Carlos Gaytán has earned a Michelin star (the first Mexican-born chef ever to receive one) at two different restaurants. He is noted for combining regional Mexican cooking with classic French techniques. After working his way up from dishwasher in a hotel kitchen, he now owns restaurants in Chicago, Mexico, and recently opened several in the Downtown Disney District adjacent to Disneyland. He has appeared on Top Chef and as a judge on numerous cooking competition shows in the U.S. and Mexico.

Called the Soul Food Scholar, Adrian Miller is renowned for his knowledge of African American and southern cooking. Author of multiple books, he won James Beard awards for two of them: Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, and Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue. Yet culinary history was not his original career path. He was a lawyer, worked for the Clinton White House, and then for the governor of Colorado, before turning to culinary research. His findings are profound and often surprising. Our conversation ranged far and wide – from the white historyof chitlins, to vegan soul food, the German origins of chicken and waffles, and how, in his words, mac and cheese became “so black.”

Chef Katie Button is a James Beard winner for her Asheville, North Carolina Spanish restaurant Cúrate, which is the flagship of her restaurant group. Button discovered her deep love for food when she was living in Paris, studying for a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. The awakening was so profound that she changed careers, worked for two of the world’s greatest chefs, Ferran Adrià and José Andrés, before opening tapas-based Cúrate, then building a culinary empire that includes a Catalonian restaurant, a Spanish market, European tours, a cookbook, and more. She is heavily involved in helping the Asheville community rebuild after massive flooding from Hurricane Helene.