16 black chefs who are changing food
When Ashleigh Shanti, 29, journeyed across the country on a six-month sabbatical last year, she decided that her next step as a chef needed to fulfill a critical desire: cooking food that celebrated her heritage as a black woman from the South and rebuffed assumptions about what that food could be.
For hummus, she replaced chickpeas with black-eyed peas, and instead of tahini, used fermented benne seeds, an African staple. Her cabbage pancake played on okonomiyaki, a traditional Japanese dish. Her buttermilk cornbread soup paid tribute to her grandmother, who would put leftover crumbs of cornbread into buttermilk and drink it.
Those are just some of the dishes featured at Benne on Eagle, in Asheville, North Carolina, that have helped Shanti become one of the many black chefs across the country who are considered new leaders in the food world, making their voices heard in new ways. These chefs have crushed the notion that the food they cook must be rooted in the American South.
At the same time, they have pushed their way past the Eurocentric traditions that many absorbed in culinary school. They are reflecting Africa and its diaspora in their kitchens, using techniques from places like Nigeria, Brazil, Morocco, Trinidad and Tobago, and ingredients like conch, berbere, fonio and cassava.
The spotlight, many say, is long overdue. Black cooks have historically seen their foods and techniques coopted, getting little credit for their influence on America’s culinary traditions. “There have always been black hands in American food,” said Jerome Grant, the chef at Sweet Home Café in the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
But this new vanguard is working to make sure that its ascent is more than a passing moment.
“It’s up to us to be transparent with our information and our techniques, and pass along to the next generation,” said Mashama Bailey, executive chef and partner at The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, and the winner of this year’s James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southeast. “We got to kind of strike while the iron’s hot right now.”
Last year, just more than 17% of chefs and head cooks were black, about 5 percentage points higher than their representation in the entire workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of black-owned eating and drinking establishments increased by nearly 50% between 2007 and 2012, according to an analysis of census data by the National Restaurant Association.
And even though black chefs remain underrepresented in fine dining, they are getting new recognition. Before last year, black chefs had gone 17 years without winning in any of the best chef or outstanding restaurant categories of the James Beard Awards — the Oscars of the restaurant industry. But over the past two years, six black chefs have won in those categories.
The country’s broad focus on racial equality and the political conversation around uplifting marginalized communities have also helped to increase the visibility and opportunities that black chefs are receiving, several said. Technology and social media have allowed them to promote themselves, even when no one else would. And they are benefiting from more diners being willing to explore unfamiliar foods.
Yet even in this moment of awareness, many black chefs, including those who have received awards and praise, say they sometimes still feel boxed in. Diners often look past them when asking to compliment the chef. Eyes still go wide when people see them cooking Mexican, Japanese or just about anything that’s not considered soul food. They still have to navigate the same racial politics as other black professionals.
The key to maintaining the current momentum, the chefs say, is working to address lingering barriers and stereotypes. Restaurant investors and the food media remain largely white, and those two sectors have significant influence over the fate of chefs and restaurants.
“Until there’s some sort of representation in those spaces, stories of black history, black chefs and black cuisine will just be trend pieces that mark a moment that can fade at any time,” said Clay Williams, a photographer and co-founder of Black Food Folks, an organization for black professionals in the food industry.
“I think with chefs like myself getting recognition, getting a platform, it definitely lends to more people looking for other people who look like me, which is great,” said Kwame Onwuachi, 29, chef and owner of Kith and Kin in Washington and the winner of this year’s James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year.
“It’s moving in a great direction,” he added. “But nothing changes overnight.”
Ashleigh Shanti, 29, Benne on Eagle, Asheville, North Carolina
Shaped by: Being mentored by the chefs Vivian Howard and John Fleer. Wrestling with the label of “Appalachian soul food,” which her restaurant is known for.
Key dish: Grilled peaches with chicken cracklings, ramp honey, sour corn and milkweed.
“There’s still an idea that you have to be hazed and work your way up in this industry. The moments when I’ve felt the worst are the moments that made me the chef that I am, in good ways and bad. It made me stronger because I can say to myself: I got through that, I can do this. But there were so many moments when I was targeted and excluded. This is an industry where people talk to each other however they want, and that has to change.”
Preston Clark, 38, Lure Fishbar, New York
Shaped by: His father’s talent and tenacity: Patrick Clark was the first black chef to win a James Beard award. Cooking many different cuisines at various restaurants, from Aquavit to Jean-Georges to Sammy Hagar’s steakhouse.
Key dish: Sea bass, chanterelles and melted leeks with chive oil and lemon beurre fondue.
“I still believe in learning the classical techniques and the proper way to cook. I was raised to eat everything and learn to cook everything I could: Thai, Greek, steak. My parents taught me to take what you learn and make it your own. That’s what being a chef is. It’s important to me to feel I’m being true to the craft, not just true to my roots.”
Nyesha Arrington, 36, Los Angeles Shaped by: Her multiracial family, especially her grandmother from Korea and grandfather of black and Cherokee descent. Growing up in Los Angeles, with its unique “terroir” that blends Californian, Mexican, Chinese, Persian and many other cuisines.
Key dish: Olive oilpoached halibut with pickled oyster mushrooms and Sungold cherry tomatoes.
“I came up in fine dining because 17-year-old me wanted to know the tradition in and out and up and down. I went down that path of France and nouvelle cuisine, which I loved. But every single kitchen I ever worked in coming up, I never saw a black woman. I had to see myself as a European male, and I assimilated a lot of those values into my cooking and my life. But now I value connection and finding the common denominator in food, because it is something that can transcend race and ethnicity and gender.”
Makini Howell, 46, Plum Bistro, SugarPlum, Seattle Shaped by: Being raised in a vegan family that has been in the food business since the 1970s. A year on tour with Stevie Wonder as his personal chef. Slowly building a six-part vegan food empire.
Key dish: Seared spiced tofu with fried avocado, greens, chile powder and black bean purée.
“My biggest problem with prejudice is the prejudice against plant-based food. Not as a woman, not as a black woman, but getting you to eat your plants. Getting you to pay for them. Finding staff who want to cook that way. That’s a struggle I can take on, even though there’s no road map for success for that.”
Erick Williams, 44, Virtue, Chicago
Shaped by: His greatgrandmother’s Southern cooking, and her insistence on connecting with every person who sat at her table. His personal faith and Christian teachings on service and community.
Key dish: Salmon with sweet peas, asparagus, tomatoes and sorrel.
“I don’t know that I decided that restaurants were the path, but the path became clear to me. I find the height of my purpose working with my hands, collaborating with farmers, serving my community. That farmer that needs you to buy his bell peppers is the same as the homeless guy on the street asking for money. Everybody’s just trying to get their needs met.”
JJ Johnson, 34, Henry at Life Hotel and FieldTrip, New York
Shaped by: His mentor, Alexander Smalls, an African-American entrepreneur who gave him his first job leading a kitchen. Traveling in Africa, where he realized how much he hadn’t been taught in culinary school.
Key dish: Jollof sticky rice with eggplant curry, cilantro and watermelon radish.
“I hire the best person who comes in the door. I have a majority of women and people of color in my kitchen because they apply here, knowing my kitchen is a safe space, not because I’m trying to hire people like that. That’s not the society I want to live in. The idea is to make sure merit and hard work are equally rewarded.”
Timon Balloo, 41, Sugarcane, Miami, Brooklyn and Las Vegas
Shaped by: Pursuing prestigious culinary credentials so he couldn’t be excluded for lacking proper training, like other black chefs he worked with. Learning to cook from his Chinese Trinidadian mother. Anger about feeling different, poor and fatherless.
Key dish: Waffle with crispy duck leg, fried duck egg and mustard-maple sauce.
“The whole thing about my life: I was always a mutt. I wasn’t Chinese enough to be Chinese, black enough to be black, everyone in California thought I was Hawaiian or Samoan. Nobody back then even knew what Trinidad was. We ate mostly Chinese food at home but once a year we went to KFC or Domino’s. American food was my ‘ethnic’ food and I was fascinated with it.”
Kiki Bokungu Louya, 36, The Farmer’s Hand and Folk, Detroit
Shaped by: Growing up in, leaving and moving back to Detroit. Her father and the Congolese food he cooked for her family. The role food plays in building, educating and nourishing communities.
Key dish: Sourdough toast with herbed yogurt, pickled onion, “everything bagel” seasonings and lox.
“We want to be your neighborhood bodega, but we also have this weird educational component, so we do a lot of explaining. We are sourcing your food from local farms and purveyors, but we can still feed a family of four for $10. We pay a living wage, not just a tipped minimum wage. We have a hospitality charge, because this is what it actually costs to put the food on your plate.”
Kia Damon, 25, New York
Shaped by: Growing up vegetarian in Orlando, Florida, and having to cook for herself. Working her way up in fastfood chains. Open racism, misogyny and homophobia in restaurant kitchens.
Key dish: Fried egg with crawfish gravy and flashfried okra.
“I wanted to go to culinary school, but I knew I was never going to have that magic fairy tale. I accepted the fact that it was going to suck and I put my head down and did what I had to do. As the only black woman in every kitchen, always being overlooked, being doubted, being disappointed — it’s pushed me to stay true to myself. I’m no longer looking for anything from anyone.”
Jerome Grant, 37, Sweet Home Café in the National Museum of African American History & Culture, Washington
Shaped by: His father’s lifelong military career. The home economics teacher who encouraged him to take cooking seriously. Developing a menu to represent all of African-American food culture, and feeding it to 2,000 people every day.
Key dish: Oyster pan roast with shaved fennel and sesame cracker.
“My father raised me with the idea that you always have to do better than the person next to you. As a black man, you have to perform three times better than that person. I saw that in kitchens right away: We were the cooks, but we were never the chefs, never the operators. My parents tried to sell me on the military instead of hospitality, but I was never going to be that guy. Finally they agreed, but my mom said, ‘I want you to learn the trade as a career, not a job.’ ”
Max Hardy, 35, River Bistro and COOP, Detroit Shaped by: His childhood in a historically black neighborhood in Detroit. His mother’s Bahamian roots and his own teenage years in Miami. Dreaming of a basketball career, pivoting to culinary school and winding up as personal chef to former NBA player Amar’e Stoudemire.
Key dish: Jerk pork ribs with guava-ginger barbecue sauce and spicy coleslaw.
“I came back to see what was going on and sold out a whole weekend of popup dinners. Growing up in Detroit, you didn’t see chefs and restaurants elevated like that. It was Motor City, not Food City. Now I can invent a dinner based on the recipes of Hercules, a slave who was George Washington’s personal chef, and I can have my restaurant, and I can teach kids in the community. There are so many more ways to strive for greatness as a chef.”
Mashama Bailey, 45, The Grey and The Grey Market, Savannah, Georgia
Shaped by: Moving between New York City and Georgia as a child. Apprenticing with the French cooking teacher Anne Willan. Learning to appreciate the aesthetics of food as a souschef at Prune in Manhattan.
Key dish: Blistered peppers with housemade ricotta and smoked chile powder.
“I used to think the skills my mother and grandmother had were small and insignificant, because the world taught me that black food was small and insignificant. But now I realize what we contribute to food in America is vast. Right now that’s all I want to cook, and I want to cook it on a level that resonates with me, beyond whether it tastes good.”
Kwame Onwuachi, 29, Kith and Kin, Washington
Shaped by: Growing up in the Bronx, selling candy bars on the subway to raise cash to start his first food business. Culinary school, which took him to Mumbai, Hong Kong and the kitchen of Per Se. Feeling different from other kids because of his roots in Nigeria and Trinidad.
Key dish: Whole crispy snapper with brown stew sauce.
“I grew up poor, but I never knew it because I was loved. I grew up cooking right next to my mom in her catering business. We’d get everything ready and then she’d go to the job and I’d play with the mise en place. It was a big deal that she trusted me with her recipes; sometimes I would fail at them, but then they would work out, and she kept me on the path.”
Nina Compton, 40, Compère Lapin and Bywater American Bistro, New Orleans
Shaped by: Growing up in St. Lucia and cooking in kitchens around the Caribbean. Working in the very white, very masculine, very French kitchen at Daniel in Manhattan. Winning “Top Chef ” in 2013.
Key dish: Jamaican-style snapper escovitch with carrot beurre blanc.
“The beauty of ‘Top Chef ’ is that they are truly looking for a diverse cast of chefs, because that makes good television. Restaurant kitchens don’t really care. Most of the places I worked had no use for coconut milk or Scotch bonnet or curry leaves. They want to know if you know the mother sauces. But who serves a sauce Mornay any more? When’s the last time I needed a béchamel? Still, I learned Italian from the best and French from the best, and that gave me the confidence to cook Caribbean at a very high level.”
Edouardo Jordan, 39, Salare, Junebaby and Lucinda Grain Bar, Seattle
Shaped by: Training at the highest levels of fine dining in the United States, France and Italy. A drive to prove he could cook at that level with his first restaurant, Salare. Growing up in Florida, on the home cooking that inspired Junebaby.
Key dish: Stewed pork chitlins and hog maw with okra and tomatoes.
“Like most chefs, my goal with the first restaurant was to flex my muscles a little bit, make sure I have a footprint in the culinary terrain. I only knew one story, the French story. When another space came available, as an entrepreneur I knew I had to take it, but I knew I needed to do a restaurant that was easy for me. Something I could cook with one eye closed and one arm tied behind my back and one leg cut off. And that was my grandmother’s food.”
Tunde Wey, 35, New Orleans
Shaped by: Being bullied at school in Nigeria. Having the familial wealth and privilege to be sent to America for his education, but living here without either one as an undocumented immigrant and black man. Presenting dinners that critique systemic racism by charging white people more than black people for the same food.
Key dish: Stewed chicken, steamed plantain with egg, fried endive and cornmeal with black chile sauce.
“Everywhere, the mechanics of making food are the same. The process of grinding spices, the textures and ingredients, the burning of fuel. We all experience life in the same way, but the social superstructure is different. Everything has politics. Food has politics. It doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed. But it can’t be separated into a rarefied medium that transcends everything else. When food is separated from politics, that is a political act.”