056 Giving Back and Then Some with Chopped Winner and Chef Kenyatta Ashford
Chef and Chopped Winner Kenyatta Ashford joins the show to share his experience with competition food tv and what it is like to pivot. What a journey to now. Join the trio as they dive deep into the ways we pivot and joys that come along with it.
Raised in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans as one of seven siblings, Kenyatta Ashford found his love for food at a young age over lingering family meals hosted by his mother Sharon and his Uncle Walter. Never one to follow a normal path, Ashford became a high school teacher after playing basketball at Lee University. After building a robust teaching and coaching career, Kenyatta’s summer sessions spent helping in a catering kitchen awoke his childhood passion for the tastes of home.
Lead by the memories and the tastes of his childhood. A constant commitment to excellence, Ashford was accepted to the Culinary Institute of America where he built technical expertise and interests in the food ways of his ancestry. After continued study in top tier culinary institutions in New York, Rhode Island, and Louisiana, he went on to study scaled preparation techniques in the hospitality industry through the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like much of the hospitality industry, Kenyatta’s role was furloughed early during the pandemic leaving him with a sound set of skills and a family to help feed. Within weeks, he created the concept for Neutral Ground and set-up shop in Chattanooga’s Proof Incubator. The name Neutral Ground is an homage to the strip of land between neighborhoods in New Orleans that finds its origin in being the trade and gathering area across identities. Ashford carries this spirit into all of his work of creating common spaces where people can come together across backgrounds and beliefs.
The menu at Neutral Ground is a product of Ashford’s “afro-creole” identity and vision where he’s constantly reflecting on and reimagining cuisine that reaches all the way back to his ancestors who were enslaved in West Africa and brought to the Americas and journeys through the rich and often over-simplified culinary traditions of his hometown New Orleans. Dishes on the menu range from bean and rice dishes with strong African influences to interpretations of working class staples from New Orleans like po’boys and yakamein.
Kenyatta recently won Food Network’s Chopped and he and Neutral Ground have been featured in Conde Nast, Eater, Travel Noire, the New York Times and more. Beyond the kitchen, Ashford is passionate about providing pathways for emerging culinary leaders into the industry. His first team member to join Neutral Ground is a former student and player from his coaching days.
On this episode:
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