Liberty’s Kitchen to Honor Chef Gary Netter

Liberty’s Kitchen to Honor New Orleans Culinary Ambassador, Restaurateur & Chef’s Brigade Board Member Chef Gary Netter at Gala

To call Chef Gary Netter prolific feels like an understatement.

In the past year, Netter has started the Wholistic Culinary Market at the revamped Circle Foods, operated his restaurant Next to Eat, provided upwards of 5,000 meals daily in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida and served on the board of Chef’s Brigade, which produced 3.7 million meals for 24,000 with food insecurity as part New Orleans COVID meal plan.

Liberty’s Kitchen, which trains and supports at-risk youth in the food and hospitality services, will be honoring Netter tonight with the Calvin Johnson Food Justice Award at their Come Grow with Us gala at the Ace Hotel. Netter has been a Liberty’s Kitchen supporter for a number of years, and believes strongly in food justice.

“Food justice is about the health and wellness of our community, and giving back to organizations like Liberty’s Kitchen,” Netter says. “I work to bring attention to the food desserts within New Orleans, and how we can challenge this problem by helping small food businesses. Part of my mission will always be to teach others how they can bring their food products to market, which is the business end of the culinary arts. And the result of that is more people working as entrepreneurs, employing others and, just as importantly, more people being food secure rather than food insecure.”

Netter is truly a New Orleans food representative, and in 2018 he was recognized by Mayor LaToya Cantrell as the official Culinary Ambassador for the city of New Orleans. He doesn’t take this position lightly and he says he’ll be opening another Wholistic Culinary Market in the Central City neighborhood.

“This is going to be an outdoor market and I’m referring to it as REHAB, which is an acronym for Restaurants, Entrepreneurs, Hospitality, and Business.”

For more information on the gala, please visit their website.