This is an expanded and slightly more personalized story from today’s earlier blog post in YES! Weekly…

In what might be one of the most closely guarded secrets in recent months in Winston-Salem, The Honey Pot has finally announced who will be taking over the kitchen and we won’t keep you waiting like they did to the rest of us…

Harrison Littell has been welcomed as Executive Chef!  The suspense was killing some of us. But we are super duper excited because he’s totally awesome and nice and just flat out TALENTED! 

Chef Littell is a Winston-Salem native and after a stint in the Northeast, has been executive chef at Five Loaves Catering.  He’s been getting around town a good bit with chef collaborations, like at Mission Pizza Napoletana’s Knife Fight among other things. And generally being on the scene with his wife, Andrea. They’re fabulous. I met them at Knife Fight and enjoyed dinner with them a couple of weeks later at a tasting to introduce The Katherine Brasserie at The Kimpton Cardinal in WS.  And I saw them again not long after at the Industry Crawfish Boil that you can read about here.

The Honey Pot announced via its Facebook page  that Littell’s connection with the local community of farmers and purveyors along with his time at acclaimed restaurants puts him in a unique position to lead The Honey Pot into its next phase, “As I’ve gotten to know Harrison over the past month or so, I’ve been really excited about how aligned we are in our philosophies on everything from sourcing to working with people. Not to mention he has an incredible palate and aesthetic,” announced Honey Pot GM, Beau Tate via his Facebook page.

Chef Littell told me earlier, “It’s going to be a great platform for me to get back to doing some food that’s close to my soul. They have a great reputation and following as well as a great staff. I’m super stoked to be working with Beau as well.”

Littell will start the 3rd week in July. “I’ll work for a couple weeks to get my feet wet and then we will go through a full menu change to celebrate the height of the summer! We plan on continuing the mission there and utilizing as much as we can locally. I’m fortunate to step into a kitchen that is working uniformly. Matt had done a great job there and I look forward to continuing the growth.”

Littell will fill the position being vacated by Matthew Pleasants who intends to travel and expand his culinary horizons. I can’t wait to go back to The Honey Pot to  see what chef does to the menu. If you’re curious about The Honey Pot, definitely go check them out. I did a review for YES! Weekly about a year ago. You can read it here.

Tate and Littell both say that we should expect to see some “really exciting news in the next few months including the new menu launch, some additional lighter snack fare, farm dinners, wine dinners and much more.”

You can get to know a little bit more about the Littells over at their blog TowniesWS. It’s a pretty great space about the happenings in the town of #WSNC.

Eat local, foodies!