These tastemakers want Black food to be more than a side dish

Success can be elusive for Black restaurateurs, but a cohort of buzzy chefs is working to change that

Few food personalities enjoy as high a profile as Joseph Johnson. “Chef JJ”, as the New York chef is known to his fans, has a colossal social media following, a long-running cooking show and a name that’s a staple of the who’s who lists that appear in major food publications.

Trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Johnson took a break from the US restaurant scene early in his career to spend time in kitchens in west Africa. The experience, he says, forever changed how he looked at the food of his ancestors, which was largely absent from the types of restaurants with crisp white tablecloths and punctilious waitstaff. Johnson decided he would devote himself to addressing that imbalance.