Scott Crawford (born 1972) is an American chef and restaurateur based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has been a five-time semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation Best Chef: Southeast award and was nominated as a 2025 Outstanding Restaurateur by the James Beard Foundation. He won Bravo TVâÂÂs Recipe for Deception in 2016.
Crawford was born and raised in a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He experienced with drugs during adolescence.
At age 17, he relocated to Florida and entered the restaurant industry, initially working in front-of-house roles before transitioning to kitchen positions. While visiting a friend in Richmond, he began to view cooking as a long-term profession after working under Chef Michelle Williams with the Richmond Restaurant Group. Following this experience, he returned to Florida to complete formal culinary training at a school in Tampa.
After graduating, he moved to the U.S. West Coast and worked in the restaurant industry in San Francisco, before returning to Florida to join The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, where he traveled to support the opening of restaurants for the brand. He subsequently worked at Ritz-Carlton properties in Amelia Island and later at The Woodlands Inn as an executive chef of The Dinning Room.
Early in his career, he received the Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Award at multiple fine-dining properties, including Herons at The Umstead Hotel and Spa, The Georgian Room at The Cloister, and The Woodlands Resort & Inn.
In 2016, he opened his restaurant, Crawford & Son, in Raleigh. The restaurant was subsequently named Restaurant of the Year by The News & Observer and Indy Week. In 2019, he opened Jolie, a French bistro focused on classical Parisian cuisine.
Crawford later expanded his restaurant group with additional concepts, including Brodeto, Sous Terre, CrawfordâÂÂs Genuine at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, and Crawford Brothers Steakhouse in Cary.
He won the cooking competition series Recipe for Deception on Bravo and participated in the Peter Millar Artisans of Craft program.
He founded the Raleigh chapter of BenâÂÂs Friends, a peer-support organization for hospitality workers affected by substance use, and has served on the board of Healing Transitions.