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Black Chefs Who Are Shaking Up The Culinary World

Black Chefs Who Are Shaking Up The Culinary World

Food as a message and a mission. Ghetto Gastro is a collective of four chefs out of the Bronx who are turning the culinary scene on its edge–literally. The men behind Ghetto Gastro–Gray, 32; Lester Walker, 37; Malcolm Livingston II, 31; Pierre Serrao, 30–not only create a gastronomic experience with the events they cater, but they use their food to talk about social issues and it is a complete experience for all the senses.

“Among them, the chefs have worked at Le Cirque, Jean-Georges, Spice Market, and Noma, to name a few. In 2012, Gray and the group began hosting small dinners (‘Freestyle Fridays) that sought to rethink meals from the point of view of the collective’s origins. Then came the invitations, first from some of Gray’s old friends (in a previous life, he worked in fashion) and then from all over: Rick Owens’s Thanksgiving party; a crazy little private birthday in the Cotswolds with a menu featuring jerk chicken, fried octopus, and pineapple confit,” Vogue reported.

Thier events include fashion, music, film, and visual art–and, of course, food. “These days a full-service Ghetto Gastro event takes on the vibe of an art installation, as they oversee each small detail of the process: cooking the food, selecting DJs, designing the event space, and having input on performers. The group’s base rate is $60,000,” Wired reported.

Ghetto Gastro was formed in 2012 and they have amassed such clients as Airbnb, Microsoft, fashion maven Michèle Lamy, and Bank of America. “They don’t have a brick-and-mortar restaurant. There’s no food truck with their logo on it, its Futura Bold sprayed on in gaudy red. Ghetto Gastro exists mostly among the people. They aren’t just chefs; they’re cultural ambassadors. The collective turns a profit by arranging events for private clients, mid-level brands, and major corporations, which can range from a dinner with a dozen guests to a tricked-out, lavish bazaar with 2,000 people,” Wired reported.

“It’s a Black Power kitchen,” Gray told Vogue. “And right now, we’re pulling together a lot of things from different diasporas—from favelas in Brazil, shantytowns in South Africa.”

Gray called what Ghetto Gastro does as part “performance art.” For example, in 2016, “for an event hosted by the artist Hank Willis Thomas, Serrao devised a deconstructed apple pie dessert that was inspired by the social-justice movement Black Lives Matter. (‘It’s about as American as killing Black men,’ he says.) Some plates even included a chalk outline,” Wire reported.

Besides word of mouth, many potential clients find out about Ghetto gastro is through social media. They also have a web series with Spotify called “The Cook Up.”

The ultimate goal of the collective is to create a more sustainable future for the Bronx. And that will involve TV and film products; a line of cookbooks; merch and cookware (a line of knives is planned for this fall); exhibitions; a state-of-the-art cultural hub in the South Bronx that will include a test kitchen, media studio, gallery, commercial space, and educational facility for neighborhood children. There is also a plan for a community vegetable garden, a series of all-natural food lines (seasonings and vegan ice cream).

According to Serrao in an interview with Wired, the space should “generate a new awakening among kids who only think you can rap, trap, or be an athlete to get up out of the hood.” Considering the South Bronx has one of the highest rates of hunger in the U.S., Ghetto Gastro’s mission will definitely change lives for the better.

“It’s not about making some restaurant that seats 80 people who come from out of the neighborhood,” Gray told Vogue. “So much came out of here, and really, what’s hip-hop but taking things and cutting them up and reworking them? That’s modernism. That’s the Bronx.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfG8H8Ils5k/?hl=en&taken-by=ghettogastro

The chefs at Ghetto Gastro aren’t the only ones shaking up the culinary world. Seattle chef Edouardo Jordan has just won not one but two awrads the 2018 James Beard awards. He won Best New Restaurant in the country for his Southern star JuneBaby as well as the prize of Best Chef: Northwest. “These two awards from the restaurant industry’s most prestigious organization top Jordan’s sizable pile of recent accolades — and most deservedly so,” the Seattle Times reported.

In his acceptance speech, Jordan said, “I stand in the shadows of chef Patrick Clark, chef Rodney Scott, chef Nina Compton, chef Dolester Miles, chef Marcus Samuelsson, chef Leah Chase, and all the other chefs that never made it to this stage, but they’ve been pounding their knives against the walls and their cutting boards, and we finally cracked through… This is a beautiful time in our industry, that we’re able to capture the beautiful color and pictures that actually have made American cuisine — the food and the history.”