Not your grandma's southern comfort food

Florida's Pensacola Celebrity Chefs are heading to James Beard House Oct. 1 to prepare some of their favorite Gulf Coast dishes—and fried chicken is definitely not invited.

It's the fourth consecutive year that Irv Miller, Jim Shirley, Gus Silivos, Frank Taylor and Dan Dunn—all based in the Florida "panhandle" city of Pensacola— have been invited to NYC's acclaimed James Beard House to prepare a five-course meal and dessert with wine pairings. Their menu fuses modern Southern cuisine with each chef's artistic touch, and features Gulf Coast-harvested produce, grain-fed beef and seafood.

Along Northwest Florida’s Gulf Coast, culture and history blend to create a distinct local flavor. In the Pensacola Bay Area, Southern traditions and a 450-year history influenced by five flags (Spain, France, England, the Confederacy and the United States) complement the freshest seafood and locally-harvested produce to create an extraordinary culinary experience.

House-smoked oyster sumac, seared Gulf snapper with pineapple sage pesto, Pensacola Bay white scampi, salt and pepper Apalachicola scallops and Baldwin County-raised grass-fed beef are among the dishes to be presented.

Dessert, prepared collaboratively by the five chefs, is the unforgettable “Bushwacker Two-Way,” featuring the signature local beverage Bushwacker—a creamy, delicious rum drink made with cream of coconut, Kahlua® coffee liqueur, crème de cacao, half-and-half and vanilla ice cream—paired with a tres leches cake that is topped off with toffee glass and coconut whip.

The James Beard Foundation was established in 1986 in honor of James Beard, a cookbook author, teacher and father of American gastronomy. Beard’s Greenwich Village townhouse showcases the industry’s finest chefs at nightly dining events.