MITCHELL DAVIS

Founder and President,

Kitchen Sense, LLC

Mitchell Davis is founder of Kitchen Sense, LLC, a laboratory for creative food content and innovative approaches to food-system issues. Throughout his long career in the food world, Davis has been “a central figure behind the scenes helping to start, analyze and oversee trends, developing the next generation of talent,” according to chef and media personality David Chang. While at the James Beard Foundation for almost 27 years, most recently as Chief Strategy Officer, Davis created and/or oversaw many of the Foundation’s most impactful initiatives, including the annual JBF Food Summit, a national dialogue of thought leaders on sustainability and public health, the JBF Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change, an advocacy training program for culinary professionals, and the JBF Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership program, intended to correct the gender imbalance in leadership in the restaurant industry. In 2013, Davis led the team that was selected by the U.S. Department of State to create the USA Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015—the first world’s fair since 1862 focusing on food—for which he received commendations from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and First Lady Michelle Obama. Davis has a Ph.D. in Food Studies from New York University. He frequently writes about and reviews restaurants. For more than a decade he held a chair on the Academy of the London-based World’s 50 Best Restaurants. He has written several cookbooks, including the ground-breaking electronic book My Provence (Alta Editions) with Michelin three-star chef Laurent Gras, which won the IACP’s “Judges’ Choice” award in 2013, and Kitchen Sense (Clarkson Potter, 2006). In 2013, The Forward selected Davis as one of the 50 most influential Jews under 50 in America. In 2017 epicurious.com included Davis on their list of the “100 Greatest Home Cooks of All Time.” For his contributions to the ever-changing food landscape and his tenure as host of more than 125 episodes of the popular podcast Taste Matters, in 2019 Heritage Radio Network inducted Davis into their Hall of Fame. 

Mitchell Davis at TEDx Manhattan: “Tasting Our Way to a Better Food System”

Mitchell Davis at Bitten, “On How American Food Became en Vogue”

Headshot Photo by Clay Williams