Chef Angus Brown found dead
The celebrated young chef behind Octopus Bar, Lusca, 8ARM, and soon-to-come AMA has died
“We’re devastated and heartbroken,” said a statement from Brown’s longtime business partner Nhan Le. “Angus will forever be remembered for his generosity of spirit, enthusiasm, and extraordinary talent. His favorite place was in the kitchen, and he was someone that everyone wanted to be around. We’ll miss him every day.”
The Atlanta-born chef’s star was rising in the city’s restaurant scene. The cult following and critical acclaim of his and Le’s late-night East Atlanta Village eatery, Octopus Bar, led to a more conventional seafood-focused restaurant in Buckhead called Lusca. Despite being named a James Beard semifinalist, Lusca shuttered early last year. Brown told CL it was a case of “wrong place, wrong time.” But in September, after teaming up with Paris on Ponce owner Skip Engelbrecht, Brown and Le opened 8ARM, a hip but cozy Ponce eatery that was quite decidedly in the right place, at the right time. “I really loved this space and the energy, the clientele,” Brown told CL. “It’s the heart of the city. I knew exactly what I wanted to do here.”
8ARM earned rave reviews from Atlanta food critics across the board and was packed with diners every night of the week. Brown held down dinner service with his daily changing menu of fresh seafood, hearty proteins, and vegetable-forward small plates. Pending the approval of their liquor license, cocktail service was scheduled to begin next week. “So happy to be in the kitchen @8armatl every night!” wrote Brown on one of his last Instagram posts, a photo of him in the kitchen. “2017 is going to be a great year.”
Behind 8ARM, inside Paris on Ponce, Brown and his partners Le, Englebrecht, and Jeff Jurgena were planning to open another restaurant, AMA, in spring of this year. It would be a grilled seafood and raw bar concept with an outdoor patio perched beside the Beltline.
Brown was a beloved member of Atlanta’s close-knit restaurant community, known as much for his quirky sense of humor and bear hugs as he was for his talent in the kitchen. Since news of his death went public, messages of grief and condolence have poured in on social media.
“When people in the industry start cooking for themselves and not for some notion of what the public wants, the city finds its voice — its own kind of poetry-slam sensibility. It is a mood that exists only then and there,” wrote long-time AJC dining critic John Kessler on Facebook. “Angus got it so right: eat what cooks want and eat it when they want it, and the food will be true. His food — unruly and thoughtful in equal measure — is as true as it gets for all of us. Immigrant, hipster, native Southerner — none of those labels really matter. Eat, drink, indulge in the here and now. To a great chef who had so much more to give us.”