This story is copublished with Outlier Media.
On a Monday afternoon at Detroit’s Breithaupt Career and Technical Center, chef and teacher Alphonso Turner walked into one of the school’s commercial kitchens and put down a severed deer head.
Each year, Turner hunts a deer and brings it into the classroom to teach students how to process and cook the meat. It’s one of many culinary skills Breithaupt covers, alongside baking and sauce-making. During class, students in black chef coats, their names stitched across the chest, worked together to prepare a meal for 30 people. Each year, they train in Breithaupt’s food services program.
Since the ‘80s, instructors at the Detroit high school have shaped the next generation of culinary talent. The school is helping to boost Black representation in the industry — where Black people have historically been excluded from leadership roles and underrepresented in fine dining recognition and awards.
It wasn’t until 2019 that a U.S. restaurant run by Black chef, Mariya Russell, received a Michelin star, one of the highest awards in the industry. In 2022, Charlie Mitchell — who grew up in Detroit — won a Michelin.
The school is one of several spaces in Detroit where experienced Black chefs are passing the baton at a time when restaurants open and shutter quickly, and stereotypes can discourage Black chefs from expanding their craft.
Turner, who has taught at the school for a decade, said he enjoys molding young minds and emphasizing a traditional approach to cooking.
“We really need to get back to the grassroots foundation of culinary arts,” Turner said. “Getting back into the mother sauces, making stocks and things from scratch.”
Cooking while Black
Kiki Louya has been cooking since she was 14. Her father is from the Democratic Republic of Congo — a fact she said led to stereotypes from her previous employers and colleagues.
“Sometimes people want to pigeonhole your food,” said Louya. “They expect you to cook a certain way. … I’m a chef at the end of the day. I don’t just cook soul food, and I don’t just cook African food.”
Today, Louya is the executive director of Detroit Food Academy, which provides culinary education and experience for local teens. She wants young Black cooks and bakers to have a different experience than she did — to embrace their culture and deepen their craft so they have more success in the industry.
“I don’t think we’re oversaturated with restaurants. As a matter of fact, I think that we are oversaturated sometimes with the same kind of restaurants, similar price points, similar perspectives,” Louya said. “I think that there is room for a lot of different palates, and I do not think that we have even scratched the surface.”
“There is always room for more spaces and more perspectives in the restaurant industry.”
Louya encourages new chefs to open businesses using more affordable alternatives like pop-ups and food trucks, which carry less overhead than traditional brick-and-mortar establishments.
Mentorship is also crucial for Detroit culinary hopefuls. Programs like the Black Food & Wine connect young chefs with professionals to gain valuable insights and build community.
Chef Omar Mitchell, owner of Table No. 2 in downtown Detroit, hosted the inaugural Black Excellence Culinary Symphony last year to raise awareness about food prep education in Detroit public schools. Mitchell himself started at Detroit’s other public food services trade school, Golightly Career and Technical Center. A chef since 1992, Mitchell is also intentional about his hiring practices, offering employment to single mothers, returning citizens and those without high school diplomas.
“It’s letting them know that, hey, I’m from your local neighborhood. I have the same story, trials and tribulations that you may experience in life,” Mitchell said. “If I can make it, you can certainly make it.”
Passing on the craft
Back at Breithaupt, 16-year-old Allysa Skyy Edwards had just finished preparing pie filling.
Edwards, in her second year at Breithaupt, dreams of owning a restaurant one day where she’ll focus on baked goods, including her favorite dish: sweet potato pie. She’s following in the footsteps of her mother, a chef and catering business owner.
“I like it. It’s fun to do,” said Edwards. “You can express yourself through food, like you can make it to your liking.”
Even though she grew up cooking, Edwards said the program is preparing her for restaurant ownership in ways she hadn’t imagined.
“I’ve learned a lot of things I didn’t know before, like all the sanitation safeties, how cross contamination works. I’ve learned so much that can help me push towards owning a restaurant,” she said.
Turner said watching his students go on to bigger opportunities — like culinary school, the military or owning their own businesses — fills him with pride. He’s determined to keep empowering culinary students, especially Black students, to succeed.
“A lot of our students … come in at a disadvantage,” Turner said. “They’re told what they cannot do. A lot of them, they may come in with low self-esteem, and they’ll say, ‘Well, I can’t do this.’ And I tell them, ‘There’s no such thing as you can’t. You are in control of your own destiny.’”
“When they get that, they just push themselves. They become successful in this program, and they take so much pride in what they do.”