Figs star at the Ocracoke Fig Festival

By Connie Leinbach

Jamie Davis, executive chef of The Hackney restaurant in “little” Washington, is on a mission to showcase eastern North Carolina with his farm-to-table menu.

Davis was the celebrity guest chef at the Ocracoke Fig Festival Aug. 6 to 8 at the Berkley Barn.

When you hear about food in North Carolina, everyone thinks about the big cities, he said during a talk at the festival.

“So, I try to bring eyes to eastern North Carolina,” he said. “We like to do different things to bring different eyes to eastern North Carolina because at the end of the day when you think of food in North Carolina, you don’t think of Eastern North Carolina.”

He tries to source all his food from local NC farmers.

“I know where everything is coming from and I love to keep the dollar in our community,” he said. “When we first opened, nobody in town was using local seafood.”

Now he is known for featuring the “big fish,” such as tuna or trout.

“And we’re James Beard finalists, too,” he said, which was for Best Chef in the South in 2024.

A veteran of the food industry since the age of 16, Davis said his food is serious, “but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. It’s just really good food done very well.”

Davis was a judge in the Fig Cake Bake-off, judging the Innovative entries before he and his family had to catch the afternoon ferry.

“It was awesome,” he said about that experience. “Everything was really tasty. You could taste a lot of tradition in the cakes.”

Islander Debbie Leonard won the Innovative category with her four-layer fig cake with ermine frosting between the layers, topped with fig caramel.

“It was fun,” Leonard said, also noting that she bounced ideas off two-time Innovative winner Kristi Reichard, who could not attend this year.

George Jones of Williamsburg, Va., who visits Ocracoke frequently, captured top honors in the Traditional category.

This was the first year his young fig trees bore enough fruit for a cake, he said.

He watched the WUNC June 2023 “Figs Galore” Ocracoke episode of “The Key Ingredient with Sheri Castle,” that featured islander Trudy Austin and her prize-winning fig cake several times.

He made his own jam and then further caramelized it, which deepened the flavor.

“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “I really enjoyed the competition.”

Enzo, 14, and Oliver, 10, Piacenza of Kill Devil Hills won the kids category with their Cuccidati, or Sicilian fig cookies, from their father’s side of the family, their mother Jesse said.

“It’s like a Fig Newton only better,” she said. “They’re already thinking about what to do next year.”

Sean and Beth Jarvah of Wake Forest won the Fig Preserves peoples’ choice award for their five-pepper fig spread.

They use brown turkey figs with five home-grown peppers, Sean explained while the couple distributed samples.

“It took us a few years to get the proper blend of everything,” Sean said, “And when we got it, we stuck to our recipe every year.”

B.J. Beasley of Jarvisburg won the fig parbecue sauce contest.

Next year’s festival will be Aug. 6 to 7.