CLEVELAND, Miss. - The James Beard Foundation (JBF) recently announced that chef Cole Ellis of Delta Meat Market & Bar Fontaine in Cleveland will be cooking at the landmark James Beard House on Feb, 22, 2020.
Beginning with a fundraising dinner cooked by Wolfgang Puck in early 1987, the James Beard House has become a milestone in the careers of chefs including Tom Colicchio, Marcus Samuelsson, Nancy Silverton, and Dominique Crenn.
"This is a huge honor to be able to bring a taste of the Delta to The James Beard House with my dinner, Southern Meets Italian. I can't wait to showcase both concepts, Bar Fontaine and Delta Meat Market in NY," says chef Cole Ellis.
"We love what chef Cole Ellis is doing in his hometown. His market, butcher shop, and restaurant has great hospitality and style, and we are honored to bring those flavors and put a spotlight on his vibrant community at the Beard House," says Izabela Wojcik, Director of House Programming at the James Beard Foundation.
Mission: The James Beard Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to celebrate, nurture, and honor chefs and other leaders making America's food culture more delicious, diverse, and sustainable for everyone. About the James Beard Foundation: The James Beard Foundation promotes Good Food for Good™. For more than 30 years, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization has highlighted the centrality of food culture in our daily lives. Through the James Beard Awards, unique dining experiences at the James Beard House and around the country, scholarships, hands-on learning, and a variety of industry programs that educate and empower leaders in our community, the Foundation has built a platform for chefs and asserted the power of gastronomy to drive behavior, culture, and policy change around food. To that end, the Foundation has also created signature impact-oriented initiatives that include our Women’s Leadership Programs, aimed at addressing the gender imbalance in the culinary industry; advocacy training through our Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change; and the James Beard Foundation Leadership Awards, which shine a spotlight on successful change makers. The organization is committed to giving chefs and their colleagues a voice and the tools they need to make the world more sustainable, equitable, and delicious for everyone. For more information, please visit jamesbeard.org and follow @beardfoundation on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
About Cole Ellis:
A Culinary Institute of Charleston graduate with a Bachelors of Culinary Arts in Baking and Pastry, as well as a Bachelors of Restaurant and Hotel Management, Cole Ellis spent 13 years in Charleston and Nashville under the tutelage of Tom Colicchio and Sean Brock. Cole worked in some of Charleston’s most acclaimed kitchens such as Magnolia’s, Hominy Grill, and Carolina’s, as well as Voysey’s Pub and The Tides, both Colicchio properties, located on Kiawah Island. He left Charleston to work with chef Tyler Brown at the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville where he took on the chef de cuisine post, and was responsible for raising livestock and running the vegetable garden for the property’s Capitol Grille. In 2013, Cole returned to his hometown of Cleveland, Mississippi to open Delta Meat Market, a butcher shop and boutique grocer of fine Southern foods. Cole was nominated as a semifinalist in 2017 for the James Beard Award “Best Chef South,” and Delta Meat Market has been recognized for its butchery program in Bon Appetit, Delta Magazine, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, and more.