Jeff Jorgensen

Farm to Feast takes home 2nd place experience as well as 2nd place entree!

Turning off Hickory Creek Road into She Diggs Farm, you pass exotic Kunekune pigs, elegant chickens, mules, horses, and goats. Chef Jeff Jorgenson and his wife, Jessica, show you to a long table under the portico. Bartender Antonio Gutierrez mixes and shakes Chartreuse Liqueur, Rhum JM white rum, a house syrup, real lime juice, and Texas grapefruit shrub to create the cocktail “You Can’t Handle the Treuse.” The welcome hors-d’oeuvre is a quarter-sized homemade bone meal cracker, pimento cheese, paprika, topped with chive and pickled pepper.

“Farm to Feast is all about community and dining at the table with love and all that represents,” said Jorgenson. He started loving food as a child in Pennsylvania, where his mom and aunt made and sold pies with fruit from a nearby farm. After his family moved to Knoxville, he learned the restaurant business from top to bottom in 13 years with Aubrey’s restaurants, along the way getting his BS in food service management from UT in 2005.

Nourishing people’s spiritual sides, Jorgenson earned his master’s in Biblical Studies at Atlanta’s Reformed Theological Seminary in 2015, honing his culinary chops at Muss & Turner’s, Canoe, and Cook Hall. After returning to Knoxville, Jeff’s stint at RT Lodge inspired him and Jessica to launch Farm to Feast at his sister Heather Fulghum’s farm in 2020. Sourcing as much as possible from the farm, Jorgenson creates “elevated” meals—delivered to doors, catered, and served at the farm, like Top Chefs.

The beet-cured salmon appetizer was served with avocado purée, orange segments, cucumber, radish, candied orange peel, herb oil, and smoked trout caviar. The 2024 Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé was subtle and apt.

The short rib, braised for three hours, came with a red wine demi-glace, caramelized parsnip purée, brown-butter–glazed parsnips, confit carrot, cipollini onion, and fried leeks. The 2019 Mayacamas Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley balanced the short rib.

The triple citrus goat cheesecake came atop a hazelnut crust, with huckleberry coulis, lemon curd, whipped cream, and edible flowers. The 2024 Vouvray Chenin Blanc from La Maison de Alain De La Treille had the right sweetness to keep up with the cheesecake.