Chef Jeff Tunks is Executive Chef and co-owner of three D.C. restaurants: DC Coast, TenPenh, and Ceiba. The newest restaurant to join the group in September 2005 is Acadiana , a Louisiana seafood house.
Tunks attended the Culinary Institute of America where he received the prestigious Frances L. Roth Award for outstanding performance. His gifted hand brought him to prestigious restaurants across the country: Azzura Point at Loew’s Coronado Bay, Mistral at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, and The Grill Room at the Windsor Court Hotel.
Outstanding reviews have been written in Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Wine Spectator, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Washingtonian magazine. Tunks was named Chef of the Year 2003-2004 by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington. In January 2005, Washingtonian magazine named Tunks and his partners Restaurateurs of the Year. Tunks secured The Grill Room as “Best Restaurant” in 1997 from Gourmet magazine. One of the highest honors bestowed is the Mobil five stars, which Tunks secured for The Grill Room.