by | October 13, 2025
Chef Clay Conley Brings Family and Flavor to Gainesville With Stoke
Seven-time James Beard nominee Chef Clay Conley serves up wood-fired fare with a hefty helping of community at Stoke barn in Gainesville.
The story of Stoke begins, fittingly, with a vegetable garden. Clay Conley, the celebrated chef known for his restaurant, Buccan, in Palm Beach, moved with his wife, Averill, and their daughter and son to Gainesville in 2023, commuting weekly to South Florida to check on Buccan and his other restaurants (Imoto, Grato and Buccan Sandwich Shop).
Clay and Averill Conley’s home—and now Stoke too—sits on an 80-acre stretch of organic farmland owned by their friends, Vanessa and Hutson Rapier, who also live on the property. The two families’ kids attend Gainesville’s Jordan Glen School, where Vanessa had been helping build gardens for the students. Clay had volunteered to cook on field trips, showing the kids how to properly prepare garden-fresh vegetables.
“Before we even talked about doing something bigger on the farm, we were already doing it on a smaller scale at school—growing gardens and cooking,” Vanessa says. “Our families both value the importance of where food comes from and eating seasonally. Stoke was born from our shared passion of cooking for your community.”
Hosting private previews since May and officially opening for ticketed and private events in September, Stoke is an open-air culinary experience unfolding under a pole barn and nestled in the heart of Gainesville, where the Conleys and Rapiers host monthly dinners, with proceeds supporting local food banks and families facing food insecurity.
Chef Clay Conley shared his recipe for Stoke’s roasted Seminole pumpkin salad—try it now!
You’d never guess driving down its winding dirt road—canopied by old-growth oaks wrapped in twinkling lights—that you’re surrounded by encroaching suburban developments just beyond the property’s pastures of row crops, chickens, ducks, donkeys, turkeys, goats, pigs and cattle.
The barn is vast, with a corrugated-metal roof that can cover up to 200 guests. Baroque-style chandeliers salvaged from a Marriott in Tampa impart an air of rustic elegance as they hang above long communal tables. The travertine kitchen centers around a bright orange hearth that Clay brought up from Buccan, perfect for quick-blistered pizzas, wood-roasted vegetables and meats to serve family-style.
One Big Happy Farmily
“Ever since we opened Buccan (in 2011), I’ve had the freedom to really cook the food I love to eat,” Clay says. “The food at Stoke is similar, with layering of flavors, textures and temperatures on each dish. Everything we make is from here. If it’s not from the Rapiers’ farm, then it’s from nearby farms and purveyors.”
Besides being local, Stoke’s food is extraordinary. Pizzas on crackling sourdough crusts kicked off a warm spring evening dinner as an acoustic band strummed away. Thai-inspired pork larb lettuce cups followed, with the meat sourced from a pig raised on the property. Eggplant lasagna came layered with a tomato-basil sauce that had simmered all day.
Dessert was light and whimsical, featuring fluffy blueberry cheesecake and mini 100 Grand bars. The bar was stocked with beer, wine and organic kombucha from Berryland and Orlando’s Farm Boy Produce on tap.
Dinners are a family affair—or “farmily,” as the Conleys and Rapiers named their group text. Clay and Averill Conley ease naturally into their back- and front-of-house roles, him in a blue chef’s apron and her in an orange floral dress, moving gracefully between tables to check on guests. Their children also get in on the action, running food, refilling water and bussing plates.
“A lot of families from our kids’ school come out to help us plant and weed and harvest and just to hang out on the property,” Vanessa says. “We’re bringing people together in a way that is both laid-back and intentional, to help them get away from it all and connect with nature. What we enjoy here, we want to share with the community.”
Back to His Roots
For Clay, that connection to the land brings him back to his childhood on a 30-acre farm in Limerick, Maine. He started his kitchen journey washing dishes at age 13, falling in love with the kitchen and with restaurant life.
He came to Florida for a bachelor’s degree at Florida State University, then moved to Boston to work for celebrity chef Todd English. The Mandarin Oriental in Miami recruited him in 2005 to be the executive chef of Azul, its AAA Five Diamond restaurant overlooking Biscayne Bay, a position he held until he opened Buccan and its sister restaurants in Palm Beach County. His cooking has earned him seven nominations for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef: South award and critical acclaim in outlets from Esquire to The New York Times.
“Growing up on a farm, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough—I just wanted
cities, cities, cities,” Clay says. “But now, the older I get, I find myself gravitating back toward living in the country. Being in North Florida with my businesses in South Florida has been an exercise in letting go and in delegating work to people I trust and believe in. And I believe that’s made me a better, more effective leader.”
That’s what it’s all about now: bringing other people up, developing them and then giving them the space to be successful.
—Chef Clay Conley
More delegation is on the horizon for Clay as he opens outposts of his modern American bistro Buccan, sushi-and-more spot Imoto and daytime nosherie Buccan Sandwich Shop. All of these will be located at a new space in Coral Gables. He anticipates a November ribbon-cutting and has tapped a former Azul and Buccan colleague, Jeremy Shelton, to be executive chef of the Coral Gables restaurants.
“I’ll alternate weeks going down to Palm Beach and Miami, and I’m so excited to see Jeremy step into that leadership role,” Clay says. “That’s what it’s all about now: bringing other people up, developing them and then giving them the space to be successful.”
With South Florida getting even more options to experience Clay’s food, Stoke marks an exciting opportunity for those in Gainesville and North Florida to get a taste. Stoke is a return to Clay’s farm roots, to live-fire cooking and to food that comes from local land and waters.
“It means a lot to us to be working with Clay to preserve organic farming in Gainesville and to highlight what grows here,” Vanessa Rapier says. “We built this barn to make honest food for our community and to show how magical it can be in Clay’s hands.”
