Chef Scholar

Chef Kevin Mitchell is The Chef Scholar.

Chef Kevin Mitchell is the first African American Chef Instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, where he is involved in designing curriculum and teaching.  With David S. Shields he is the author of Taste the State: South Carolina’s Signature Foods, Recipes, and Their Stories, on sale August 2021. Learn more at uscpress.com/Taste-the-State.

Chef Mitchell is one of South Carolina’s most notable chefs.  A Nathalie Dupree Graduate Fellow of the Southern Foodways Alliance, he is an advocate for the preservation of Southern ingredients and has earned a reputation for expertise on the historical significance of African American cuisine.  In 2015 he was a Chef Coordinator for Nat Fuller’s Feast, a recreation of a banquet held in Charleston in 1865 by renowned chef and caterer Nat Fuller, the first to bring together both black and white patrons to break bread in a celebration of the end of the Civil War. He is a board member of Slow Food Charleston, an active member of the American Culinary Federation, and a founding father of the BCA, Bridging Culinary Awareness, a mentoring program promoting culinary arts as a career option for challenged high school students.

Chef Mitchell has culinary arts degrees in occupational studies and management from the Culinary Institute of America and a master’s degree in southern studies from the University of Mississippi. He is a South Carolina Chef Ambassador for 2020 and 2021.

With David S. Shields he is the author of Taste the State: South Carolina’s Signature Foods, Recipes, and Their Stories, on sale August 2021. Learn more and pre-order at uscpress.com/Taste-the-State.