At home in Atlanta, Linton Hopkins is a multitasking, empire-building chef with only one speed: fast. In the past decade, he has launched two acclaimed restaurants (including his flagship, Restaurant Eugene) and a bakery, established a farmers’ market and opened a wine and spirits shop. But when Hopkins steps onto Georgia’s Cumberland Island—an 18-mile stretch with palm trees, white-sand beaches and wild horses—the iPhone goes off and the Bermuda shorts come on. “It’s pretty remote—you have to take a ferry to get there,” he says. “You go everywhere by bicycle. Gentlemen still wear jackets.” He spends mornings digging for clams on the beach with his kids, a throwback to his own childhood holidays spent prying mollusks from South Carolina’s shore.
