The Chef
Josh Walczak
A Pascagoula kid who trained with the best, and came home to cook the Coast.
Raised in Restaurants
He was always the kid in the back of house
Josh grew up in Pascagoula, the son of a server who worked the local dining rooms. He calls himself a lifelong chef, and he means it. Before he could drive, he was already in the kitchen, watching, tasting, learning how a good plate comes together.
He left the Coast for culinary school and a real education under fire, then came back to open a room that's entirely his own.
The Lineage
Trained under two James Beard Award winners
Josh cooked under John Currence of Oxford's City Grocery Restaurant Group and Vishwesh Bhatt of Snackbar, two of the most decorated chefs in the South. He brought that standard home to Krebs Avenue.
Coastal comfort food, with a glow-up.
Today Czak's is a true scratch kitchen. Anything not made in-house is sourced locally from vendors Josh trusts, and the menu is almost entirely gluten-free. The gumbo has its own following. The bread pudding is his recipe, somewhere between French toast and crème brûlée. He built the bar program himself, and he's usually the one out front, talking through the menu with whoever's at the table.
It's the food he grew up on, cooked at the level he trained for. That's the whole idea.