An Emmy-Nominated Doc About Edna Lewis Gets a One-Night-Only Chicago Release

Eater

16-05-2025

Edna Lewis's influence on Chicago's dining scene can be felt throughout the city, even if the city was never her home. That makes next month's screening of the documentary, Finding Edna Lewis , that much more special.
The film will screen on Wednesday, June 11, at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus, at 915 E. 60th Street in Hyde Park. Tickets are available on Eventbrite for $45.63, plus fees. On Thursday, May 15, the film, produced and hosted by Deb Freeman, along with Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren, earned a local Emmy nomination from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter in the Historical/Cultural — Short Form Content category. It's available to stream via the PBS website and app.
Finding Edna Lewis is the first major documentary about the legendary Southern chef, which premiered in New York on Thursday, April 10. Lewis was born in 1916 in Freetown, Virginia, a rural farming community co-founded by her grandfather, who had been born into slavery. She rose to prominence in the 1950s as a self-taught chef and co-owner of Café Nicholson in New York City. The dishes served at her restaurant and the popular cookbooks that followed helped raise the profile of the Southern regional cooking style into the American lexicon.
Her impact on Chicago is undeniable. Head over to the award-winning Virtue in Hyde Park, where visitors will find clues of how she influenced some of the most notable Black chefs in the country when they try blackened red drum and grits created by the team helmed by James Beard Award-winning chefs Erick Williams and Damar Brown. Or, stop by Justice of the Pies, the darling pie shop and cafe in the South Side's Avalon Park neighborhood, led by Maya-Camille Broussard, a 2022 James Beard Award nominee for Outstanding Baker. The ever-changing menu includes an assortment of Southern-inspired pies like bourbon pecan, sweet potato, and chocolate chess.
In 2019, Lewis's legacy was honored in Bronzeville, where 10 esteemed chefs and industry members came together for the 'South Side Chefs Revival and Homecoming.' Among those in attendance, Williams, Broussard, and Brown Sugar Bakery's Stephanie Hart.
Charla Draper, former food editor at Ebony and Southern Living magazines and a longtime member of Les Dames d'Escoffier, is deeply committed to making sure that Lewis's legacy of introducing Southern cooking to the world is never forgotten. As part of the Chicago screening, Draper will moderate a panel discussion with Hart and chef Cliff Rome, owner of Rome's Joy Catering. Rome will play a big role in the Obama Library's food lineup.
A portion of the proceeds will benefit two nonprofits aimed at bridging gaps in resources for aspiring chefs for people of color and women — the Edna Lewis Foundation scholarship program and Les Dames d'Escoffier Chicago scholarship fund. Les Dames d'Escoffier is the first organization for professional culinary women whose roots can be traced to the early 1970s in New York, and in 1999, the organization named Lewis a Grande Dame.
Draper points to stalwart establishments like the 2024 James Beard Award American Classics winner, Chicago's own Lem's Bar-B-Q, as examples of Lewis's impact, illustrating that without the iconic culinarian's groundbreaking work, such recognition in restaurants would not be possible. Draper tells Eater that she never knew Lewis when she was alive, but she felt her influence throughout her career, and through the scholarship opportunities, wants to pave the way for the next generation of culinarians.
'I stand on the shoulders of so many. Had I not been able to follow the path that some of these strong Black women made, I wouldn't be who I am today,' she says.
Finding Edna Lewis documentary screening , 5:30 p.m. June 11, at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus, 915 E. 60th Street, tickets available online .
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