Courtesy of Trilith Guesthouse
Courtesy of Trilith
Trilith Guesthouse has tapped Jay Swift as executive chef, bringing a marquee culinary name to the 193-room boutique hotel at the Town at Trilith. Since opening in January 2024 near Trilith Studios, the property has become a natural landing spot for filmmakers, creatives and celebrities passing through Georgia’s busiest production corridor. Swift, whose résumé includes 4th & Swift, South City Kitchen, the Iberian Pig and Noble Fin, stepped in to shape the hotel’s next chapter on the plate. And if that weren’t enough, the job already comes with a bonus: feeding elite soccer players training for the World Cup. We spoke with Swift about his plans for Prologue, the main hotel restaurant, as well as Oliver’s Twist rooftop bar, catering, and more.
What’s changed since you started there?
I changed menu at Prologue. I converted it to an elevated southern experience. It didn’t really have a concept before. The menu was kind of muddled. Now it has a a beet salad and a baby kale salad, a terrific red snapper with sweet corn maque choux and mango pico de gallo, swordfish with lentil pilaf and saffron yogurt sauce, and shrimp and grits with a Spanish twist. There’s Prime New York strip and Wagyu flank steak, fried oysters, and a crab cake—that’s kind of my thing.
We serve three meals a day. Breakfast and Sunday brunch are pretty traditional. I’m currently working on updating the desserts.
Courtesy of Trilith Guesthouse
How did you decide on the Southern concept?
There’s an Italian steakhouse right across the street, a taco place, and a sushi place. There’s nothing in Fayetteville serving an elevated southern experience. Since it’s in a hotel, people come from all over the country. I thought they might want to experience southern dining.
What else have you been working on?
I’m working on the rooftop bar menu. They have this great English pub called Oliver’s Twist on the 5th floor, overlooking the Town Square. I’m keeping the theme and updating the items, getting rid of some slow movers. The new menu will come out mid-summer.
We’ll be doing some chef-led activations at the Guesthouse, like wine dinners and cookouts. There’s an exhibition kitchen with a six-burner gas stove and two Wolf Ovens with classroom-style seating. There’s a courtyard out front and a lake in the back. We can prepare food for people in front of them or make it a hands-on cooking class.
Courtesy of Trilith Guesthouse
I hear you do a lot of catering as well.
Yes, I updated all the banquet menus. The U.S. Men’s National Team was here for 10 days. We fed them breakfast and dinner daily and some snacks. The National Training Center is two miles down the road. I got to meet the players. They travel with a chef and dietician. The menus they sent in advance were extensive—all healthy stuff, mostly low in fat, and all natural. They want the best of the best. They wanted a lot of fat-free yogurt. It was a bit challenging from a sourcing standpoint. I had to find six flavors of kombucha and a certain brand of coconut water. They ate cage-free eggs, grass-fed beef, and a ton of fruit. It was all buffets, usually with four proteins: pork or chicken, fish, vegetarian, and pasta. They had 10,000 bottles of water delivered before they arrived.
I take it you feed a lot of celebrities.
We signed the women’s team too. There was a movie star sitting at the bar when I got here this morning, but I can’t say who. I signed an agreement.
Courtesy of Trilith Guesthouse
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Carly Cooper
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