‘Top Chef’ alum Anthony Jones has Maryland crabs embedded in his culinary DNA

Growing up on seafood near the Chesapeake Bay, Anthony Jones fell in love with cooking while eating local crabs with his family and watching “Iron Chef.”

Now he’s fresh off a run on another cooking competition show, “Top Chef,” and representing Maryland as a finalist for Rising Culinary Star at the RAMMYS, the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area’s top food awards. Jones, 37, was also recently named an Emerging Chef semifinalist at the James Beard Foundation Awards, the nation’s highest culinary honor.

“It helps prove to myself that I’m doing something right, or at least I’m on the right path,” Jones said of the recent recognition, for which he said he also has his restaurant staff to thank.

“I couldn’t have made it this far without them. The restaurant wouldn’t be thriving without them,” he said. “I try and make sure that they share and enjoy as much of the accolades and nominations as they possibly can, as well.”

The 2026 RAMMYS Awards, which take place Monday at D.C.’s Arena Stage, honor the greatest achievements in the capital region’s dining scene.

Jones now serves as executive chef at Marcus D.C., a modern, upscale restaurant in Union Market’s Morrow Hotel that blends founder and celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson’s Ethiopian and Swedish backgrounds with local Black culinary traditions, including its roasted chicken drizzled in mambo sauce.

To both chefs, food is about remembering and honoring the past.

“Some of the dishes and components on the menu were definitely heavily, heavily inspired by people who have made D.C. what it is, and now it’s kind of [free] rein to expressing a wider cultural aspect of the city,” Jones said.

The chef’s Maryland roots show up on the menu too: One of the restaurant’s show-stopping shareable plates is a rich crab fried rice with pickled okra and an uni béarnaise. The chef views it as an homage to West African jollof rice, Spanish paella and Maryland crab, which the kitchen uses as often as it’s available.

“Naming-wise, I wanted to tie it close to something that meant a lot to me,” Jones said. He immediately thought of Mel’s Crabs, a Calvert County-based crab truck that was a staple of Jones’s childhood.

“He sells crabs all summer long, and that was one of the highlights for me as a kid,” Jones added. “Being able to, on the weekends, drive by, take us a few bushels of crabs, bring them home. My family would cook them and we’d just take them outside and eat them on the picnic table.”

Elsewhere in Maryland, Jones has fond memories of breakfast diner The Frying Pan in Lusby, seafood spot Chesapeake Grille and Deli in Dunkirk and rustic American restaurant Preserve in Annapolis.

A culinary education

After starting to cook in middle school, Jones went on to culinary school at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina. His first kitchen job? Local favorite Ledo Pizza.

Since then, Jones climbed his way through the D.C. culinary scene before landing at his current gig. Marcus D.C. opened about a year ago, the latest offering from Samuelsson, a James Beard-winning chef with restaurants around the world. You might recognize him from his many food television show appearances, including “Top Chef,” “Chopped,” “Beat Bobby Flay” and “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.”

“He obviously has a global eye,” Jones said of Samuelsson. “If he’s out and about and traveling, he’s seeing things, taking notes, and if he thinks it’s something that might be of interest to me, he’ll bring it up and we’ll see if it fits for the restaurant, or what kind of inspiration can be drawn from it.”

There’s also plenty of inspiration to be found at home, which is one of the main reasons why Samuelsson said he chose Jones to helm his D.C.-based restaurant — the chef’s familiarity with, and love for, the area has proven to be a major asset for the menu.

“He is not only extremely talented, he matches that with his drive and passion to constantly evolve and improve,” Samuelsson said in a statement to The Banner. “In this industry, the want and passion to get better is just as important as the skillset. He cares about what he puts on the plate, and we are proud of him and behind him in supporting his journey.”

Jones previously won a 2022 episode of Food Network’s “Chopped” and more recently, placed sixth in this spring’s season of “Top Chef,” filmed in his college town.

“I just tried to cook food that made sense to me, that made me feel good and that I could stand behind,” Jones said. “And things went well. It was fun. Everyone in the season: great competitors, great chefs, amazing skill sets. I’m blessed and fortunate to have been a part of it.”

Now back in the kitchen in D.C., Jones is enjoying getting to watch customers experience his carefully curated menu that pays homage to his and other Marylanders’ pasts.

“You can kind of see that light bulb go off in their heads,” he said of customers trying his dishes, “where you know they’re trying to go back in the memory base and figure out what the dish reminds [them] of.”