Russell, Mariya (Moore-Russell)

Impact on the world

Became, in September 2019 at Chicago's Japanese-influenced restaurant Kikkō, the first Black woman in the Michelin Guide's 94-year history to receive a star, achieving the honor before her 30th birthday while leading a small team serving Japanese-inspired omakase cuisine to eight diners at a time; she and her then-husband, fellow chef Garrett Russell, had researched beforehand whether any of the many female Michelin-starred chefs across the guide's history had been Black, confirming that not one had, and Russell later told Essence she remained genuinely baffled that it had taken until 2019 for the milestone to occur at all, asking simply, 'How is this the first time this has happened?'

Life & background

Born around 1989 and raised primarily in Springfield, Ohio with her parents and four sisters before her family relocated to Columbus for her high school years, Russell first developed an interest in food cooking simple meals, including eggs and frozen pizza, for neighborhood children who gathered at her family's inflatable pool each summer, while closely following the Food Network; a high school career academy course first introduced her seriously to the idea of restaurant work as an actual career path. She moved to Chicago after graduation to study at The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, graduating in 2008, and worked her way through several of the city's respected kitchens, including Green Zebra, where she met chefs Cara and Noah Sandoval, who would later invite her to join their new project; she spent three years living in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband at the time, chef Garrett Russell, an experience she later described as including both wonderful relationships and significant racism, before the death of her father brought the couple back to Chicago to be closer to her mother. Noah Sandoval personally recruited her to become chef de cuisine of Kumiko, the cocktail bar beneath which the Sandovals and creative director Julia Momose later opened the reservations-only omakase restaurant Kikkō, giving Russell creative control over a Japanese-inspired tasting menu despite her own Midwestern, soul-food upbringing rather than formal Japanese culinary training; the restaurant's intimate, conversational approach to omakase, encouraging diners to ask questions throughout rather than dine in traditional silence, became one of its defining features under her direction. Shortly after receiving her historic Michelin star, Russell announced on Instagram that she was stepping back from restaurant kitchens to prioritize her own wellbeing, writing candidly that the demands of the job had made it difficult to take care of herself on a daily basis and that she wanted to do more, and better, for herself going forward; she relocated to Hawaii in 2020 to pursue entrepreneurship, while continuing to express a strong personal commitment to mentoring other Black aspiring chefs and encouraging people generally to pursue their own ambitions regardless of gender or race.

Sources

1. Chicago Magazine; Essence; Black PR Wire; Because of Them We Can; HipLatina; Michelin Guide official site