Whether you appreciate fine dining or view it as an extravagance where you pay a premium for petite portions, the industry undeniably offers delicious advantages. With its focus on lavish ambiance, impeccable service, and creative menus, fine dining often challenges conventional culinary perceptions while redefining luxury. Fortunately, the landscape is evolving with the entry of Charlie Mitchell, the first Black male Michelin-star chef-owner in the United States, adding a fresh perspective to the scene.
Mitchell, the executive chef and co-owner of Clover Hill in New York’s Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, is generating excitement with his innovative approach to fine dining. As a young Black American man, Mitchell has made it his mission to infuse his cultural heritage into his brand, especially after being recognized as the Michelin 2022 NYC Young Chef Award Winner and a 2023 James Beard Finalist.
“When you grow up eating soul food, it’s a lot of sodium,” Mitchell tells theGrio. “It’s a lot of layers of flavors; it’s salt, it’s fat, it’s lard, it’s hot sauce. We wanna taste our food, and bringing that to a fine-dining menu, I think, caught people off guard — especially when you cook with a lot of Japanese ingredients and Japanese fish.
“But our approach and my personality is like, no! I know how I grew up eating. I know how I love to eat, and I wanna taste layers and flavors — big flavors,” he continues, laughing. “Some people are like, are you putting hot sauce in that? I’m like, yeah! … It doesn’t matter what we use. Maybe we will use Lawry’s one day, I don’t know. But bringing those big flavors, I think, is something very unique to how we cook here.”
Only two years since reopening post-pandemic with Mitchell and his partners at the helm, Clover Hill embodies a fresh yet different fine dining atmosphere focused on intimacy, warmth, and thoughtfully crafted dishes designed to delight the palate and…
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