(Travis Timberlake is now Excutive Chef at Art & Soul, where he has been, since its opening, Chef de Cuisine.)

When Ryan Morgan sits down for interview at a table in Art & Soul, he picks up the small rectangle of tile under the knife and brandishes it with a certain satisfaction. "We don't have cloths. So the silverware was spinning around. I went to Home Depot, got some tiles, had them sliced up. Now there's no problem. And it looks pretty cool." Yup. It does. Trick worth borrowing.

When Ryan Morgan's grandfather, known to the family as Pop Pop, sneaked his favorite grandchild into the kitchen long after he'd been put to bed, to cook sweet potato pie, creamed chipped beef and collard greens together, he was launching him on a culinary journey that has led to his grandson becomiing Executive Chef at Art & Soul.

The path went via Burgundy, where Morgan found himself at l'Université de Bourgogne for his semester abroad from Villanova University where he had landed a lacrosse scholarship. The Burgundian French may not have been familiar with Pop Pop's favorites. But they had a few specialties of their own to introduce to the young Morgan: Chicken from Bresse - one of the best in the world, snails, meltingly soft prunes, Creme de Cassis (the blackcurrant liquor added to Champagne or white wine to make Kir Royale or Kir), and of course the mustard of Dijon, Burgundy's capital. Not to mention, in the wine department, Pouilly Fuissé, Pommard, Bourgogne Aligoté and Cote de Beaune.

Morgan wasted nothing of his time in La Belle France, traveling around it as much as he could, taking cooking classes at the University and volunteering in its kitchens. After the semester was up, it wasn't just 'Au revoir, Bourgogne', but 'Bye bye, Villanova'. Morgan decided to leave school and throw himself instead into restaurant kitchens around Philadelphia, before heading off to study cooking professionally at the Culinary Institute of America.

One of his stages during the period brought the Chesapeake Bay native to work for Bob Kinkead at his eponymous restaurant. Once he graduated, he came back to the capital and took up work with Passion Foods Hospitality, the partnership of Chef Jeff Tunks with David Wizenberg and Gus DiMillo that's behind DC Coast, TenPenh, Ceiba, Acadiana and PassionFish.

At TenPenh Morgan worked his way up from line cook to executive chef. He helped launch Ceiba, and worked at DC Coast as executive sous chef. When he left Passion Foods, he had nothing, he says, in the works. "It was time to get my own place, get my name out there." He and his wife took "a really long vacation" in Hawaii. On their return, he "played house dad a while."

Then Art Smith, the Chicago-based owner-chef of Table 52 decided he wanted to open a place in the capital and so began a three-month long process of interviews and talks with Morgan. The two cooked together at Table 52 and for 'Iron Chef', the TV show. ("Crazy!" exclaims Morgan, who cut his finger in the first five minutes, "very hot, very intense - an hour is an hour.")

Art & Soul is located inside The Liaison Capitol Hill near Union Station. With Art Smith originally from Florida and Morgan pretty much a local, it's not surprising the food has a southern flavor. "To me, DC is a southern city." If you push him on it, Morgan calls it Southern-influenced, tidewater-Chesapeake-region. Produce comes from farms locally and in Pennsylvania and Maryland, his cheeses from Virginia. There's Brunswick Stew, a country pork chop with red eye gravy and 'tobacco road onions', and a Chesapeake Bay Fry with oysters, clams, calamari, shrimp, okra and two sauces. It's good, sound southern food, and Morgan makes it sexy with contemporary plating.

He's not an Executive Chef to stand at the edge of his kitchen shouting out instructions. He likes to get his hands in, "working on line with the guys." Nor does he leave any part of the job to others. It's a hotel restaurant. The guests want breakfast. So he's in place a couple of times a week between 4.30 and 5 a.m. "There's no way for me to know what's going on without doing it."

His wife is understanding - she's a nurse herself, another profession with crazy hours, and runs a medical center. But they have a baby due imminently - which is focusing Morgan's interest on how to make healthy baby food with flavor himself. He thinks it could be a service of interest to hotel guests coming with their families.

If his own new family gives him any spare time at all, he'd like to spend it giving back to the community. He's training to become a Hoop Dreams mentor. He's developing a mentoring program through l'Academie de Cuisine. And Art Smith is hoping to extend his own non-profit for children, Common Threads, to the space right next to the hotel, which Morgan expects to become part of.

When, you wonder, will he ever find a moment for the game of golf he enjoys. Or the guitar he'd like to master.


Art & Soul is located in The Liaison Hotel, 415 New Jersey Ave NW, 202 393 7777; www.artandsouldc.com.

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