by Ebony L. Morman

Each History & Homage dinner has a new theme. Photo courtesy

For the past three years, chefs Chayil Johnson and Brandon Staton have hosted an annual dinner inspired by a casual night in. The friends were flipping through cookbooks and crafting menus for the fun of it. Their fondness of Edna Lewis, a respected Black chef and cookbook author, came up, along with her contemporaries, and the two wanted to find a way to honor these chefs who paved the way for their careers. History and Homage was the answer. 

“Our first dinner was in 2020 and each dinner has a different theme,” Johnson says. “The aim of it is to pay homage to some part of African American history in relation to food and that can look different in so many ways.” 

The first dinner paid respect to chefs who have influenced Johnson and Staton or influenced Black culture and Black cuisine. One dinner was themed Black celebration and multiple local chefs joined the pair, serving dishes that highlighted their hometown regions. The most recent dinner highlighted Black literature and each course was accompanied by live readings. Chefs curated dishes that were inspired by a form of Black literature — books, short stories, poems, playwrights, or song lyrics. 

Chef Chayil Johnson of Community Matters Cafe. Photo courtesy

This year’s History & Homage: A Celebration of Black History dinner takes place on March 2 at Community Matters Cafe, where Johnson serves as executive chef. Johnson and Staton, who is Uptown Yolk’s chef de cuisine, will host 55 guests in an intimate experience, a seven-course dinner (with mocktail pairings) that pays tribute to fine dining within Black cuisine. Diners will taste food inspired by Black chefs who played a role in America’s fine dining scene: Edna Lewis, Leah Chase, and Patrick Clark, to name a few. These women and men have also inspired both chefs in some way during their own careers. 

“This dinner is going to be more courses and more small plates,” Johnson says. “There’ll be an emphasis on elevated dishes while also giving a big history lesson on the impact that the chefs have made during their respective time frame.” 

It’s also an opportunity for both chefs to showcase fine dining techniques. They each worked at The Ashbury in The Dunhill Hotel prior to transitioning to their current restaurants. 

While Johnson’s work at Community Matters Cafe is a stark contrast to what’ll be presented at the upcoming History and Homage dinner, it’s right in line with his overall approach to food, which involves storytelling. 

At the cafe, the New Orleans native develops elevated yet approachable breakfast and lunch dishes inspired by Cajun and Creole cuisine. The cafe’s menu is also influenced by the seasons, which means it changes at least four times throughout the year. 

“We try to get as much from local farmers as we can so people can have a better understanding of what local North Carolina indigenous ingredients look like,” Johnson says. “I was also trained in Middle Eastern, Northern African and Israeli cuisine. So I usually have implementations of that also on the menu.” 

Johnson’s melting pot of experiences, especially those connected to food, lend themselves to storytelling.

“When I’m trying to create a new menu item, I try to pull from a life experience that I had or somewhere that I’ve traveled or something I tasted or seen before and I really let it just speak naturally from there,” he says. “Then, I’m really trying to utilize the ingredients in the best way that I can. I don’t want a sweet potato to taste like something else. If I’m using sweet potato,  I really want you to taste sweet potato.” 

Johnson’s commitment to maintaining the integrity of ingredients is connected to his hometown and his culinary education, which started when he was 12. Growing up in New Orleans, where there’s a rich food culture, meant that Johnson’s core memories always involve food, from crawfish boils and picking fresh Satsuma off of trees to the jazz and French Quarter festivals. He spent his middle and high school years in a pilot culinary arts program at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), a pre-professional arts training school. Johnson moved to Charlotte in 2015 to attend Johnson & Wales University. 

These days, Johnson spends less time in the kitchen. Outside of helping with prep and menu development, many of his responsibilities at the cafe — a nonprofit — align with leadership and business administration, which he’s currently studying in school. Johnson is consistently motivated by his father’s advice that stressed the importance of knowing what you don’t know. This fuels his desire to consistently learn and grow. 

Over the years, people have been impressed when Johnson and Staton share food stories and their knowledge about Black culture and Black history in relation to food, Johnson says. But the chefs gain that wisdom only through studying and researching in preparation for the dinners. They are proud to be able to share their excitement and educate people. 

“To see that excitement that people get from all walks of life and all nationalities and to share that experience through food is a very rewarding and powerful thing,” he says. 

History & Homage dinner tickets are $120 per person. A limited number of tickets remain, and can be purchased online.