Jarrett Stieber
Little Bear | Atlanta
april 2023
Jarrett Stieber’s love of food was born from his love of music—he started watching Emeril Live at age 15, and connected with the house band’s energy. This led him to begin doctoring canned pasta sauce, reading Kitchen Confidential, and eventually, looking for work in restaurants during high school. Stieber and his father had a Saturday morning tradition of grabbing brunch at Alon’s in Atlanta’s Morningside neighborhood. They talked to the chef-owner, and Stieber started spending his weekends in the kitchen during his junior and senior years of high school. After orientation week at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, he determined that he wanted to pursue music and cooking, and dropped out to enroll at Le Cordon Bleu in Tucker, Georgia.
After several stages throughout culinary school, Stieber cooked at Atlanta staples like Rising Stars alum Linton Hopkins’ Restaurant Eugene and Holeman and Finch, and Rising Stars alum Tyler Williams’ Abattoir, under Chef Josh Hopkins. Stieber found a mentor in Rising Stars alum Ryan Smith at Empire State South, where he was brought on as a butcher and charcutier. In 2013, he embarked on a six-year pop-up journey called Eat Me Speak Me, a concept that would eventually flow into his brick-and-mortar, Little Bear. Stieber combines his Jewish upbringing with global flavors and techniques into what he calls “locavore satirical gastronomica.” Spending ninety-five percent of his food cost on local product, dishes like his beef tartare with shoyu tare, pastrami spice, Szechuan peppercorn, daikon, lettuce root sauerkraut, and egg yolk sauce are eclectic, creative, and cohesive.
