When Chef Gillespie is not working in one of his award-winning restaurants, he can be found with a shotgun, rifle, or bow in hand, enjoying the outdoors. “I grew up in a family that was very avid in any sort of outdoor pursuit: fishing, trapping, hunting, camping, you name it. It was not a passing hobby, but a very heavy factor in my life.” He spent many days hunting as a child alongside his father for deer and other wild animals. At 6 years old, Gillespie went afield for the first time and remembers his father waking him up at 4 o’clock in the morning to go hunting. That routine has flooded through to his current life. “I still wake up at about 5 o’clock in the morning every single day.”

Not only was hunting a time to spend with family and friends, it was also a way to feed his family. The food he and his family consumed when he was a child was game harvested by his father or uncle. Much of his inspiration for cooking comes from the outdoors, too. “I gain more inspiration on the way that I cook from being outdoors, than I do reading a cookbook and seeing what my peers are doing,” Gillespie explained.

We recently caught up with Chef Gillespie at his Glenwood Park restaurant, Gunshow. Chef Gillespie prepared elk and venison he harvested from recent hunts. Gillespie processed this meat in-house and walked us through this meticulous process while visiting him in Atlanta.

The full “Welcome to the Gunshow” feature and additional recipes are published in the February-March 18 issue.

Photography by Mike Schalk