Born in Detroit, Michigan, he began his culinary career in his early twenties after leaving college, completing his first stage at Benu in San Francisco. He has worked in several fine-dining restaurants throughout San Francisco, New York City, and Washington D.C. Mitchell helped to open Clover Hill in Brooklyn Heights in 2021, where he earned his first Michelin star as executive chef and co-owner. Mitchell became the first Black chef in New York City to earn a Michelin star and the second Black executive chef in the United States to do so.
Mitchell was born in Detroit in 1992.[1][2] His family lived on the West Side of Detroit during Mitchell's adolescence[3] and moved to Southfield, Michigan, when he was a teenager.[4] Mitchell has credited his grandmothers and family gatherings centered on food for sparking his early interest in cooking.[5] Food was used by his family as a means of celebration and community.[6]
Mitchell attended Schoolcraft College in a suburb of Detroit.[7] After completing college at 19, Mitchell began his culinary career at 24 Grille in Detroit,[8] where he became a pantry chef after working as a valet at the restaurant and asking the sous chef for a job in the kitchen.[8] He later joined the team at Forest Grill in Birmingham, Michigan, where he became sous-chef within 3 years.[9] During this period, he worked under executive chef Nick Janutol, whom Mitchell credits for providing his foundations in fine dining, primarily how to behave in fine dining kitchens.[4][10] In 2016, Mitchell moved to New York City,[11] where he attended culinary school briefly before leaving to gain practical experience in fine-dining kitchens.[3][12] Mitchell chose to leave culinary school because he felt hat the debt that he would accrue would not be worth it; he valued the on-the-job experience more.[13]
Career
2016–2021
Mitchell trained in several fine dining restaurants, many with Michelin stars. His first experience in fine-dining came through a stage at Benu, the first three Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco.[1][14] After relocating to New York City, Mitchell began seeking employment by searching for nearby restaurants on the internet,[15] subsequently joining the brigade at Eleven Madison Park as chef de partie under Daniel Humm.[16] After it was announced that Mitchell would be joining Saga as executive chef, Humm told Food & Beverage Magazine that "[Mitchell's] cooking has a rare combination of precision, creativity, and soul – making him the perfect chef to carry Saga's legacy forward."[17] Mitchell also gained experience in various other fine-dining restaurants, including Betony (now closed),[18]Per Se, Blue Hill,[14] and One White Street, where Mitchell served as executive sous-chef.[19][20]
In 2019, Mitchell planned to move to Norway to continue his career but was unable to make the move because of COVID-19 lockdowns. When the lockdowns began, he instead moved back to Detroit and then to Washington, D.C.,[21] where he helped open Jônt, which now holds two Michelin stars,[22] and Bresca.[19] He returned to New York City in 2021.[23]
Clover Hill, 2022–2024
In 2022, Mitchell joined Clay Castillo and Gabriel Merino as co-owner, partner, and executive chef of Clover Hill in Brooklyn Heights, marking his first head of kitchen role.[24][19] As executive chef, Mitchell helped to shape the restaurant's concept, menu, and overall dining experience.[20] Musician Laura Lee Ochoa described Clover Hill as her favorite Michelin-starred restaurant, noting the distinctive atmosphere created by Mitchell’s choices, including the music played during service.[25] Mitchell created the playlists of music that played during dinner services, typically including genres such as R&B, soul music, and hip-hop. He curated the restaurant's playlists, using music and menu design as complementary forms of creative expression.[6]
In 2022, less than a year after Clover Hill reopened, Mitchell was awarded the Michelin Guide New York Young Chef Award[26] and earned his first Michelin star.[27] Mitchell was recognized as the only Black chef in the United States to win both a star and the Young Chef Award in the same year.[28] He is also the first Black chef in New York City and only the second Black chef in the United States to earn a Michelin star.[29] In a 2023 interview with Today, when asked if he knew of the historic implications of his receiving the Michelin star, Mitchell admitted that he did not. He further commented:
You always think about the people, so many people have come before you. 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 [...] I think a lot of times, we’re chasing a very different American dream, then to kind of put up with these aggressive environments that are often led by people who don’t look like us.[sic][12]
In 2024, Clover Hill was ranked 46th out of the 100 best restaurants in New York City by food critic Pete Wells, who highlighted Mitchell's use of seasonal ingredients. Wells commended him, stating that Mitchell's commitment to his cooking was evident in the dishes being served.[30] Also in 2024, Mitchell was awarded the James Beard Award for Best Chef, becoming the only chef to be awarded by the James Beard Foundation from the city that year.[31]
For the 50th anniversary of the Rockhouse Hotel and 20th anniversary of the Rockhouse Foundation, Chef Mitchell was invited to take part in the Dinner on the Beach series in Jamaica with Andre Fowles. Taking place on June 22, 2024, the dinner focused on local ingredients. Mitchell commented that the experience helped him to learn to "let the ingredients tell you what to do with them."[32]
Saga
Mitchell joined Gavin Kaysen at his restaurant, Demi, in June 2025 as a guest chef for a special series that featured multiple Michelin-starred chefs. The menu for the North Star series featured a tasting menu and beverage pairings. Other chefs included in the series were husband-wife team Kyle and Katina Connaughton, from SingleThread, and Brandon Jew, from Mister Jiu's.[33] On September 9, Frasca Food and Wine of Boulder, Colorado, hosted Mitchell and his team from Saga for a one-night guest chef dinner.[28]
On October 2, 2025, Mitchell appeared as a guest judge on Bobby's Triple Threat. He judged 3 rounds between Maneet Chauhan and "the Titans" –Michael Voltaggio, Brooke Williamson, and Ayesha Nurdjaja. Mitchell stated that he would be judging the dishes not only on taste. He explained, "Intentionality is also very important … being able to see the decisions that are made by the chef, and understand why you made those decisions, is important."[34] Nurdjaja characterized Mitchell as a chef who maintains high professional standards while also being known for his considerate and friendly demeanor.[34]
As of October17,2025[update], Mitchell is the executive chef of Saga, a two Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan, N.Y.[35][36] He took over the role of executive chef after founder James Kent unexpectedly died.[16] In his role as executive chef, he creates the menu as well as curating the environment of the restaurant, including music[16] and decor.[37] As of 2025, Mitchell is also a partner of the Kent Hospitality Group, formerly Saga Hospitality, alongside Kelly Kent – James Kent's wife – and Danny Garcia – winner of season 21 of Top Chef and executive chef of Time & Tide.[14]
Culinary approach
Mitchell emphasizes a collaborative and supportive kitchen culture, contrasting it with the high-pressure environments he experienced earlier in his career.[18] In an interview with Jake Nevins in 2024, while being asked about the environment that exists in Michelin-starred restaurants, Mitchell said, "I try to create an environment where it’s safe to learn. And in those kitchens where you’re getting screamed at and chased around, you’re not really learning."[23] Another aspect of this style of leading the kitchen includes sharing details of restaurant management with his staff. Mitchell is open about restaurant costs, menu creation, and other lesser-known aspects of restaurant management. He recalls being surprised about how difficult dealing with trash from the restaurant was[38] and wants his staff to have knowledge of all of these processes.[39] A chef who has worked with Mitchell for several years, Max Guillaume, has stated that working under Chef Mitchell involves frequent collaboration.[11] Chef Kent provided guidance for Mitchell at the beginning of his career as executive chef by pushing him to "stick to the craft, and the rest will fall in line." This advice is quoted often by Mitchell and has become the basis of encouragement that he gives to young chefs.[1]
Critics have described his cooking as ingredient-driven and precise. Helen Rosner of The New Yorker noted that Mitchell's cooking at Clover Hill had "the subtlety and precision of any Manhattan-billionaire canteen," while maintaining a straightforward service style free of theatrical presentations that were often seen in other Michelin-starred restaurants.[40] At Saga, Mitchell has maintained his focus on simplicity, replacing the more elaborate presentations used under Kent[37] with a simpler, ingredient-driven approach. Dishes are presented simply with minimal description, and the diner is left to experience the food.[40] His menu planning begins with the selection of local, seasonal ingredients, around which he develops each dish.[19]
Mitchell regularly mentions his grandmother's cooking and the food that he grew up with when talking about the style of cooking that he is aiming for.[16][37] He has talked about how his grandmother would cook holiday meals for 20–40 people alone and how he was impressed by this as a child, and it still impresses him as a professional.[39] While being interviewed by The Ultimate Dish Podcast, Mitchell recounted how as a child his grandmothers would feed everyone and would always have food available. He goes on to explain that being able to welcome people into his restaurant any day of the week and to always have food available ties his work to the memories of his childhood.[1] The Michelin Guide interviewed Mitchell after his Young Chef Award win in October 2022; he spoke of how much a "good meal can change someone's day," something he learned from watching his grandmother cook.[41] As a child he would watch his grandmother prepare meals for the family and aspired to provide that feeling of home to people that eat his food.[42] Mitchell cooks with the intention to make people feel comfortable, "not intimidated by the food that’s in front of them."[2] He aims to use nostalgia as a flavor and food as a language to convey his vision.[43]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
