A Delicious Homecoming

Entering a room that also holds restaurateur Susan Turner is a bit like being in the presence of a strobe light. She surges with fireworks of creative ideas, innovative recipes, plans for social receptions, community good works, and an elegant gentility that lets you feel you’re the only other person in the room with her.

This is the Susan Turner, 80 years old as of July, who for 44 years has been the essential ingredient in Food Glorious Food (FGF), one of the few venerable Tallahassee restaurants that has survived as other upscale establishments gave way to the fast-casual onslaught. And this is also the “renewed” Susan Turner who has once again taken the reins of FGF, this time sharing them with her new co-owner and executive chef, Katie Spetman.

Photo by Dave Barfield

Turner came from Jasper, Florida to Tallahassee with her husband, attorney Stephen Turner, and three young children. Life was good and filled with family, a bustling social life, and volunteer work at her temple and other worthy causes. 

Add in a dash of something else. Turner loved making food for others—and she was good at it, having grown up at the elbow of her mother and grandmother, who were inspired home cooks. So, in 1982, when a friend purchased the old Baptist Church building at Thomasville and Bradfordville roads, leaving several Sunday school rooms vacant, Turner got the chance to run a little business out of one, which she named Food Glorious Food. After starting with take-out sandwiches and fancy desserts, she soon made dinners for friends, catered parties, and found devotees of FGF’s airy outdoor setting and fresh ingredients. Her reputation grew, and Turner came to be named food editor  at Tallahassee Magazine.

Over the years, more chefs and employees came on board. Turner not only managed the restaurant and did much of its baking but was also now involved in an impressive list of community projects. After well over a decade, it seemed time to take on a partner. Experienced chef Kevin Stout would join Turner as co-owner in 1999.

Photo by Dave Barfield

By 2006, Food Glorious Food had expanded to include a downstairs formal dining room, bar, and private meeting space. More memories were made, as well as write-ups in The New York Times and Gourmet Magazine, a long series of Golden Spoon Awards from Florida Trend, and many Best of Tallahassee nods. Turner, the “over-achieving” chef and entrepreneur, also ran a cooking school and wrote her own cookbooks.

With time, Kevin Stout and his pastry chef wife, Michelle, were running FGF, which allowed Turner to pursue other interests—of which she has many. Turner has served on the leadership teams of Refuge House, Big Bend Hospice, the Survive & Thrive Advocacy Center, and the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. She was awarded the Holocaust Education Resource Council of Tallahassee’s first Humanitarian Award.

Perhaps never withdrawing from the myriad things that stimulate her ideas made Turner ready to take on a familiar challenge. 

After 22 years, Stout and Turner’s paths diverged. In 2025, Stout became executive chef at the Governors Club, and Turner decided ownership of Food Glorious Food.

Photo by Dave Barfield

That is to say, “co-ownership,” in that soon after, Katie Spetman, a seemingly “made for the job” chef would eagerly accept the role of partner. Spetman, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, was the executive chef for Florida State University president and Mrs. Eric Barron from 2011 to 2014. She assumed the same role at the Governor’s Mansion under Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis from 2015 to 2024 after an interim stop as chef at The Front Porch.

And thus, this woman-to-woman relationship, one that pairs two dynamic partners, has begun a springtime for the ever-forward-looking Turner. Meeting with her and Spetman in the upstairs Betton Bar, where from within a glass case irrationally gorgeous desserts beckon, Turner is describing the renewal the two women have launched that will carry Food Glorious Food forward into new decades of delicious dining. 

Conversation is brisk. Susan Turner, fresh from her morning walk, is animated as she runs through plans for new pieces of art for the walls of the main dining room downstairs. Then suddenly with Spetman, the two are discussing some of the “15-20” small plates that will be offered every day: “Yes, the beet salad, everybody loves that.” “Oh, and the grouper cheeks and grits.” 

Photo by Dave Barfield

To watch them finishing each other’s sentences; describing plans for music, a bar menu, and extended hours; playing one recipe idea off of another; and leaping to their feet to find a misplaced exotic coffee blend suggests that the future of Food Glorious Food is not only firmly set but also will feature many unexpected culinary innovations made between these two energetic women. 

And wistfully, after declining a proffered boccone dolce (a wonderfully over-the-top confection of meringue with almonds, chocolate cream, and strawberry sauce), Tallahassee Magazine departed Food Glorious Food—only stopping at the front desk to make a reservation for dinner. 

Photo by Dave Barfield

Chef’s Choice

Here are a few of the old favorites that will share menu space with new creations and with them, FGF’s wishes for a very “Bon Appetit!” 

Fun and Different: 

BBQ Frog Legs Tacos

Shredded Duck Breast

Grouper Cheeks  with Cheese Grits

Southern: 

Braised Pork Belly

Yucca Fries

Smoked Pork Chop 

Bourbon Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Elegant: 

Caramelized Salmon and Asparagus

Risotto

Mustard Cream Sauce

Desserts: 

Hummingbird Cake

FGF Bread Pudding

Mom’s Marble Cake
German Chocolate Cake