Johnny Courtney

Coming Up

The line from home kitchen to professional kitchen is clear in Johnny Courtney’s early work: cooking alongside his mom in the restaurant industry, then cooking for his family as a teenager, then taking a first job scooping ice cream. Those shifts built a cook shaped by repetition, family habit, and early service work, with a style that now brings European technique into contact with Pacific Northwest seasonality.

Where They Are Now

Since 2023, Courtney has been chef and co-owner at Atoma in Seattle, Washington. The role is less about a title than about control of the room: directing the food, holding the standard, and helping define the restaurant’s identity as it develops. His specialty is Classic French cooking, and his current work delivers disciplined Classic French tasting menus. The cooking keeps its structure, but it is not rigid; the family cooking that preceded his professional life and the training that followed sit inside the food as a counterweight, giving the menus warmth alongside precision. “Courtney’s kitchen runs on calm rigor, education, and craft.” Read plainly, that means the work depends on discipline learned early, then refined through school and practice. The phrase points to a kitchen built on clarity, exactness, and the habit of doing things in order. Another description locates the food in place: “At Atoma, Courtney cooks with the Pacific Northwest at the center of his heart and mind.” That framing puts Seattle and its region inside a French technique-driven kitchen, where seasonality is not decorative but central to the way the food is assembled.

Signature

Johnny's signature dishes include rosette cookies with farmer's cheese and Walla Walla onion jam, Baked Alaska: Rum Cake, Vanilla Malt Ice Cream, Cherries Jubilee, and Dungeness Crab.

In Their Words “His cooking draws on European technique and Pacific Northwest seasonality, blending precision with bold, playful creativity.” “At Atoma, Courtney cooks with the Pacific Northwest at the center of his heart and mind.”

Honors

Johnny's honors include James Beard Award finalist for Best New Restaurant (2025).