Luke Hawke’s culinary career can be traced back to when he was a firefighter in his late teens. Their fire station was, as he puts it, “about four hours into the mountains away from civilization.”

Part of the St. George, Utah based Arizona Strip Fuels Crew, Hawke’s tasks included planning and cooking meals. He had a stout $2,000 per week food budget, allowing for dishes like seared salmon and roasted chicken. With no culinary training at that point, he did his best to make tasty meals for their 14-person crew.

In his early 20s, Hawke’s family moved to Huntsville after his dad got a job on Redstone Arsenal. By then Hawke had attended and graduated from culinary school.

In Huntsville, he worked at since-shuttered Providence-area restaurant Grille 29. He did a seven-year stint at Cotton Row, local celebrity chef James Boyce’s flagship. Next, he was at well-regarded downtown spot Domaine South.

In 2022, Hawke got offered the chance to help launch CO/OP Community Table, a project whose partners include chef and restauranteur Marc Taft, known for Atlanta-area eateries like Brine Seafood Shack. Hawke and Taft had previously collaborated on a concept the never got off the ground at The Camp, a vibey outdoor event space in the MidCity development, within the shadows of where Orion Amphitheater is now.

“Opening restaurants has been kind of my thing,” Hawke says. “Whether it’s opening new ones or helping other ones or revamping new menus and stuff like that.” He’s intrigued by, “creating something from nothing.”

Growing up in Arizona and Utah, Hawke developed an affinity for Hispanic and Spanish food. Later, at culinary school he got into classical French style cooking.

In Huntsville, he brought those roots to what he does with contemporary Southern cuisine prevalent at upscale restaurants here. Like what he’s doing now at CO/OP Community Table.

Sometimes chefs who are from outside the South have some of the most interesting new takes on our food. Hawke’s one of those.

CO/OP’s signature dishes include a chicken and dumplings entrée boasting herbed gnocchi, baby carrots, Cipollini onions, spring peas, bacon lardons (fatty bacon pieces), and parmesan cream.

“That’s inspired by my mother-in-law,” Hawke says. “She’s of German descent. She always makes me chicken and dumplings when I go to her house. She makes them the old-fashioned way, with big soggy noodles and whole pieces of chicken in there, a hearty broth.”

During my recent lunch at CO/OP, I started with their smoked catfish dip app. Smokey and clean, kind of like a svelte aquatic chicken salad. Served with charred lemon – squeeze away, my friends – and toasty Old Bay saltines.

Also gave their crispy skin chicken, which is roasted not fried, a whirl. Served over rich, whipped potatoes beached in a pool of complex, earthy chicken jus.

Hawke’s take on shrimp and grits is particularly compelling. Forgoing spiciness for citrus brightness, a counterpoint to the dish’s funkier stuff, like blistered tomatoes, Tasso ham, local chiles and caramelized onion. A sprig of red mustard serves as art-installation garnish.

CO/OP is inside the downtown 800 Monroe St S.W. location of Embassy Suites. To get to the restaurant, you walk through an airy 10-story atrium, which evokes the interior of a posh Death Star. Visiting celebs like rappers Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa and “The Incredible Hulk” classic TV star Lou Ferrigno have stayed at the hotel.

Inside the CO/OP space, the interior features backlit silhouettes of livestock and displayed glass fermenters filled with faux brown-booze. There’s also a shelf of jars of canned peppers, pickles and white asparagus. Hawke canned these himself. They sometimes find their way into his restaurant’s dishes.

Prior to his rookie cooking gig as a firefighter, Hawke cooked at home out of necessity. Both his parents worked a lot. As a latchkey kid he often needed to fend for himself for meals before his parents got home.

“Then when I was in high school,” Hake says, “my friends and I hanging out, we’d be at somebody’s house, and you’d be hungry. I’d just start pilfering around. This looks cool, this looks cool, and put it together. And I just became really good at that.”

CO/OP Community Table hours of operation, menu and more info can be found at eatatcoop.com.

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