Chef Kenny Gilbert is back. The Top Chef alum, former local boy and the ever-so-fleeting executive chef at PGA National has returned to South Florida to open a Southern food restaurant in the Miami area.

Gilbert’s new project: Swine Southern Table & Bar, which he plans to open in Coral Gables in October. It’s a sister restaurant to Miami Beach’s hugely popular Yardbird Southern Table & Bar, run by fellow Top Chef-testant Jeff McInnis. Gilbert is the corporate chef for the management group which owns a stake in Yardbird, and he will be the executive chef at Swine.

“It’s super exciting for me,” says Gilbert, who left PGA National in August of 2010 to open the upscale island-theme restaurant Nippers in Jacksonville. “We’re going to be inspired by our locals, the Latin flavors.”

Swine will focus on using flavorful heritage pigs, whose meat is darker, meatier, more tender and more marbled than what is commercially available—and using all of the animal, “snout-to-tail,” as the chefs like to say. And Gilbert says he has already drawn up more than 25 menus for the Coral Gables restaurant set to open in October, infusing the barbecue techniques to which he’s loyal with the international flavors to which South Floridians are accustomed.

“We’re not going to be force-feeding people barbecue,” he says.

Gilbert has been working alongside McInnis at Yardbird, which focuses on preparing chicken in a Southern style the way Swine will on pork. The two have long known each other as chefs within the Ritz Carlton group (Gilbert was the executive chef at the Ritz Carlton in Jupiter), both converging to open the Ritz’s property in Abaco, Bahamas.

They recently made a guest appearance as Yardbird reps and teammates at Miami’s Cochon 555 event, where five local chefs compete in preparing five heritage pigs from snout-to-tail, using local ingredients to highlight the need to support local farmers. The winner, Michelle Bernstein, went on to represent Miami in the national competition.

TOMATILLO JALAPEÑO JAM

Recipe by Chef Kenny Gilbert

Makes: 2 cups

1 cup shelled tomatillos

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 jalapeño stemmed and seeded

1/4 cup sugar

Combine all ingredients and place into a small pot and bring to a boil.

Lower heat to a simmer and reduce liquid by half.

Place into blender and puree until smooth. Allow jam to cool.

Serve with your favorite buttermilk biscuits, cornbread or grilled pork.