Aria’s new executive chef is a James Beard semifinalist from Savannah

Klaskala passed on ownership of the restaurant to Andres Loaiza, Aria’s longtime general manager and sommelier, who began the search for a successor.

It led them to Savannah, where Harrison has worked as co-executive chef at Common Thread with chef-owner Brandon Carter since 2021. Harrison said Loaiza ate at the restaurant a couple of times last year before suggesting Harrison’s name to Klaskala, who followed up with people he knew in Savannah to start vetting him.

Late last year, Harrison received a text from Klaskala asking him for a phone call. He was shocked (and a little skeptical) at first — growing up outside Atlanta and working at restaurants in the city for years, Klaskala’s name was legendary.

After confirming it was, in fact, Klaskala texting him, Harrison came to Atlanta to meet with the team. After a series of conversations and spending time at the restaurant, Harrison agreed to take the position.

“It was a very serendipitous situation for me,” he said. “Something like this came knocking, and it was like, ‘Wow, how can I not follow up with this? ‘ Just being given the opportunity to take on somewhere like Aria that’s been in the city for so long and been a great example to other chefs in the city for so long, that was a huge, huge honor for me.”

Harrison began his restaurant career in metro Atlanta, working at Mystic Grill in Covington, Cooks & Soldiers, Lazy Betty and Mujo before moving to Savannah.

At Common Thread, he and Carter were met with their own acclaim, including landing on Bon Appetit’s list of 50 Best New Restaurants in 2022 and a semifinalist nomination in the James Beard Award Best Chef: Southeast category this year.

The job comes with a plethora of “amazing and loyal” guests, as well as staff members who have been working there for almost as long as the restaurant has been open, so “it’s a big deal for me to win over everybody’s trust in a very organic way, and that was very daunting in the beginning to think about,” Harrison said.

Harrison has been working at Aria for about a month now as Klaskala prepares to transition into retirement. He’s already made adjustments to certain menu items, brought in more seasonal vegetables and entirely changed some dishes.

“From what I’ve come to understand about Aria is, it’s always been about fresh food and using great ingredients, and that lends itself really greatly to what I already love to do,” he said.

He said he believes in “grassroots cooking from the ground up,” which means working with seasonal ingredients, using his relationships with local farms and focusing on “vegetable-forward cooking.”

As for the team, he said it’s important he builds a culture of learning, teamwork and help and approaches it on “a person by person basis.”

It was also Loaiza’s passion for the restaurant and hospitality that drew Harrison to the job, so he’ll work closely with the new owner to bring their vision for Aria’s future into fruition.

Harrison’s time working in Savannah gave him a chance to “grow into my own style of cooking” while learning to run a restaurant for the first time, he said. When he was in Atlanta, he spent most of his time at Cooks & Soldiers working over a wood-fire grill, so moving to Common Thread placed him in a collaborative environment where the menu evolved with the seasons.

It taught him to borrow flavors from cuisines he’s come to love and respect over the years, “but it’s always rooted in really good local ingredients, a good solid technique, and taking care of the food and putting a lot of care into what we do,” he said.

“One thing that Gerry’s stated to me multiple times in our time together is he doesn’t want me to run a museum — he doesn’t want Aria to be a museum,” Harrison said.

He said he hopes to bring Aria back to the forefront of what cooking is in Atlanta. They’ve already made some changes to the restaurant, he said, but they want it to be an “organic evolution.”

By June 18, some aesthetic changes will begin rolling out, like new china, glassware and landscaping, and Harrison said there will be a push to introduce new menu items on a weekly basis.

Harrison, Klaskala and Loaiza will travel to Chicago for the James Beard Awards this weekend as they see if they’ll take home the outstanding service award. In walking away from Common Thread and returning to Atlanta, Harrison hopes “to marry that level of what I’ve been doing with the level of what Aria has done.”

He added: “It’s really important to me to make sure that no matter what we are changing, that we do uphold that standard, and that no matter who comes in, whether they haven’t been there in years or it’s their first time, they have a really stellar experience regardless.”

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