What can we learn from each other to secure a future for the restaurant industry?

While the pandemic has remained constant, the seasons and some policies regarding restaurants have begun to change. MOFAD has gathered a diverse group of esteemed chefs, operators, and industry professionals from around the country to listen and learn about each other's particular obstacles, ideas and best practices as we enter this next phase of dining.

In a panel conversation led by The New Yorker’s roving food correspondent Helen Rosner, we’ll be discussing how restaurants can continue to survive the pandemic with little government support; how they are rebuilding their models; and how equity is an integral part of sustainability.

*Tickets are free but you must register with your email in order to receive the zoom link

REEM ASSIL

Reem Assil is a Palestinian-Syrian chef based in Oakland, CA. She is the owner of Reem’s California, a nationally acclaimed restaurant, inspired by her passion for Arab street corner bakeries and the vibrant communities that surround them. Barely a year after opening Reem’s in 2017, Assil opened an Arab fine dining concept, Dyafa, in partnership with Alta Restaurant Group, earning it a place on the Michelin Guide and Bib Gourmand’s List in its first year.

Before dedicating herself to a culinary career, Reem worked as a labor and community organizer at SEIU Local 1877 and East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE).

Reem spent more than a decade training organizers and leaders all over the country with organizations like Center for Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Third World Organizing, School of Unity and Liberation and the DataCenter. She is a graduate of the competitive food business incubator program, La Cocina, business leadership program Centro Community Partners, and Oakland-based business accelerator program ICA: Fund Good Jobs.

Photo by Nicole DuBois

VISHWESH BHATT

2019 Southern Living’s Southerner of the Year and 2019 James Beard Foundation Best Chef South, Vishwesh Bhatt has been a part of Chef John Currence’s City Grocery Restaurant Group since 1997. Vishwesh started off as a prep cook at City Grocery and worked his way up to Executive Chef at Snackbar, which opened in 2009. At Snackbar, using his years of culinary experience and exposure to worldwide cultures, he has developed a menu that intertwines both Southern and subcontinental foodways. He and his wife live in Oxford, MS with their cat Bitbit, where Vishwesh is finishing his first book for W W Norton & Co.

AMANDA COHEN

Amanda Cohen is the James Beard-nominated chef and owner of Dirt Candy, the award-winning vegetable restaurant on New York City's Lower East Side. She is also one of the Iron Chefs on Iron Chef Canada alongside Susur Lee, Lynn Crawford, Rob Feenie, and Hugh Acheson, and she is a board member and treasurer of Women Chefs and Restaurateurs. Dirt Candy was the first vegetable-focused restaurant in the city and is a pioneer of the vegetable-forward movement.

Dirt Candy’s original location only had 18 seats and was open for seven years, during which time it became the first vegetarian restaurant in 17 years to receive two stars from the New York Times, was recognized by the Michelin Guide five years in a row, and won awards from Gourmet Magazine, the Village Voice, and many others. Its new location opened in January, 2015 and was the first restaurant in the city to eliminate tipping and share profits with its employees. Amanda was the first vegetarian chef to compete on Iron Chef: America and her comic book cookbook, Dirt Candy: A Cookbook, is the first graphic novel cookbook to be published in North America. It's currently in its seventh printing. She is also a Canadian. In 2018, New York Magazine named Dirt Candy "The Absolute Best Restaurant on the Lower East Side" and Wine Enthusiast selected it as one of the 100 Best Wine Restaurants in America.

DEVITA DAVISON

Devita Davison is the Executive Director of FoodLab Detroit, a nonprofit organization that fosters the creation of an equitable local food economy by providing food entrepreneurs with education, peer-to-peer mentoring, and access to market opportunities. By primarily focusing on supporting women-owned food businesses from communities of color, FoodLab aims to improve Detroit’s neighborhoods by allowing everyone to take part in the development of a local food culture. Devita’s overall goal is to create a food economy that acknowledges the importance of food justice, community health, and local ownership. She honed the theory and practice of Equitable Food Oriented Development that is at the core of FoodLab’s work. Devita’s 2017 TED Talk has been seen over 1 Million times. She is a 2017 Grist Top 50 Leader in sustainability, and a 2019 Sustainability Champion. She is a graduate of Michigan State University where she received a B.S. in Social Science.

SIMONE JACOBSON

Toli Moli and Thamee co-founder Simone Jacobson has been recognized as the "Cultural Connector D.C. Needs Right Now" by Bon Appétit magazine. She was also Food Curator & Video Producer for the first Asian Night Market on the National Mall and an ongoing series at the Museum of Food and Drink in Brooklyn, NY, starting with the launch of the Museum's first partnered exhibition. In 2017, she served as project manager for "The Blackest Thing To See Before Trump's Inauguration" (Essence magazine), spearheaded and directed the return of the internationally renowned urban dance battle Juste Debout to the Americas in 2018. As Director of Operations for Thamee, she oversees events, marketing, partnerships, guest and public relations, and a diverse range of special projects aimed at uplifting marginalized communities and facilitating equitable, inclusive environments. In its first year of operations before the COVID-19 crisis brought the hospitality industry to a devastating halt, Thamee was named among the best restaurants nationwide by Food and Wine, Thrillist and The Washington Post, was a semifinalist for a James Beard Award, and was voted Eater DC's Restaurant of the Year. Simone's essays have been published in Eater, Gawker and Fusion, and she is currently working on a book of literary nonfiction to try to make sense of the status quo.

ERIC RIVERA

Hailing from Olympia, Washington with family roots in Puerto Rico, Eric Rivera started his career in business but cooking was always his passion and he wasn’t afraid to hustle to get where he is today. His journey to Eric Rivera Cooks, A Restaurant Group, has taken many noteworthy twists and turns, including a 3-plus year stint at Alinea in Chicago, where he was Director of Culinary Research Operations working alongside chef-owner Grant Achatz.

Eric, a graduate of the Culinary School at the Art Institute of Seattle, traces cooking back to when he was a small child. Growing up in a Puerto Rican family that celebrated food, Eric often cooked with his grandfather. Now with his own restaurant group, Eric plays to his guests’ sense of discovery, “It’s an exploration of the whole flavor spectrum where you can go from sweet to savory to sour in one bite,” he says.

Addo is the flagship project for his restaurant group where many projects are in the works that will someday find their own homes outside of the Addo ecosystem.

HELEN ROSNER

Helen Rosner is The New Yorker’s roving food correspondent, contributing essays and reported stories on all things gastronomic to newyorker.com. She has been covering food for more than a decade as a writer and editor, and won a James Beard Award, in 2016, for her ode to chicken tenders, in Guernica. Rosner has worked at Saveur and New York magazine, launched the seminal food site Eat Me Daily, and served as a cookbook editor. Before joining The New Yorker, she was the executive editor of Eater, where she founded the publication’s James Beard- and National Magazine Award-winning features department.

Covid and Restaurants: Where Do We Go From Here?