Private Hibachi Chef in Alys Beach

Alys Beach is the most distinctive place we cook on 30A and the one where we adapt the most. The all-white Bermuda-style houses are built around private walled courtyards, which is close to a perfect hibachi room — enclosed, lantern-lit, and completely private — provided the courtyard is open to the sky and large enough. Many are. Some are dominated by a plunge pool and a pergola, and in those we work from the entry court or the drive instead. We also dial the show differently here than in Rosemary or Seacrest. Alys is a quiet town by design, so we keep the volume down, lean the performance toward knife work and plating rather than noise, and finish clean. Nobody has ever complained about that trade. If anything, a plated hibachi course in a white courtyard is the best-looking dinner in our whole book.

Six by four feet of level surface, open sky above, three feet of clearance on the chef's side. In Alys Beach that is typically the main courtyard, the entry court, or the driveway. Courtyards with a plunge pool taking most of the floor will not fit the grill and a serving station, so we move outward. We do not set up under a pergola, a loggia or a covered gallery. Every surface here is finished stone or masonry that people care about, so heat mats and a drop cloth go down as standard and we wipe the area down before we leave.

We come in off 30A and arrive about 45 minutes before the seating. Alys streets are narrow with limited on-street parking, and courtyard entrances are gated, so two things need to be in your booking confirmation: the courtyard gate code and where we can put the van for the unload window. If your rental is reached through a shared pedestrian passage rather than a drive, tell us — we will bring the cart. A chef standing outside a locked white gate is the single most common way an Alys dinner starts late.

Alys bookings skew older and quieter than the rest of 30A, and the occasions follow: milestone birthdays, anniversary dinners, and the bachelorette group that specifically did not want a loud weekend. That last one is a real segment and we cook for it often — eight or ten women who rented an Alys house precisely because it is calm, who want a genuinely good dinner and a chef three feet away rather than a bar crawl. We build that evening around the food: more filet and scallop, a slower pace, courses plated rather than tossed. Rehearsal dinners work here for the same reason, especially in a courtyard where the architecture means you do not have to decorate anything.