As a small child, Kevin Mitchell learned the importance of cooking in his Grandmother Doris’s kitchen. Since then, he has become one of Charleston’s most recognizable and accomplished chefs. As a chef instructor, culinary historian, and scholar of historical foodways of the American South, Chef Mitchell works tirelessly to preserve southern ingredients and champion the historical significance of African Americans in the culinary arts. Upon earning his AOS degree from the Culinary Institute of America in 1991 and his Bachelor of Professional Studies degree in 1996, Chef Mitchell refined his skills in notable restaurants nationwide. In 2008, he became the first African American Chef Instructor at the Culinary Institute of Charleston at Trident Technical College.

He sits on numerous boards and advisory committees, including a national board member of Slow Food USA, a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance (of which he was also a Nathalie Dupree Graduate Fellow in 2016, a board member of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, and the Charleston Wine and Food Festival, to name a few. Chef Mitchell was named a South Carolina Chef Ambassador for 2020, a position he held through 2021. In 2019, the University of South Carolina Press contracted Chef Mitchell to write a book about South Carolina products and dishes. He wrote this book with Dr. David Shields, a professor at the University of South Carolina. The book was released in October 2021. The University of South Carolina Press again contracted Chef Mitchell to write a book about Georgia products and dishes with Dr. David Shields. It was released in August of 2025

In the summer of 2024, Chef Kevin Mitchell and food historian David Shields embarked on a quest to seek out and rescue those ingredients before they are lost forever. Part documentary, part travelogue, part cooking show—Savers of Flavor, which is the story of our culinary heritage from our fields to our finest dining rooms, of foods from humble kitchen tables to some of the most exalted restaurants in the world, gathered from the coast to the foothills and everywhere in between. This series will air on the South Carolina Education Network in May of 2026.