Gizzy Rawlins has been appointed executive chef of Ela Mediterranean Restaurant in Virginia-Highland.
Raised in Decatur, Rawlins enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Atlanta in 2009, which led to her first kitchen role in a French bistro. She soon became the first female line cook at Rathbun’s, eventually rising to lead sauté and sous chef before helping open KR Steakbar.
Continuing her culinary journey, Rawlins joined the Fifth Group Restaurants team as sous chef of South City Kitchen Midtown, where she delved into business operations and restaurant volume. She went on to serve as Executive Chef at Bellina Alimentari before returning to Fifth Group, where she’s been an integral part of the culinary team at Ecco Midtown and Buckhead, and South City Kitchen Buckhead and Avalon.
Her passion for health and wellness inspired a successful meal prep business, and in 2020, she joined a personal chef and catering service, where she helped scale operations and grew a team of 12 personal chefs.
When Gizzy first tried Ela, she reports that she thought it was pretty heavy for Mediterranean cuisine, so she’s focused on making it feel fresher and lighter, she says. She likes to keep the ingredients simple and use complex techniques behind them. For example, to make Ela’s fries less heavy and greasy, she switched from cooking them in basic canola oil to rice bran oil.
Rawlins now leads the kitchen at Ela, where her focus will be on creating transportive dining experiences built around seasonal, plant-forward cuisine. Her cooking style is best described as rustic, ethereal, local and intuitive. Leadership and mentorship are central to her role, with a focus on understanding and supporting each individual team member’s goals. She is focused on creating a safe place to lead and develop young chefs.
Other career highlights for Rawlins include competing on Hell’s Kitchen Season 18 and participating in the first U.S. Culinary Open cooking competition in 2025.
