Chef Kayla Phillips

Kayla is a chef, storyteller and curator.

Hailing from the South and Southwest, her food is an edible story of Black Southern foodways and the Indigenous/Mexican ingredients and cooking practices of the Sonoran Desert. But because of her upbringing, she’s a chameleon in the kitchen- adapting to all cooking styles and palates.

She became a chef because of the access she didn’t have to nourishing, high-quality food growing up; the fantasy of The Food Network and random cookbooks offered an escape.

Because she doesn’t have the luxury of family recipes passed down, or traditional cooking practices taught to her, she creates everything from an intuitive and spiritual place. What she doesn't have in the form of classic training or cultural nurturing, she makes up for with her curious mind, playfulness and creativity.

She began her first pastry business at 19, supplying unique snacks to coffee shops and cafes in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. At 22, she moved to New York City to pursue her culinary dreams of combining food with different art mediums. Since then, she’s worked for the likes of Christina Tosi of Milk Bar, and Amanda Cohen of Dirt Candy, a Michelin-Starred vegetable restaurant. She has created interactive food installations at art galleries, and produced dreamy food content.

She spent the last two years putting her curious mind to use as the kitchen lead for Ghetto Gastro, a Bronx-based culinary collective using ancestral ingredients to shift food culture.

She currently caters events and pops up around the city. She is also working on "The People's Table," a free-dinner program that she plans to integrate into her offerings.