John Fleer

The Path

Southern cooking is the frame here, but the throughline is technique: John Fleer moved from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill into the kitchen as personal chef to Mary Tyler Moore, then into a long run as executive chef at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee (1992–2007). At Blackberry Farm, the work settled into a practice marked by precision and restraint. He carried that approach to Canyon Kitchen in Cashiers, North Carolina (2009–2015), where the focus stayed on exacting execution and the character of the ingredients at hand. Ownership expanded the scale of the work without changing its core. At Rhubarb in Asheville, North Carolina (2013–2024), John Fleer translated his point of view into a full restaurant identity. At Benne on Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina (2018–2024), he continued that line of inquiry into the culture and ingredients of the region. As owner of The Rhu (since 2016), Fleer’s career shows accumulation rather than theatrics: experience layered into a culinary language built over time.

The Work Today

Appalachian cuisine sits at the center of John Fleer’s cooking, filtered through a farm-to-table approach that keeps seasonality, local land, and growers close to the plate. The style reads as regional cooking treated as a working form, not a fixed museum piece. Within that frame, sweet tea fried chicken stands as one of his signature dishes, turning familiar Southern flavor into something controlled, crisp, and direct. What the arc of the work shows is consistency. Across kitchens and ownership roles, Fleer has built a practice grounded in place and in the details that give a dish its origin. The result is cooking that stays composed, specific, and rooted in the region it comes from.

Signature

John's signature dishes include Merkel Pie, sweet tea fried chicken, and Blackberry Basics.

In Their Words “One of the great cultural things I picked up in East Tennessee was a traditional recipe for a shepherd’s pie made with morels, which they call merkels, and bacon and mashed potatoes.”

Acclaim

John's honors include Semifinalist, Best Chefs in America, Nominee, Best Chefs in America, and Semifinalist, Outstanding Chef.