ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — When the Great American Seafood Cook-Off begins Saturday at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Orange Beach resident and chef Zach Compton will be in the running.

Battling against 15 other chefs from Alaska, California, New England, and all across the United States, 24-year-old Compton will vie to become the King of American Seafood.

Now in its sixth year, the Great American Seafood Cook-Off, presented by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, has featured up-and-coming and celebrity chefs over the years, and underscores the importance of cooking with domestic seafood and encourages the use of products from sustainable fisheries.

Hosting the event will be Sig Hansen, the popular commercial fishing captain who stars in the television show Deadliest Catch.

Compton was the winner of the chef’s competition at last year’s Shrimp Festival, and was invited by the Alabama Restaurant Association and the governor’s office to attend the competition.

“I’m not exactly sure what qualified us, but I am just glad to be going,” said Compton, a native of Atlanta.

After attending Texas Culinary Academy in Austin, Compton returned to Atlanta, before relocating to the Gulf Coast in September 2006.

He has been cooking professionally for 10 years, but he really got started much earlier than that.

“I come from a really large family so I did a lot of cooking,” he said. “I learned a lot from my grandmother and my mom, and it is just something that has stuck with me. I love to cook.”

Going with what brought him luck at the Shrimp Festival, Compton will be preparing Alabama shrimp and grits at the Great American Cook-Off.

“It is a sautéed shrimp dish with andouille sausage, ham, tomatoes, onions, and some hot sauce. I make kind of a soupy sauce and then pour it over the grits,” Compton explained. “I’m going to change it up just a bit in the competition. I am going to use some blue corn grits with fontina cheese in the grits. I will also be using fresh Alabama shrimp.”

Compton says that it is really a simple dish that anybody could do at home.

“I didn’t want to get too extreme with what I was going to prepare, being this is my first competition and I don’t really know what to expect. I just wanted to keep it simple so that I know I can pull it off when I get there,” Compton said.

Apparently the reputation of this bright young chef, who directs the kitchen at Geno’s Fresh Catch Grill in Orange Beach on a daily basis, has already arrived in New Orleans.

Ewell Smith, executive producer of the Cook-Off and executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board said, “I look forward to welcoming this talented Alabama chef to New Orleans this summer.”

Each contestant is allowed to have an assistant, and Compton is taking with him Jessica Shull who he works with at Geno’s and who is a student at the Gulf Coast Culinary School.

The Cook-Off is judged by a panel of six professional chefs. Past winners of the Great American Seafood Cook-off include John Currence of City Grocery in Oxford, Miss.; Tim Thomas of the Ocean Forest Golf Club in Sea Island, Ga.; Randy Evans of Brennan’s of Houston, and John Besh of Restaurant August in New Orleans.

There is no doubt that all of Alabama will be pulling for Compton, who enjoys life on the Gulf Coast. Still Compton is a bit nervous.

“The Shrimp Festival was exciting because it was really my first competition, but this is a much bigger stage,” Compton said.