Chef Jernard Wells likes to joke that he “didn’t land on culinary,” and that rather, the culinary life landed on him.

That might be the most creative way to describe a young man who grew up at the feet of a chef father and pastry chef mother who always welcomed him into the kitchen.

“At 10 years old, I was fascinated by watching my father cook,” Chef Jernard recalls. “He made cooking look cool.”

And so, as a youngster he happily spent time with his father in the kitchen. And he recognized the value of that quality time, without realizing that a seed for his future career was being planted during those moments.

After losing his father at the age of 16, Chef Jernard made the bold decision to use his father’s recipes and the techniques he had learned from him to open his first restaurant. His mother allowed him to operate out of her kitchen; but insisted that he go through all of the necessary steps to legitimize his business, which also allowed him to learn valuable skills that would help him grow and sustain his career.

The support he received from his family and his community eventually propelled Jernard to the opening of his first brick and mortar, and through culinary arts school, where he studied French and Creole cuisine.

The same sense of community that became the bedrock of Chef Jernard’s career has now manifested itself into what he calls his “love letter to the people”: TV One’s new original series, Savor The City

“It’s paying so much homage to my family and to all those who came before me, but also to those that are standing now,” he explains.

The show is a one-of-a-kind travel experience that highlights the best in food, art, music and entertainment that embodies Black American culture as a whole. Chef Jernard’s goal in creating this platform was to showcase the many layers and nuances of the culture. As such, Savor The City takes viewers to cities like Martha’s Vineyard, Miami, Nashville, and even the Bahamas— putting no boundaries on which adaptations of Black food are worthy of celebration.

“I feel like Black food gets such a bad stigma,” Chef Jernard says. “We’ve allowed ourselves to put all these negative connotations on what we create. I always tell people that Soul Food is not a cuisine, Soul Food is the art and the way we feel when we cook. That’s the connection. You’re entering a certain aura, a certain atmosphere, when you go into the kitchen and you turn on that amazing music, you pour that glass of whatever it is you’re drinking, and you produce this amazing dish. That’s what it’s about.”

By spotlighting the way a wide variety of chefs approach that soulful assignment and the many influences that have led them to that approach, Chef Jernard hopes to explain to the world that what these chefs are in fact creating is American cuisine.

“It’s so much bigger than what we realized because we set the tone for what people experience when they come here to America,” he adds. “It was our hands that molded the taste of America.”

While he approached Savor The City with the mindset of Black culture’s influence on America, even he was surprised by the number of common threads that he found in the stories of the various chefs, artists and business owners who he had a chance to spend time with.

And now, he’s passing the baton on to the viewers. His hope is that Savor The City will show people outside of the culture how vast Black creative culture can be, while also empowering chefs to reclaim the pride they should rightfully feel in their creations. Chef Jernard also hopes that his new venture will encourage others to support the creators and entrepreneurs spotlighted on Savor The City… and even spark the creative and entrepreneurial flame in someone else, as it did with him.

After wrapping filming with the TV One team, Chef Jernard returned to his metro-Atlanta stomping grounds and began building his next brick and mortar restaurant, Cornbread and Butter, which is set to open in Downtown Grayson – just outside of Atlanta – later this year.

Catch new episodes of Savor The City on Thursdays at 8pm ET/7pm CT only on TV One. Or stream past and current episodes on the TV One App.

And make sure to check out TVOne.tv for additional content that didn’t make it into the show!

SA Unscripted

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