Christopher Seckman is the real deal. He grew up in Nashville, Tenn., and Rome, Ga., then spent his college years in North Carolina, so he comes naturally by his knowledge of how to cook up a pot of grits. This is why grits feature prominently on the menus of his two Frankfort Avenue dining establishments, North End Cafe and the recently opened Sweet Peas Southern.

Seckman learned to cook at the knees of both his father and his grandfather, each of whom was a chef. But it was not until several years after he’d left the South that he concocted his own version of the more widely known classic, shrimp and grits. He was living in San Francisco at the time, working as a sous chef in a restaurant that billed itself as Southern. He said to himself, “I’ll show you Southern.” Thus he came up with what has turned out to be one of the most popular items on the menu at North End Cafe, where the dish is known as pan-seared scallops.

Though the priciest of the menu lot (at $25 per plate), there is nothing pretentious about how the North End scallops and grits are cooked or presented. This makes sense, as there is nothing pretentious about Seckman himself. He doesn’t believe in hoarding secret recipes. Nor does he believe in using ingredients that are not widely available to the public. He uses local, seasonal foods whenever possible, and he readily shares tricks of the trade, such as the best way to buy scallops. “The way most scallops are sold,” he says, “you’re paying for the treated water that was used to plump them up in, and then the scallops won’t sear right.” The solution: Ask your fishmonger for dry-pack sea scallops — specifically for U-10 dry-pack sea scallops. (The higher the “count” or the number following “U,” the smaller the size of the individual scallop. Thus, a “20-30 count” means 20 to 30 scallops to the pound, whereas a “U10” means 10 scallops per pound.)

Seckman gets his mushrooms from Sheltowee Farms in Salt Lick, Ky., and his cornmeal from the Weisenberger Mill near Midway. “Did you know that Sheltowee is the Cherokee word for turtle?” he asks while whisking butter into a pan with one hand and answering his cell phone with the other (at the same time fielding questions from a delivery man and a manager).

It’s the way that he treats the grits, however, that lets you in on the essence of Seckman’s approach to food. Everything about his rail-thin frame says, you can’t be afraid of facing down a grain. He gives them what they need. Starting with cream. Heavy cream. He pours in cups of it without batting an eye as he turns on the heat under the pan. “These have to be smooth in the end,” he says. “So smooth. No crunch.” And the cream is going to help them get that way.

Despite the California training of his young adult years, there is nothing low-fat or nouvelle cuisine about this most Southern of dishes. In addition to the cream, it requires an entire stick of butter, a cup of grated Parmesan cheese, quite a quantity of olive oil, and lots of applewood-smoked bacon. But its richness will be offset by the salad that accompanies it, which makes use of citrus galore to cut through the myriad dairy products involved in the grits. This is what Seckman’s approach to food is all about: balance of flavors and textures.

Scallops and grits make for an ideal Derby party dish. Although the recipe below tells you how to create individual servings (for eight people), another option is to heap it all into a much bigger serving bowl and let your guests serve themselves. In this way, it could be one of several dishes on a buffet, but it’s guaranteed to be the first one to disappear.

A Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc is the wine to serve as accompaniment.

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