Dr. Lezli Levene Harvell wears many hats. By day, she’s a pediatric dentist. When she’s not treating patients, she’s a wife and mother to five daughters. And if her plate wasn’t already full enough, she is also serving one of the most culturally rich and influential platforms in the culinary world with her Iconoclast Dinner Experience (IDE).
In Dr. Harvell’s own words, the IDE experience can be broken down like this. Imagine going to see Beyoncé at Madison Square Garden, a venue that seats more than 19,000 people. Then imagine having the opportunity to hear Beyoncé at an acoustic concert with just 20 people in the room. She’s sitting on a stool with a guitar, playing a song you may not even know, but that doesn’t matter. What matters in this moment is the chance to witness artistry up close, from a different perspective, in a way most people can only dream of. The only difference is that IDE is a bit more accessible.
“[I tell chefs] this is your small concert moment. You are having an intimate interaction with your guests,” she tells Travel Noire.
Today, IDE is an award-winning platform with Webby nominations for its podcast, several flagship events each year, and an honoree list that reads like an exclusive preview of the chefs and beverage curators to watch in the coming year. What many people may not know is that this award-winning platform began because Dr. Harvell was sick of the same old, same old.
“I love culture and food, [and] as someone who loves all of these things, I found the culture to be very homogeneous in terms of the talent, the guests, and who was being written about,” she says. “I’m talking about this with my husband, and I said, ‘It would be wonderful to attend an event that celebrates chefs of color.’”
His response changed everything. He told her that she didn’t need to wait for someone else to create it. He encouraged her to build it herself, and that’s exactly what she did.
“It was truly the permission I didn’t know that I needed,” Dr. Harvell says.
The Dinner That Started It All
Dr. Harvell’s husband wasn’t the only one rooting for her. Her friends were, too. That support was the foundation for her first event in 2015 at the James Beard House in New York City. She laughs about it now, but the last thing on her mind was what would become her legacy. The original plan was to get through what was supposed to be an intimate, single-night dinner where people genuinely felt connected with the chefs and beverage professionals of color she was spotlighting.
The first class of honorees included industry names who are defining what it means to be a culinary great: Chefs Nina Compton, JJ Johnson, and Kwame Onwuachi were among them.
Eleven years later, IDE has become a sought-after event that cultivates community while uplifting culture among food and beverage artists of color. There are also incredible full-circle moments that weren’t planned. Harvell has honored Chef Onwuachi and Chef Paul Carmichael. This year, she’s honoring both of their Chefs de Cuisine, which speaks to the mentorship and opportunity that her platform provides.
From New York To Martha’s Vineyard… And Places In Between
What started as a single dinner in New York has morphed into a full season of events throughout the year. The New York event is what she considers “our Super Bowl,” recognizing chefs and beverage professionals who are a bit further along in their careers. This year, the experience moved to a new stage. Dr. Harvell hosted IDE at Carnegie Hall, marking the first and only time the revered hall allowed outside chefs to cook inside.
Then, there’s “The King Is Dead.” event, which takes place on Martha’s Vineyard. The farm-to-table event specifically honors women and plays on the traditional royal succession phrase to challenge the homogeneous old guard in the culinary industry.
“That punctuation with the period on the end is intentional. It obviously comes from the saying, ‘The king is dead, long live the king!’ … which is the spirit that we have one person in power and one power structure,” she says.
She goes on to say that this particular event is rewriting that narrative.
“While [the king] is still alive, they are setting up their succession in that. In the culinary world, that generally looks a particular way. You have people in these prestigious kitchens with platforms helping people who, for the most part, look like them.”
There’s also city-specific and moment-specific programming, such as “IDE All Stars” during the James Beard Awards weekend and “IDE 13 Million Acres,” a multi-year culinary series exploring the complex history of land loss, legacy, and dispossessed land shared by African-American and Mexican-American farmers.
The Iconoclast Dinner Experience Takes Stories Beyond The Table
When Dr. Harvell and her team choose which chefs IDE will honor, she asks the same questions: “If it were your last night on Earth, where are you eating? How are you drawing your inspiration? What are some of your earliest memories of food?”
She’s getting to know them as a person first, then as an artist. These intentional questions help them begin developing the menu for IDE. In some cases, what eventually lands on the plate could be a cuisine or item the chef isn’t known for.
Harvell points to Chef Gregory Gourdet, a celebrated chef famous for his Asian cuisine. When it was time to choose his dish for the IDE Culinary All-Stars dinner in Chicago, he offered three options. Two were rooted in the Asian cuisine that built his reputation. The last one came from his Haitian heritage. Dr. Harvell chose the Haitian dish.
Not long after, Chef Gourdet opened Kann, where he now serves Haitian cuisine in one of the most unexpected places in the country: Portland, Oregon. It’s also nearly impossible to get a reservation.
Harvell doesn’t consider herself to be part of the culinary industry, but rather adjacent to it. This distinction, she says, has allowed her to think outside the box and tell culinary stories through more than one medium, such as her podcast “In Polite Conversation.”
IDE is Dr. Harvell’s baby, and when asked what she hopes guests and chefs get out of the experience, she says, “I want everyone to feel that they have cultivated community, made some new friends, and were able to truly be themselves.”
Net proceeds from IDE help to fund a scholarship at Spelman College, Dr. Harvell’s alma mater.
