Fizzing with energy, Cari Sànchez-Potter is always taking on a new project when it comes to the food scene in Jacksonville. From cookbooks to pop up events, she’s managed to gather a food community in Jacksonville that is the envy of other cities. Despite her busy schedule, we managed to carve out some time to chat about how the culinary community in Jacksonville has changed, and where it will go next.
You can’t talk about great food without getting hungry, so we chose Orsay, a French restaurant in Riverside. As someone who also sops up every last bit of broth, eating with Cari was like eating with a kindred spirit. We planned our meal, happily knowing we’d share. Cari recommended the escargot (that’s snail, for us plebs). When I admitted I never tried it, she immediately said we had to have it. She’s the expert, so I didn’t argue. Turns out snails are delicious; it was my favorite thing! Our stomachs were full by the time we finished eating our mussels frites, escargot, beet terrine, spinach gratin, and lots of crusty bread.
Talking with Cari, it’s easy to see how she keeps her momentum. Her “let’s do it” attitude is motivated by her mission, which she’s managed to distill to a few key ideas. She focuses on “Hyper local – local venues, local talent, local produce” in a collaborative atmosphere. You can see that mission reflected in the Legend Series. If you’ve been to any of the 9 Legend Series Dinners, then you’re lucky, and I’m jealous. Each of the dinners has been carefully planned by Cari and Co-Founder Scotty Schwartz, Chef and Owner of 29 South. Cari and Scotty collaborate with some of the best chefs in the city to create an event that is a total mystery until the day of.
Let that sink in.
You are purchasing a ticket to an event you know nothing about, except that it’s going to be amazing. Since most of the events take place in unusual places, the details and scope of the Legend events are astounding. Think hanging out in graveyards or mingling with zebras on the White Oak preserve. Yes, this really happens.
But let me back up to a time before Cari had developed taste buds. Growing up, she didn’t have much love for fresh food. In fact, she told me that she wouldn’t eat a fresh tomato if her life depended on it. Then, with the introduction of gardening, she began to love playing with ingredients and making delicious dishes. That’s what motivated her to get her Masters from a highly comprehensive gastronomy program in Adelaide, Australia. The study of gastronomy is not quite what you’d think. Instead of a ton of time spent in the kitchen whipping up exotic items, she learned a great deal about the culinary arts and history.
Along with her culinary pursuits, Cari and her husband, Philip, have a passion for travel. They have lived in Argentina, Spain, Ireland, Japan, Boston, Australia, and Switzerland. About 6 years ago, they decided to make Jacksonville their home. She laughs as she tells me about her initial impression of Jacksonville. “We only thought we’d be here for a couple of years,” she said. However, a combination of timing, luck, and opportunities counteracted that initial expectation.
It was that perfect timing that landed Cari her day job as General Manager of Intuition Ale Works. Ben Davis, the owner of Intuition, was looking for a GM on Craigslist before the brewery opened, and Cari answered. They had so much in common during their first meeting that they immediately became friends. Now, Intuition is expanding to a larger brewery and event space, and the plans the Intuition team have in mind are huge! They have lots of ideas for the three special event spaces: the rooftop bar, an event space, and the brewery.
Working with Intuition gave Cari the chance to create Cooking With Intuition, the first cookbook she compiled and edited with the help of the culinary community. Now, she’s helping the Cummer Museum with their cookbook, The Chef’s Canvas. The cookbook is the vision of the Director of the Cummer Museum, Hope McMath, and the Chief Curator, Holly Keris, the idea is to create a project where visual arts meets taste buds. In The Chef’s Canvas, each of the participating chefs was given the challenge to come up with a recipe that reflects a piece of art from the Cummer Museum’s permanent collection. This unique collaboration is one of the first of its kind in our country. The Chef’s Canvas, which will be filled with 70 to 80 recipes from food trucks, mixologists (a.k.a. fancy bartenders), and restaurants, is set to release in March of 2016.
The community that has sprung from these unique projects is an impressive one. The Jax culinary environment is much more collaborative than those in other cities, which is, as we can tell, a great benefit not only to our taste buds, but to our city. This sense of community extends to the brewers, as well. Cari is excited about the partnerships within the brewing community that have culminated with the Jax Beer Society. If beer is your scene, you’ll want to attend their signature event in November, “Jax Beer Week.”
Since Cari has been so instrumental in our burgeoning food scene, I had to ask her how she would like to see it grow in the future. Here she paused. “I want to see us [as a city] embrace our international range of food,” she said. She mentioned that Jax needs a celebrity chef as almost a “seal of approval” to show the world that we are serious when it comes to our food.
While I had bullet points I wanted to cover during dinner, I barely had to look at them. Cari slid so seamlessly from one project to another, covering all the interesting details in between. As we finished our dessert, I realized it’s because each of these projects is bound together in such a way that pulling the string of one reveals another facet of the gem in the heart of our culinary community. That’s what makes both Cari and her projects so successful: the deep-rooted sense of community that she’s found in Jacksonville, which couldn’t thrive without those who work to keep it fun and interesting. The folks who stay in Jax can see that, just as Cari has. To those who work hard in Jax to discover and expand our many niches, I say thank you, and I challenge you find a project in our community that you’re excited about!
Brentley Stead 
