Olivia “Liv” Hurst never planned on becoming a chef—she just needed gas money. At 16, a job making tableside guacamole at the now-shuttered Uncle Julio’s turned into a lifelong love affair with restaurant kitchens. A few years and several Buckhead Life Restaurant Group kitchens later, including a stretch at Kyma under executive chef Pano Karatassos, Hurst found herself outside the perimeter for the first time in her life, taking a sous chef job at a young, still-forming steakhouse in Alpharetta called Cattle Shed. Within months, the executive chef position was hers.
Five years in, Hurst has shaped Cattle Shed into a steakhouse that doesn’t play by traditional steakhouse rules. Here, octopus outsells duck confit, house-made pasta shares menu space with dry-aged cuts, and a 2022 Chopped win still fuels her confidence in the kitchen.
DiningOut caught up with Hurst to swap stories, recipes, and musings over death row meals.
Rapid Fire
What was your biggest challenge after becoming executive chef?
“Imposter syndrome, for sure.” Hurst was used to being a leader, but suddenly she was the person everyone else was looking to. “I didn’t deserve it, I wasn’t good enough for it,” she remembers thinking, until she finally learned to get out of her own head and trust her instincts…