Chef Charlie Mitchell did not realize he was a history maker after being announced as Michelin’s 2022 New York Young Chef Award winner.
The African-American executive chef reportedly has become not only the first Black New Yorker to win the honor but the second Black person in the nation to boast such a claim.
“You always think about the people, so many people have come before you,” Mitchell, 30, said in an interview with “Today” co-host Craig Melvin. “You just assume that someone has already done this; you know, it doesn’t cross your mind that you may be the first or second to do really anything, especially here in New York City.”
Mitchell, the co-owner of Clover Hill with Clay Castillo and Gabriel Merino was recognized as the top young chef of the year, but after only one year of being open, the establishment earned a Michelin star.
But this acclaim has not happened overnight.
The Detroit native grew up on the Motor City’s west side and was inspired to cook by watching his grandmother as a child, recalling, “I think the thing that stuck with me the most is she used to do this whole fry fish, like whole fry bass all the time when I was younger. I think that stood out the most.”
One of his first jobs, according to The Detroit News, was working at Forest Grill in Birmingham, Michigan, under chef Brian Polcyn. He stayed at the restaurant for three years, including when the eatery was acquired by Samy Eid. Eid brought in Nick Janutol, who served as the executive chef in 2015. Many of the techniques that Janutol taught him he was able to bring with him to New York.
“During that time, I was sous-chef,” he said. “At that time Nick was fresh out of fine dining, he had just left Chicago, and he had popped up in Detroit … for that opening crew that we had, he really ran that place like a fine dining restaurant. He gave me all of my foundations like how to work in a more classic kitchen. We did a lot of classic…
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