Being a locally focused restaurant, Farmhaus doesn't have much seafood on the menu — usually a nightly special or two of whatever Willmann can get fresh, and always his poached escolar with grilled prawns. Willmann says he feels comfortable cooking fish — in fisherman parlance, he calls it his wheelhouse — but doesn't want to be known exclusively as a seafood chef.

"Our whole thing is, if the food tastes good, people are going to come," Willmann said. "We have lots of regular customers who dig what we do and how we change things up. We have some people who come in wanting to try the escolar. And we have people who come in and just want a really great steak, so we have that for them, too."

Willmann owns Farmhaus with his wife, Jessica, who helps oversee the front-of-house operations. It's his first self-owned restaurant, although he's been working in kitchens for the past 17 years.

After getting his feet wet in Florida, working in beachside fish restaurants with chef Frank Taylor, Willmann moved to Knoxville, Tenn., at age 22 to study math, physics and engineering in college.