The early-evening sun hangs lazily over Gulf of Mexico beyond the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Manasota Key, which offers a place of quiet inspiration where accomplished artists can come and create while recuperating from the busy-ness of their day-to-day lives. Tonight, several artists-in-residence chat over wine and margaritas on the beach, seated in a circle while they wait to be fed a welcome dinner by the Hermitage’s chef Jordan Moore.

Moore is an Englewood native who has been working with the Hermitage since 2019 and was asked to join its staff full-time in 2022 as events and hospitality assistant. It's a catchall title that was crafted to encompass his culinary scope, which includes a natural penchant for all things hospitality. 

“Beyond his excellent culinary skills, Jordan is a master of hospitality, and the artists have always commented on that,” says Hermitage artistic director and CEO Andy Sandberg. “One artist has joked more than a few times that he wants to write a song about Jordan’s potatoes.”

I worked at the Hermitage for about two years during Covid and relished every moment I got to spend with the talented, hard-working Moore ahead of events on the property. 

“When I graduated from Lemon Bay High School in 2004, I wanted to go into construction,” he tells me. “I was doing that for a little while and then the [real estate] market crashed. Nobody in construction wanted someone who was fresh out of school with little experience. So I thought cooking would be a great career. Everyone always has to eat and the importance of cooking will never go away, no matter what."

“I started cooking through a [vocational tech] program and I really liked it,” he continues. “From there I went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park [New York] in 2010.”

Moore was first introduced to the Hermitage when the retreat’s co-founder, Patricia Caswell, reached out to Café Evergreen in Nokomis, where Moore was working at the time. Caswell had been preparing the welcome dinners for Hermitage artists-in-residence at the beginning of their stay as a way for them to meet one another and settle into their temporary home, but she was ready for some professional help.

Caswell has since retired and Moore now has full control over those welcome dinners and all of the Hermitage's other food-centric happenings, like receptions after beach programs at which the artists connect with the community. After those programs, the Hermitage staff, artists and a handful of sponsors are treated to special snacks prepared by Moore. He also executes regular residency sponsorship dinners, where artists meet the donors whose gifts have funded their stay at the Hermitage.

“We have a really special donor base of people who believe in and support new work and champion it,” Sandberg says. “The artists always end up discovering that the people who support us genuinely care about the arts. [As for] what the donor gets out of it—well, they’re supporting our mission at large, but they also get a private catered dinner by Jordan, and they have an opportunity to build a personal relationship with the artist they are sponsoring.”

This evening, as six new artists-in-residence get to know one another, the conversation drifts from Florida ecology to bad Broadway shows, which leads to deep thoughts on late-'90s blockbuster films like Twister, Armageddon and Face-Off. Everyone is laughing and having a wonderful time. All the while, Moore serves course after course of filling yet healthy food—the kind of stuff that fuels the brain without inducing sluggishness, optimal for potential late-night flashes of genius.

To start, he’s prepared a vegan quinoa cake atop roasted red pepper coulis. It’s my longtime favorite and he knows it. That's followed by a crisp kale salad with green apple and dried cranberries.

“One of the challenges about cooking here at the Hermitage is the wind on the beach,” Moore tells me. “There’s lettuce everywhere; plates go flying. That said, I’m so accustomed to cooking in a lot of different environments, I can handle it.” Luckily, the wind is kind tonight and the lettuce stays where it belongs.

The main course is a smorgasbord of grilled steak, perfectly medium rare, with a sweet chipotle sauce. Moore has also made grouper with mango salsa, those ballad-worthy roasted potatoes and grilled asparagus. 

“The breaking of bread is how people begin to share the collaboration and friendship that have led our artists to working with one another on future projects outside of the Hermitage,” Sandberg says of the importance of these initial artist dinners. “A lot of artists who end up collaborating trace their memories to chats over Jordan’s food. Artists being around other artists helps them unlock new ideas. Part of that happens over these meals.”

Sandberg, Moore and I share one big thing in common: We all view food as another kind of art,  and it’s nice to be in like-minded company, especially with my toes in the sand.

“We are an artist retreat that is multi-disciplinary and Jordan brings the culinary arts," Sandberg says. "I think the artists recognize that, and maybe appreciate it more deeply than a regular customer might. With all of our dinners, you get a sense of great minds coming together. It feels like a mini-Renaissance every time.”

As for Moore, he's happy to be creating in paradise alongside so many other creatives.

"Every day at the Hermitage is different," he says. "Sometimes we’re here at this beautiful beach, sometimes it rains, sometimes we're up in Sarasota. No matter what, it’s always different."

I have a long drive home, so I depart just before the sun sets. But I stick around long enough to catch Moore handing out what's left of the evening's dinner, packed carefully into takeout boxes for the artists to take back to their cabins. It's a little piece of hospitality that makes a big difference.

"Jordan is everyone's favorite staff member," Sandberg says, "and we will all happily cede that to him."