Elijah Milligan is all about baby steps. After more than 15 years in the restaurant business, the chef is happy to note that the changes he’s been fighting for are finally taking hold across the industry. Much of that is due to what he calls his “baby,” Cooking for the Culture, a culinary network devoted to connecting and helping Black chefs all around the country. The project has made headlines through a series of pop-up dinners helmed by minority cooks — but the effort goes much deeper than that. In this Voices in Food story, the professional chef tells Anna Rahmanan about the struggles he’s had to overcome, how COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have positively affected the gastronomy world and what dining will likely look like in the near future.
On being one of the few Black chefs on the scene
I’ve been a chef now