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A 50-year veteran of the food and hospitality industry, Savannah chef Joe Randall remembers climbing the ranks of the kitchen as an apprentice in Harrisburg, Pa., during the early ‘60s, long before there were celebrity chefs and competitive kitchen-based TV shows.
“People today take the trade, the industry, for granted because of television and because there are a thousand culinary schools,” he said. “But there was a time when a real chef wouldn’t waste time with you unless you were serious about the business.”
For Randall, that person was Atlanta-born Robert W. Lee, who served as executive chef at the Harrisburger Hotel during the mid ‘60s. He said it took him two years to convince Lee to hire him, but he finally got the apprenticeship, where he learned the ins and outs of the trade.
“I worked every station in the hotel: the pantry, the butcher shop, the bakery, the fish station,” he said. “Then when I left, I went across the street and worked for a classically trained European chef named Frank Castelli.”
From his humble Pennsylvania beginnings, Randall went on to work in top hotels and restaurants across the country, eventually landing in Savannah as director of dining services for the Savannah College of Art and Design and later founding his renowned cooking school at 5409 Waters Ave.
Recognizing his leadership and contributions to the food-service industry, charitable organizations and community, Randall is preparing to fly to Illinois next week where he will be inducted into a premiere professional organization called Les Amis d’Escoffier Society of Chicago.
The nonprofit’s name pays tribute to the late Auguste Escoffier, a French chef who popularized traditional French cuisine in the early 1900s, whose techniques and mother sauces Randall learned as a young chef-in-training.
This is not the first award for the 68-year-old chef. Randall was named “Dean of Southern Cuisine” by Cuisine Noir Magazine last year, just one of several accolades he’s received for preserving the heritage of Southern cuisine.
In an interview this week, Randall said he has no intention of slowing down and said he’s happy to see Savannah’s culinary reputation on the rise, especially in light of two local restaurants receiving James Beard nominations earlier this month.
“It’s evolving,” said Randall of the local culinary scene. “It takes new people and new skills.”
Randall cites Mashama Bailey, executive chef of The Grey on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, as an example of someone who’s now able to make her mark on Savannah’s food landscape.
“I’m proud of Mashama and the food she serves,” he said.
Randall can remember a time when food service was relegated exclusively to African-Americans, quite the opposite of the flashy, celebrity-obsessed industry it has become today.
Randall himself worked for 90 cents an hour, six days a week in 1964 at his first job in Harrisburg. He said he still wears the toque and uniform because they represent years of classical training and hard work.
“The uniform doesn’t make the chef, but a good chef is proud of the uniform,” he said.
Looking forward, Randall said he will continue his cooking school as well as work as chairman of The Edna Lewis Foundation, named after the grand dame of Southern cuisine who died in 2006.
Randall still keeps a copy of Lewis’ 1976 “The Taste of Country Cooking” nearby in his office on Waters Avenue. In it, Lewis references cooking exclusively from vegetables and fruits she’s grown in her garden — a point Randall says far pre-dates the renewed interest in the farm-to-table movement.
He said his mission is to preserve and promote African-Americans’ contributions and culinary heritage. In fact, while Randall is in Chicago on March 3, he will hold a benefit dinner for the foundation.
“You’re always going to have interest in Southern food,” he said. “Why? Because it has flavor.”
His motto, he said, remains the same as it did when he started: “Keep it simple, make it taste good.”
For more information on Chef Randall, visit chefjoerandall.com.