“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too” -The Alchemist.
In his early teenage years, Chef Luke Hawke found himself rummaging through the cabinets of his parent’s kitchen in St. George, Utah. His love for food, flavor and the transformation of ingredients into a comestible elixir was discovered around this time.
Boy turned firefighter, working on a fourteen-man crew in the Grand Canyon region, the culinary call, although not yet translated, did not fade into the background of fighting fires. In fact, it became an accelerant. Imagine the men of this Arizona firefighting team, soot from the wildfire day, tired and congregated in the firehouse kitchen with Luke preparing the evening meal. Until one day, the words of his Fire Chief, Cory Wood, telling him to go to culinary school became the catalyst to Luke’s true province.
So, Luke did and here began the transmutation of a teenage boy, turned firefighter, into a chef. Four years later he earned a BA from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale, AZ. His family had already moved to Huntsville where his father, James Hawke worked on the Redstone Arsenal. Chef Luke longing to be with family, decided to move to Huntsville 16 years ago in 2007.
Arriving on the Huntsville culinary scene, Chef Luke took a job working under Chef Chris McDonald at Grille 29 in Providence. Through an agglomeration of positions in Huntsville and in Nashville, and after the unspeakable tragedy in May 2010 with the death of his father in an explosion on the arsenal, Chef Luke never stopped working, distilling his skill under the tutelage of Cotton Row’s Chef James Boyce, where Chef Luke earned a Best Chefs America award in 2013.
After opening the newest addition to Domaine South in 2021, Chef Luke went on and opened CO/OP Community Table & Bar in August 2022 all while he and his wife, Daeghan, were adopting their son, Bayden, with the help of their attorney, John R. Campbell, the support of their family and the dedicated advice of his mentor, Chef James Boyce. From life’s involuted ingredients transformed into success, Chef Luke made gold from lead, not only as the chef of CO/OP, but as a husband and a father as well.
Chef Luke’s arcana is simple, local food done very well. The produce and meat at CO/OP are sourced from Madison County Farmer’s Market, Bronze Star Farms, Evan’s Meats and Springer Mountain Farms.
Chef Luke has a few dishes that he says you must try when you come to CO/OP. The perfectly seared scallops on a bed of creamy risotto, garnished with asparagus, spring peas, morels and drizzled with ramp butter. Need we say more?
The bourbon butter cake is the ultimate indulgence. A dreamy cake filled with mascarpone cheese, baked butter brown and topped with Old Forester caramel sauce and candied pecans.
But if you ask Chef Luke what his favorite dish on the CO/OP menu is, it would be a meal inspired by his mother-in-law, chicken and dumplings. It’s Southern comfort food, perfected.
CO/OP is located in the Embassy Suites in downtown Huntsville and is open for brunch, lunch and dinner. eatatcoop.com.