O ne cannot miss Chef Lazarus Lynch. No matter the setting, he always catches people’s attention. There is, of course, his often eye-catching look. However, his energy—positive and enthusiastic— is even more apparent when one encounters him. Even on a day when he is wearing a plain black sweater, that life comes through unmistakably. So, it should surprise no one that he was a very artistic kid. He was involved in music, painting, drawing, and other ways of expression, which continues to this day. The arts always formed a big part of his personality. However, the self-proclaimed “Son of a Southern Chef” did not start paying attention to his love of food early on. Despite frequent church potlucks on Sundays being one of the ways he bonded with family, and although gathering with food was how the people close to him celebrated, he never realized his love for food until he was about 11 or 12. He started to watch food shows on TV. He became obsessed with how things were made, as well as the science and chemistry of food. At the same time, his entrepreneurial father had just opened a Soul Food restaurant near his family in Jamaica, Queens in New York City. The idea of the restaurant was to take all those recipes from home and bring them to life in an area that needed them. This happy coincidence allowed Chef Lynch to see the joy of folks coming into his father’s restaurant. He learned that great food can touch other people in a very meaningful way. So, that led him to enroll in a culinary arts high school called Food and Finance High School in Manhattan, New York.
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