August 6, 2018 — Great seafood chefs across the country know the importance of the quality seafood fishermen provide for their customer’s tables. One Houston chef stands above the others in his support of the Gulf fishermen providing seafood to his restaurants. James Beard Award winning chef Chris Shepherd, the culinary torchbearer behind Houston’s acclaimed restaurants One Fifth, Hay Merchant and UB Preserv, has been named the Gulf Seafood Foundation’s first-ever recipient of the organization’s “Helping Hands Award.”
“Shepherd is not only a remarkable chef, but also an outstanding humanitarian who believes helping others is an important part of daily life,” said Jim Gossen, chairman of the Gulf Seafood Foundation. “The Southern Smoke Foundation he established has aided other charitable organizations, as well as individuals in the Houston area affected by Hurricane Harvey. The support that he and the Southern Smoke Foundation has given to our organization is going entirely to help our Gulf fishermen.”
The Southern Smoke Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Shepherd. It donated $10,000 to the Gulf Seafood Foundation’s “Helping Hands” program, a response to give all fishermen across the Gulf work gloves as a small reminder that they were not forgotten after the 2017 hurricanes that struck from Texas to Florida.