Black History Month | Princeton Campus Dining

As a small child, Kevin Mitchell learned the importance of cooking in his grandmother Doris’s kitchen. After receiving AOS and BPS degrees from the Culinary Institute of America in 1991 and 1996 respectively, Chef Mitchell refined his skills in notable restaurants nationwide and has since become one of Charleston, South Carolina’s most recognizable and accomplished chefs. As a chef instructor, culinary historian, and scholar of historical foodways of the American South, Chef Mitchell works tirelessly to preserve southern ingredients and champion the historical significance of African Americans in the culinary arts.

Among Chef Mitchell’s passion for good food, he expertly shares the stories behind the uniquely regional dishes we enjoy today. In his own words, it is vital to “connect the food to the people” and remember the once enslaved chefs and cooks “on whose shoulders we stand for creating the food we now know as Southern cuisine.”

He sits on numerous boards and advisory committees, including a national board member of Slow Food USA, a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance (of which he was also a Nathalie Dupree Graduate Fellow in 2016, a board member of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, and the Charleston Wine and Food Festival to name a few. Chef Mitchell was recently named a South Carolina Chef Ambassador for 2020, a leadership position he held through 2020 and 2021. In 2019, Chef was contracted by the University of South Carolina Press to write a book that addresses South Carolina products and dishes. He wrote this book with Dr. David Shields, a University of South Carolina professor. The book was released in October 2021. The University of South Carolina Press again contracted Chef Mitchell to write a book with Dr. David Shields addressing Georgia products and dishes. This book is proposed to be released by the end of 2024.