Kevin Mitchell

Chef Kevin Mitchell, MA, is a Charleston-based chef instructor, culinary historian, and South Carolina Chef Ambassador (2020–2021). A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and the University of Mississippi, Mitchell has become a leading voice in documenting and preserving Southern foodways and highlighting the essential contributions of African Americans to American cuisine. Currently a Chef Instructor and Program Ambassador at the Culinary Institute of Charleston and an adjunct lecturer at the CIA, he is also a board member of Slow Food USA, the Southern Foodways Alliance, and the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation.

Mitchell is the co-author of Taste the State: South Carolina’s Signature Foods, Recipes, and Their Stories and Taste the State: Georgia, both with Dr. David Shields for the University of South Carolina Press. In 2015, he served as Chef Coordinator for the 150th anniversary reenactment of Nat Fuller’s Feast, memorializing the once-enslaved Charleston chef whose groundbreaking 1865 banquet symbolized reconciliation at the end of the Civil War.

His upcoming television series, Savers of Flavor, co-hosted with Dr. Shields, blends documentary, travelogue, and cooking show to explore endangered regional ingredients from coast to foothills. The series will premiere on South Carolina Educational Television in 2026.