How New Zealand Chef Luke Joseph is Shaping Birmingham’s Culinary Renaissance

How did a chef from the small Waiheke Island in New Zealand end up in Birmingham, Alabama? For Luke Joseph, the path that led him to the kitchen at Current Charcoal Grill was anything but straight, though he recalls having a connection to food at an early age. Foraging, fishing, and cooking over the open fireplace in his house or out on the beach on the rocks was commonplace for Joseph growing up, which left a lasting impact on his culinary style. 

“Becoming a chef was deeply rooted in my environment that I grew up in,” he says. “It really wasn’t until my 20s, until I pursued a job in a professional kitchen and [saw] the efficiency of what the kitchen ran at, the camaraderie, the expectation of professionalism, as well as creative freedom was something that was the lure to me, so it was just a natural progression.”

Being from an island off the coast of Auckland with less than 10,000 permanent residents, Joseph was used to getting products from local farmers, but like many who grow up in smaller communities, he always yearned for “something a little larger in life,” he says.

That yearning for more led Joseph on a journey across the globe, shaping his culinary perspective with each stop along the way. After moving to Australia for a college engineering internship, Joseph found himself feeling unfulfilled, saying “It wasn’t really what I hoped it would be. It was a little bit stale, and there wasn’t as much creative freedom as I thought there would be, so I decided to just work in a kitchen to figure out what I wanted to do.”

Engineering is “kind of why a kitchen made sense to me, because I have a very methodical mind, and I like systematic things,” he adds.

A connection through friends led Joseph to a high-caliber kitchen, “and I’d never experienced food at that level before, how professionally run a kitchen could be. And as soon as I saw that, that really made me rethink everything,” he recalls.

Joseph worked his way through many restaurants in Australia, and then because he was so close to Southeast Asia, he took the opportunity to experience the vibrant food cultures of Vietnam, Thailand, and Japan, the latter of which he lived for two years and honed his craft. “I think one of my greatest achievements is having the ability to be able to cook in different countries. It’s a lot of freedom being able to do that, and I think that alone is an achievement,” he says.

Joseph’s journey to Alabama came about because it’s his wife’s home state, mixed with personal and professional circumstances. When he began immersing himself in the local culinary scene in Birmingham, he crossed paths with chef Adam Evans while running the brunch program at Evans’ restaurant, and forged a connection built on their mutual love of Asian-inspired flavors. Their collaboration eventually led to the creation of Current Charcoal Grill, a concept that merges Southern hospitality with the bold, nuanced techniques of Asian cuisine.

“I think at the moment, Birmingham in general, we’re in kind of a renaissance of a food haven, if you will,” he says. “There’s a lot of talented chefs that live here, and there was really quite a big food scene here 10, 20 years ago, with Frank Stitt being a huge pinnacle shift in the industry here. It’s really exciting to see a lot of other chefs come through and carry on that torch as well. I think the timing of us opening this restaurant was perfect because there’s not really too many restaurants that are doing what we’re doing,” like how the restaurant employs the centuries-old Japanese grilling tradition of using slow-burning Binchotan charcoal. 

From using fresh wasabi from Japan to different types of perilla leaves and miso, Joseph says “we like to think of ourselves as still a Southern restaurant, but we’re just using ingredients and techniques from Asian cultures, and then kind of putting our own spin on it.” 

Joseph attributes all his travels to developing his appreciation for the ingredients and techniques that now influence his menus at Current Charcoal Grill, and inspiring a dish at Current Charcoal Grill—the Miso Custard Tart. Rich in umami flavor, the white miso—a fermented soybean paste with a thick, peanut butter-like texture and salty flavor—provides a nutty undertone to balance the sweet brown sugar and cultured chantilly, which Joseph simmers until they caramelize slightly to create an almost butterscotch-like flavor, then adds cooked pumpkin and eggs to create a custard filling. 

“It’s one of our flagship dishes, and it’s been a bit of an underdog. I really didn’t think it would be as successful as it was,” he notes; case in point, the dish’s recipe was even featured in Food & Wine last fall. “It definitely embodies a lot of technique that I’ve learned throughout the years. A lot of my cooking, the foundation is French when it comes to technique.”

He uses white miso, also known as shiro miso, because it’s fermented with rice and tastes slightly sweeter and less intense than red miso, which is made with more soybeans and fermented for a longer time. “It’s also a really great way to educate people, because most people like dessert, and some people are very skeptical of miso, so it was a really easy way for us to introduce miso to people,” he adds. 

Sustainability is highly important to Joseph, and he relies heavily on local farmers for produce which means the menu changes up seasonally. Meanwhile, a raw bar highlights the restaurant’s Japanese influences, with yellowfin tuna nigiri and A5 Wagyu nigiri with aged soy and fresh wasabi. Some of his other menu highlights include roasted scallops from New England that’s grilled with miso butter and served as an appetizer, and a Cantonese-style duck breast served as an entree with Szechuan pepper and Chinese 5 spice, toasted rice caramel, fresh greens, and a steamed bao bun. “We have a whole cold section where we do seasonal farmer produce as well,” Joseph says. 

Joseph hopes guests will have a communal, sharing-style experience at Current Charcoal Grill, and says “We try and encourage people to take the time to enjoy the food and share the food, because in Asian culture it’s very common, as well as New Zealand culture as well. Eating is more of a communal thing, and I don’t think there’s really restaurants like that here yet.”

He continues, “We focus more on sharable entrees rather than standalone entrees, and then we have quite a heavy appetizer and a raw bar as well, so we see guests sharing a little more here than what they usually do in other restaurants, and I think that really adds to the experience as well because they’re able to navigate the menu and enjoy more of the menu than just having part of it. So we tend to see people coming back a lot more because of the experience.”

While Joseph has creative freedom over the menu, Evans’ role is more on the business side. “Adam and I, we’re kind of like kindred spirits. I guess you could say we think alike, and we have the same philosophy when it comes to food sustainability and quality ingredients are always number one,” he says. 

“The future for Current, I think it looks bright,” Joseph adds. “We have a lot of guests that are coming back over and over again, and I would like to think that we’re pushing the boundaries of people’s comfort zone here in Birmingham, which is really exciting as well, because educating guests about new ingredients and new techniques and the philosophy of our food and our menu is very exciting as well. Hopefully, we create some sort of movement when it comes to the style of our food and how we approach certain ingredients, as well.”