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MATT WEAFER
ampbell Club executive chef Matt Weafer was born and raised in Owensboro, and although he went to school to be a writer, Weafer said he worked in restaurants from the time he was a teenager. “I’ve just always loved food,” he said. “Even when I worked at the newspaper, all I did was think about food, so eventually I found myself back in the kitchen because it’s what I’m passionate about.” Weafer has been at the Campbell Club for more than three years and said the restaurant is “so just laser-focused” on customer satisfaction. “We’re member-owned, private dining ... and that’s what it’s all about, taking care of them,” he said. “I get to go out and meet with them, mingle with them, and I’ve got free rein in the kitchen to kind of play, experiment and do things like focus on farm-to-table.” His farm-to-table initiative is also something about which Weafer said he’s passionate. The idea of farm-to-table is “multi-faceted for so many different reasons,” but for the chef, it boils down to quality food that’s good for the environment, the economy and taste. One thing members pay for “is to have that confidence in me that I’m serving them the best of the best,” he said. When buying local produce and goods, Weafer said money stays local and you develop relationships with local farming families. “You get to know the family, and it becomes part of what you do on a daily basis, and it puts a lot more heart, a lot more sentiment to what you’re doing
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because I know the person and their kids who grew the tomatoes ... . To me, it helps me care even more about the food.” And for Weafer, that’s what it’s all about. “I care about the members, I care about where the food comes from, and I care about the people who grow the food,” he said. For instance, he said, produce sections at large chain stores remain unchanged through the year, and “that’s not the way the world works, that’s not the way vegetables grow. It’s not natural, essentially.” So “when you’re simply talking about taste,” those ingredients aren’t as good as they should be, said Weafer. “The best way to make sure the food is as good as it can be is to get it at its ripest, at its freshest,” he said. “And the only way that I can do that consciously, knowingly is (purchase) from somebody local, from somebody I know by name and I know where they grow their food, how they grow their food, that sort of thing.” As much as possible, Weafer said he uses Kentucky Proud products. Weafer said it wasn’t necessarily a decision to focus on farm-to-table dishes, but he’s always been particular about ingredients. “That’s always been the obvious and best choice,” he said. “They just go hand-in-hand. Good food and farm-to-table go hand-in-hand. There’s no separation of the two.” — WRITTEN BY STEPHANIE SALMONS
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