Renowned Harlem chef & restaurateur Melba Wilson joins Cheddar to discuss her inspirations and rise in the food industry, and giving back to her community through food.

Cheddar Reveals

The Makings of a Chef

Welcome back to Cheddar reveals, brought to you by curiosity stream. For many cooking is more than a hobby. It is a passion because after all food is life, but what about those among us who presents such great talent and passion for food that they take the next step and turn it into a career, joining us now is renowned, Harlem chef and restauranteur Melba Wilson Melbourne. Good morning, thank you so much for joining us. When did you know you wanted to turn your cooking into an actual full blown career? Good morning Alicia, you know, it started a long time ago, I was about 11 years old and my grandmother, Amelia, who is from a very small town called Hemingway South Carolina. I would often visit her and I loved going out to the garden with my grandmother watching her pick beans, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, bringing this back into the home, which was the original. Uh to me it's where farm to table really originated and creating magic and my grandmother would take hours and cook up a delectable and delicious meal. There was no television in the dining room, so we, as a family, cousins, neighbors, uncles, dads, we all sat around the table and we dined together. But what was magical about it was we told stories that was where I learned the stories of my, of my great great grandparents and aunts and uncles. So my love of taking care of people and using food as my love language came really at an early age, what was your journey like on your way to actually opening up your own restaurant in Harlem, wow! Well you know, for a black girl from Harlem in the food and beverage industry, it it was, it was definitely a difficult task. Um the majority of the chefs out there are men, not that we don't have some great female chefs, however the food and beverage industry is a male dominated industry, so um it was, it wasn't easy, but I had some great role models, I had Sylvia woods from Sylvia's restaurant, um I had drew near parent robert, Deniro, these are guys and people that poured into me and I developed a spirit of if they can, I can too and um you know, having that groundwork, having them uh teach me the tools of the trade, I just, I knew that I could do it and so I have, I'm curious how does Nelvis reflect Harlem's culture, its history and certainly your own experience living there? Well, I'm actually, as I like to say, born bred and buttered in Harlem, which was one of the main reasons that I decided to open up my business here, signed my lease in 2000 and four, opened up in 2000 and five, but when you look at Harlem we are the trendsetters, Harlem is truly the mecca of black culture in the world. So it just says, you know, when you walk into any southerners home, you know, we migrated from the south up to Harlem in search of better incomes and ways to support our family and we brought a lot of that hospitality with us. So when you walk into Melvin is it's going to be inviting, it's going to be warm and most of all it's going to be about comfort and that word comfort extends into everything that we do. Melvin's ultimately is your home away from home. We know that you serve on the board of City Harvest to new york city's kind of largest food rescue organization. Can you tell us more about, you know, your involvement and the need for the involvement, especially over the last two years of this pandemic. Food insecurities are a big, big deal in this country, and food City Harvest is definitely the largest food rescue organization. And for me it's not about hoarding, it's it's it's about sharing my gifts, my talents, and my tools and for using food as a love language in order to take care of others. Look, we're one of the wealthiest countries in this world, there's no way that food insecurity should be an issue here. So I feel that any way that I can help out um and and worked with city Harvest one meal at a time to get the job done is what I'm always willing able and ready to do really quickly before I have to let you go here, how did the pandemic force you as a restauranteur in new york city to adjust um the pandemic was something that none of us foresaw foresaw coming, I'm also the president of the new york city hospitality alliance. So along with thousands of restaurants we have over 25,000 restaurants in the city. I have to tell you that it was by far the hardest thing that we have had to overcome and that we're still dealing with um pivot became a lot of us for a lot of us that was our middle name that how do we pivot, how do we go to a to a take out model, how do we uh you know sort of indoors outdoors? The P. P. P. Loans so what we did especially with the hospitality alliance is we came together as an industry as never before. So you see in the food business we take care of others, but we also needed to incorporate ourselves into the word others and we needed to take care of our fellow restaurant tours and that is what we did. We band together, we shared information, we shared success stories, but we were also there to lean on one another during those hard times and I think and just like we found our community, we also had to feed and nurture ourselves. Yeah, so glad that you know you banded together and that Melvin was able to kind of make it through the food, we just showed on screen a moment ago, looks absolutely delicious, appreciate your inside renowned Harlem chef and restauranteur Melba Wilson.