Vivian Howard
🇺🇸 United States · American cuisine · b. 1977
The North Carolina chef who returned home to tell the story of Eastern Carolina cooking.
Biography
Vivian Howard is an American chef, restaurateur, author and television presenter who grew up on a tobacco and pig farm in Deep Run, North Carolina — one of seven siblings in a family deeply rooted in Eastern Carolina rural culture. She left for college and then for New York City, where she trained at Voyage and Spice Market under Jean-Georges Vongerichten before opening her own restaurant.
In 2006 she made a decision that would define her career: she returned to her home town of Kinston, North Carolina (population approximately 20,000), and opened Chef & the Farmer in a restored warehouse downtown. The restaurant was an ambitious bet that a serious chef-driven kitchen could thrive in small-town rural America, using the produce of the Eastern Carolina coastal plain — heirloom collards, butterbeans, sweet potatoes, blue crab, country ham, pasture-raised pork — to tell a regional culinary story that had never been told outside the South.
Her PBS series A Chef's Life, which ran from 2013 to 2018 across six seasons, won a Peabody Award and four James Beard Awards. Each episode took one ingredient (figs, sweet potatoes, collards, blue crab, ramps) and traced it from the farmers who grew or caught it through Howard's kitchen and onto the restaurant's plates — making it one of the most quietly influential food television programmes of the 2010s.
She later opened Boiler Room Oyster Bar, Lenoir, and Handy and Hot in Kinston and nearby cities, and published Deep Run Roots (2016), a 568-page cookbook focused entirely on the foodways of Eastern North Carolina that became a New York Times bestseller and is considered one of the most important regional American cookbooks of its decade.
Cooking Philosophy
The local is the universal. Howard argues that the most powerful cooking is rooted in a specific place and tradition — that the way to tell a culinary story that resonates globally is to tell it absolutely faithfully from the place it comes from. Her food is conceived as both a love letter to Eastern North Carolina and a refusal of the assumption that serious American cooking must happen in major cities.
Restaurants
- Chef & the FarmerKinston, North Carolina
Howard's flagship restaurant since 2006, focused on Eastern Carolina ingredients and traditions.
- Boiler Room Oyster BarKinston, North Carolina
Casual seafood bar in the same building as Chef & the Farmer.
- LenoirCharleston, South Carolina
Restaurant exploring the foodways of the Eastern Carolinas.
- Handy and HotCharleston, South Carolina
Casual fried chicken and biscuit concept.
Awards & Recognition
- Peabody Award — A Chef's Life
- 4 James Beard Awards (television and journalism)
- James Beard nomination for Best Chef Southeast
- Southern Living's Cook of the Year
- New York Times bestseller — Deep Run Roots (2016)
Iconic Dishes
Cookbooks
- Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South (2016)
- This Will Make It Taste Good: A New Path to Simple Cooking (2020)
Recipes in Vivian's Style
These recipes from our database reflect the american cooking tradition that Vivian works in. They are not direct reproductions of Vivian's copyrighted recipes, but traditional dishes inspired by the same culinary heritage.
In Vivian's Own Words
“I am not interested in cooking food from anywhere. I am only interested in cooking food from here.”
— Vivian Howard, A Chef's Life
“Eastern North Carolina has been quietly producing some of the most distinctive food in America for two hundred years. My job is just to point at it.”
— Interview, Garden & Gun
Career Timeline
Graduates from New York University with a degree in English literature.
Begins working in New York restaurants, including Voyage and Spice Market under Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
Returns to Kinston, North Carolina with husband Ben Knight and opens Chef & the Farmer.
A Chef's Life premieres on PBS.
A Chef's Life wins a Peabody Award and its first James Beard Award.
Publishes Deep Run Roots; becomes a New York Times bestseller.
A Chef's Life concludes after six seasons.
Publishes This Will Make It Taste Good during the COVID lockdown.
Opens Lenoir and Handy and Hot in Charleston, South Carolina.
Mentors & Influences
Frequently Asked Questions about Vivian Howard
Where is Chef & the Farmer?
Chef & the Farmer is in Kinston, North Carolina — a town of about 20,000 people in the Eastern Carolina coastal plain, about 80 miles southeast of Raleigh. Vivian Howard opened it in a restored warehouse downtown in 2006 with her husband Ben Knight.
What is A Chef's Life?
A Chef's Life was the PBS documentary series Howard hosted from 2013 to 2018. Each episode focused on one Eastern Carolina ingredient (figs, sweet potatoes, collards, blue crab, ramps) and traced it from farmer or fisherman to her kitchen and her plates. It won a Peabody Award and four James Beard Awards, and is widely considered one of the most quietly important food television programmes of the decade.
What is Eastern North Carolina cuisine?
Eastern North Carolina cuisine is the rural Southern food tradition of the coastal plain east of Raleigh — built around heritage Black and white farming traditions, with vinegar-based whole-hog barbecue, butterbeans, country ham, collards, blue crab from the sounds, oysters from the Outer Banks, sweet potatoes from the sandy soil, and fig and persimmon preserves. Howard's work has been central to making it nationally recognised.
Did Vivian Howard go to culinary school?
No. Howard studied English literature at New York University and learned to cook by working her way up through New York restaurant kitchens — most importantly at Voyage and at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Spice Market — before returning home to North Carolina to open her own restaurant. She has been vocal about the value of her informal apprenticeship over a formal CIA education.
Why is Deep Run Roots important?
Deep Run Roots (2016) is a 568-page cookbook organised by ingredient (one chapter per Eastern Carolina staple), with each chapter pairing essays about the ingredient's cultural role with multiple recipes. It is widely considered one of the most important regional American cookbooks of the 2010s and helped trigger a renewed national interest in serious Southern regional cooking.
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