First episode of Order/Fire featuring Clark Barlowe of Heirloom Restaurant in Charlotte, NC!
Clark grew up in Lenoir, NC. His background includes time at some of the world’s best restaurants including The French Laundry in Napa with Thomas Keller and El Buli in Spain. He has also worked in Providence RI, Bermuda, and Washington DC before he came “home” to realize his greatest dream and open Heirloom. Clark has also been on Food Network’s Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay, and he often appears on local morning shows.
Clark is obsessively dedicated to showcasing NC and NC-grown food and ingredients in his cooking, and the mission statement at Heirloom strictly adheres to that. Clark only uses and serves NC grown and produced products in the restaurant. He has proven that NC really is a greatly diverse and bountiful state with everything you need right here!
His culinary interests started from his cooking experiences with his parents and grandparents, learning traditional cooking and preservation techniques and ingredients. He then attended culinary school in Charlotte.
While being a chef/owner of his own restaurant is very demanding, Clark is constantly giving back to the community. He is a board member of the Green Teacher’s Network, which serves to create school yard gardens and encourage healthy eating, He is a member of the Piedmont Culinary Guild which strives to further the food scene and connection of the food chain in the piedmont of North Carolina. Clark is also a founding member of the Mecklenburg Community Food Health Coalition that brings together partners from the private and public sectors to deal with food issues in Mecklenburg County.