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Chef Rob McDaniel
Simple Taste by Amy Weaver
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Auburn’s hotel and restaurant management program honored Rob McDaniel, chef at Alexander City, Alabama’s SpringHouse Restaurant, as the department’s outstanding alumnus at the 2012 Hospitality Gala. They were on to something, because a few months later—in early 2013—McDaniel was named a semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard Foundation Best Chef South award. A James Beard award is considered the highest honor in the food and beverage industry, and the Auburn graduate is believed to be the first alum of Auburn’s HRMT program to receive the honor. The SpringHouse opened in 2009 high atop a hill near scenic Lake Martin. As both manager and executive chef, McDaniel is passionate about both southern cooking and about supporting local farmers, and he has built a reputation for serving a sophisticated menu made with fresh, local ingredients. McDaniel has a simple food philosophy—use amazing ingredients and let
them shine. Where other chefs gain notoriety for complicated creations with multiple ingredients, McDaniel exercises his culinary prowess as a minimalist. He prefers to take a good piece of tuna from the Gulf of Mexico and heirloom tomatoes from Waverly, Alabama, and make a great dish with very little else. The restaurant’s signature dessert, for example, is a twist on a favorite campfire treat—s’mores. The Alabama Tourism Department’s “Year of Alabama Food” campaign touts the dessert as one of the state’s “famous foods,” describing a grahamcracker base, made-from-scratch marshmallows, and a topping of dark-chocolate lava cake, “oozing with chocolate sauce and topped with more homemade marshmallows.” Customers know about McDaniel’s simple culinary style and flock to SpringHouse. But they are not alone in noticing his skill in the kitchen. In 2011, McDaniel’s former boss, Chris Hastings, owner of Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, asked McDaniel to accompany him on an episode of Food Network’s “Iron Chef America.” With a former chef de cuisine at Hot and Hot Fish Club, the trio faced off against a masterful Iron Chef, Bobby Flay—and won. McDaniel, a native of Haleyville, Alabama, says he wanted to be a chiropractor, like his grandfather,