Michael Tuohy, an Atlanta restaurateur who grew up in San Francisco, has been hired to be the executive chef of Grange in the boutique hotel The Citizen, slated to open in downtown Sacramento in November.

To take the job, Tuohy is closing the Atlanta restaurant he opened in January 2002, Woodfire Grill. There, his Californian culinary style has emphasized "locally grown organic produce, responsibly raised meats, eco-conscious seafood and artisan-produced ingredients," the same kind of cooking that the operators of The Citizen, Joie de Vivre Hospitality of San Francisco, want to cultivate at Grange.

Though Tuohy has been in Atlanta for 22 years, he says his cooking philosophy developed under the auspices of longtime San Francisco restaurateur Joyce Goldstein, for whom he worked early on first at her highly regarded Square One Restaurant and then at its sister operation, Caffe Quadro.

In Atlanta, Tuohy helped start the Georgia Grown Co-op to provide city restaurants and markets with provisions from a dozen local certified-organic farms.

The latest edition of the Zagat guide to Atlanta restaurants says of Woodfire Grill: "Michael Tuohy 'puts his heart and soul' into the 'exquisitely prepared' and 'impeccably sourced' 'farm-to-table cuisine' that's paired with a 'top-notch wine list,' while the staff 'could not be more helpful or informed.'"