Walt Stallings describes his first cooking job as super Southern. “My first job was at a Waffle House,” says Stallings, who was a teenager at the time. “I worked the graveyard shift. I wish I’d kept a notebook that year. I might have a book out now.”
Stallings, who was a short-order cook, says. “My friends would come in after punk rock shows. And I thought it was cool that I could feed them.”
Born and raised in Memphis, Stallings, 38, moved to Chicago for seven and a half years. He’s now back home and working as the executive chef at Josephine Estelle, the new Andrew Ticer/Michael Hudman restaurant slated to open Memorial Day week at 6695 Poplar Avenue…