Best Chef in the Southeast, 2018.