Compliments to the Chef

Olivero’s co-executive chef LAUREN KRALL IVEY and founder/owner SUNNY GERHART have been named semifinalists for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef of the Southeast Award.

As co-executive chefs, the duo is among twenty other semifinalists from the region, which includes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

This year’s finalists will be announced on April 2, and winners will be announced at the James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony on June 16 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Krall Ivey is no stranger to the James Beard Awards. Her culinary skills were highlighted when she cooked the VIP dinner at the 2022 ceremonies in Chicago. Gerhart is also familiar with the foundation’s awards. He was a semifinalist the same year for Best Chef: Southeast for St. Roch Fine Oysters + Bar in Raleigh.

“We’re both super excited and honored to be on the list since we’re a relatively new establishment and have only been here for a little over a year,” Krall Ivey says about Olivero. “Bringing some more notoriety to Wilmington’s culinary scene is really important to us, so having some recognition feels really good.”

Olivero, at the corner of South Third and Castle streets, opened in late 2023 with a menu of Spanish- and Italian-inspired dishes.

Krall Ivey’s culinary journey put plenty of talented chefs in her path, and those chefs – namely women – have mentored her from the salad station to sous chef.

For the past decade, she’s honed her culinary skills under the tutelage of several nominees and winners of the James Beard Awards. JENNIFER JASINSKI, a chef and restaurateur in Denver, was nominated or has been a semifinalist for the Best Chefs category four times and won the award for Best Chef of the Southwest in 2013.

The restaurant Krall Ivey worked at in Raleigh – Death & Taxes – was nominated for Best New Restaurant in 2016. Award-winning chef and proprietor ASHLEY CHRISTENSEN, who also owns Poole’s Diner has been a semifinalist or nominated nearly a dozen times. In 2014, she won Best Chef: Southeast and Outstanding Chef in 2019.

While working for Christensen at Poole’s – which Krall Ivey calls her first “real kitchen job” – she met Gerhart, her current co-chef and co-owner of Olivero, while she was brand new and still really “green.”

“I think I was really lucky to start at Poole’s with Ashely and Sunny and a lot of really passionate people. It helped me move quickly and learn a lot real fast. It was definitely a very ‘sink or swim environment’,” she says.

Like a lot of chefs, Krall Ivey didn’t have dreams of attending a famed European culinary institute. In fact, she didn’t even start out in the food service industry. But after going to college for environmental science, becoming a teacher, and even working in an office as a skin care consultant, she decided it was time to figure out what she really wanted to do for her career and embrace her true passion.

In her late twenties, she took a leap of faith and went to culinary school in Boulder, Colorado. “When I was twenty-seven, kind of late in my life to start, I was like you know what? I really want to go to culinary school,” Krall Ivey says. “All I do is think about cooking or cook for people or read about cooking.”

She credits her family as one of her earliest inspirations since food was always a big part of all their holidays and events, which were centered around cooking and food.

These days, you’ll find her cooking cuisines including Tex-Mex, traditional Mexican techniques – such as moles, braises, and she’s trying her hand at tortillas – and lots of homemade pastas, which are one of the specialties on Olivero’s menu.

Krall Ivey’s career journey has taken her from Boulder to Raleigh to San Francisco and now to Wilmington – with stints returning to Raleigh and back to Boulder in between – but after being bi-coastal, she thinks her future personal and professional plans will be in the Port City for the foreseeable future.

“We’re exploring some ideas around Wilmington. … I don’t think Olivero will be the last stop for Sunny or me,” she says. “We really like the Castle Street area and this neighborhood, and I think it’s super important building up this side of Wilmington and Castle Street in particular.”

To view more of photographer Daria Amato’s work, go to dariaphoto.com

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