Joseph Lenn, executive chef of The Barn at Blackberry Farm is the 2013 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef Southeast. Chef Lenn is the first chef from Tennessee to win this distinction.
 
"I am humbled and honored to have received a James Beard Award from the James Beard Foundation," said Joseph Lenn.  "I am so proud of my Blackberry Farm team and would not be the chef I am today without each and every one of them."
 
A graduate of Johnston and Wales in Charleston, SC, Chef Lenn originally developed an interest in cooking while working in the butcher shop of a local grocery store near where he grew up in Knoxville, Tenn. Prior to Blackberry Farm, Lenn worked at the Peninsula Grill, and also assisted in the opening of the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville with Chef Sean Brock.

This was the second James Beard nomination for Chef Joseph Lenn. In addition, Blackberry Farm’s Food and Beverage Director Andy Chabot was nominated for a James Beard Award in the category of Outstanding Wine Program.  
 

Blackberry Farm’s biscuits are the new cover girl! Congratulations to our friends at Garden & Gun Magazine for being named the Most Delicious magazine cover by the American Society of Magazine Editors. Blackberry Farm’s biscuits appeared on the cover that won the award! Check out our online gift shop to make these amazing biscuits at home.

Garden & Gun comes to Blackberry Farm June 6-9 for its annual Secret Society Event. Make reservations now to find out what the Secret Society is all about.

Check out this USA Today article about Blackberry Farm being named Bon Appetit's #1 Best Food Lovers Hotel! 

Bon Appétit today unveiled Blackberry Farm as the number one resort on their site Bonappetit.com for its cover story, “10 Best Food Lover’s Hotels in America” to be featured in its May issue, which hits newsstands on April 23.  Editor-In-Chief Adam Rapoport hails Blackberry Farm as “utterly delicious” and Executive Chef of the Barn Joseph Lenn’s Anson Mills grits (with pickled ramps, crisp Benton’s country ham, and ramp sabayon) as “the best dish [he] ate in 2012.” In addition to this coup, the cover image of the issue features a stack of gluten-free griddle cakes, created by Executive Chef of the Main House Chef Josh Feathers.

Bon Appétit describes this list as a collection of hotels that have outstanding food and that are also really cool destinations that Bon Appétit Editors just love to go to and want to return again and again.  They claim this list is a celebration of properties that make food equally as important as other aspects of a hotel all the while not just serving food that is good for hotel, but rather just serving good food, period!

View the entire article on Bon Appetit!

Shop our Gluten Free Griddle Cake Mix!

Shop Pickled Ramps!

Excited to see some of our Farmstead products are included in the 2012 Town & Country gift guide!  Check out the attached article and see our Pickled Ramps, Sopressata and Bread and Butter Pickles. Click here to view the entire article as seen in the December 2012 issue of Town & County.

We are pleased to announce that Blackberry Farm has been awarded #1 food and wine resort and the #2 hideaway in America by Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report. “We are so honored to receive not one but two accolades from the readers of Andrew Harper’s Hideaway Report and want to sincerely thank all of our guests and friends of Blackberry Farm who helped make this achievement possible”—Blackberry Farm proprietor Sam Beall.

From September 20-23, Chef Joseph Lenn will be featured at the Euphoria Greenville event in Greenville, SC. This weekend-long event celebrates food, wine, and music through tasting events, wine tastings and presentations, and concerts by national recording artists. Chef Lenn will be featured alongside Chefs Gary Mennie of High Cotton and Mike Davis of Terra for the Sunday Supper. This farm to table experience will highlight Blackberry Farm’s famed foothills cuisine as guests enjoy classic libations and the sounds of Southern Blurgrass music.

Blackberry Farm has been recognized by Travel + Leisure for its outstanding service as the number one resort in the U.S. and Canada in the 2012 World’s Best Service Awards.  Blackberry Farm also ranks as the number seven resort in the world for exceptional service, and is the only resort in North America to place within the T+L list of top 10 resort, inns, and lodges for service overall which is featured in the June 2012 issue and on TravelandLeisure.com now. 

“At Blackberry Farm, we want to ensure that all of our visitors’ expectations are surpassed,” stated Blackberry Farm Proprietor Sam Beall. “Exceptional service and attention to detail is something that we not only pride ourselves on, but it is a way of life on the farm. The personalized experience that we offer our guests contributes to what Blackberry Farm is all about, and we are very honored to be recognized by Travel + Leisure’s readers as the number one resort in North America for service. ”

Sommelier and Food and Beverage director Andy Chabot was recently interviewed as part of an article entitled “Tomato Tomahto” for Wine Enthusiast Magazine. Chabot gives his wine expertise knowledge on how to perfectly pair various tomatoes with wines.

Soon Chef Josh Feathers will be donning a Hawaiian lei as he participates in the second annual Hawaii Food & Wine Festival (HFWF) to be held September 6-9, 2012. The event features more than 50 master chefs and legendary vintners, and will be held on Oahu.
Food lovers will experience a plethora of epicurean delights, including exciting cooking demos, wine tastings with top sommeliers, culinary workshops, industry seminars and field excursions during our daytime events, plus signature dining experiences over four nights.

Chef Feathers will be part of a stellar line up for the “From Farm to Table: A Makahiki Festival” at the Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort. More than twenty of the celebrity chefs will pay tribute to the Hawaiian “Makahiki” festival or harvest season.

The event runs from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. on the Great Lawn of the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort. Tickets start at $200 per person. Special travel packages will be available for purchase exclusively through ClassicVacation.com.

The West Coast is one of our favorite places to visit and this time we are coming with Blackberry Farm Butcher Michael Sullivan as he makes a stop with the Cochon 555 tour and then does a terrine demonstration on Monday, May 21, 2012, at the Williams-Sonoma store located at Union Square at 340 Post Street in San Francisco from 1-3pm.

Pick up your tickets for Cochon555 and make plans to stop by the Williams-Sonoma store to see Michael demo terrines and charcuterie plates.

Delish.com recently published great farm-to-table restaurants to dine at and Blackberry Farm was one of the restaurants featured. These restaurants take great pride in using ingredients grown on their own property and then eaten during meals.

Blackberry Farm will travel south for the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival to be held May 10-13. Blackberry Farm will bring our renowned cuisine to Atlanta for a very special dinner at a gorgeous Buckhead estate that will delight guests and honor the region’s prized farmers.  The evening will offer a decadently delicious meal of regional flavors, featuring the products from this year’s celebrated farmers.  The wines and the story of Cultivate will grace the table and the evening, making this special dinner truly unique.

Join Blackberry Farm in Knoxville, Tenn., for an elegant Brunch in the park. One of the highlights of the Festival, this sumptuous meal offers the best of “Foothills Cuisine” in a wonderful outdoor setting. The Chefs of Blackberry Farm feature the best foods the region has to offer and create a fine dining experience that is not to be missed.

Travel + Leisure magazine announced the results of its 2011 World’s Best Awards this morning, and we are excited to share that Blackberry Farm has come in at the top! Ranked #1 Resort in the Continental US and Canada, we are thrilled to say the least!  This is the first time we have found our way to the top of a category with no restrictions on the number of rooms!

Last weekend, wine and cheese lovers, had a rare opportunity to join chef, restaurateur and cheese expert Terrance Brennan and renowned Bordeaux vintner Thomas Duroux of Chateau Palmer for quite the celebration. We wanted to share with you the menu from the finale dinner!

From October 12-14, Chef Josh Feathers will be featured at the New York Food and Wine Festival. The New York Food and Wine Festival has quickly grown to become one of the most anticipated food and wine events in the U.S. and features many renowned chefs, winemakers, and artisans.  Chef Feathers will be highlighting his delectable brunch creations that he is so well known for at both a pairing demonstration and a brunch event during the weekend-long festival.

Alain Ducasse is here at Blackberry, and we are excited!!!  So far we have seen him share with us secrets in the kitchen, like how to perfectly poach asparagus and the finesse to handling Halibut.  Tonight we are in for a real treat!  Check out the menu below to see what guests will be delighting in this evening!  Oh, and what amazing wines they are sipping on from the likes of Domain Perrot-Minot and Masion Leroy!

Imbibe Magazine, the ultimate drink magazine, put together a field guide to finding the best drinks of the South, and we were chosen as one of the Best Hotel Bars. The Dogwood Bar and Barn Bar feature a variety of drinks from an extensive whiskey list to unique cocktail creations.

This April 14th, Executive Chef Joseph Lenn will participate in 100 Bottles of Wine on the Wall, an annual event to benefit the Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA. This extraordinary evening will feature a host of celebrity chefs including Barbara Lynch, Daniel Bruce, Sam Mason, Ming Tsai, and Angela and Seth Raynor as well as our own Joseph Lenn. Along with delectable cuisine, exquisite wines will also be presented by renowned sommeliers. The evening will culminate in an exclusive auction of rare wines and one of a kind experiences, all to benefit the Children’s Hospital.