Hunter Lewis
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Articles by Hunter Lewis
Editor’s Letter
Grateful Dad THIS WEEK, MY WIFE, JEN, and I brought our newborn son, Hunter Jack Lewis II, home from the hospital. Hallelujah! Our baby boy is here. Chez Lewis has become a blissful blur of feeding, diapering, swaddling, and sleeping—or not sleeping, yeesh. Thankfully, support continues to arrive in the form of a twice-weekly meal train. Champagne and flowers, too. The night after we brought Baby H home, I popped a disposable aluminum baking pan into the oven.
The Tiny Charleston Bakery Setting a New Standard for American Baking
By 8:30 a.m. on a humid Friday morning at Weltons Tiny Bakeshop, regulars and tourists line up on the King Street sidewalk and spill over into picnic tables in the sunny alley between the bantam-sized bakery and production kitchen, clamoring for iced salted pistachio milk lattes, cardamom sugar kouign-amann, and focaccia with pickled jalapeños and aged cheddar.
The Tiny Charleston Bakery Setting a New Standard for American Baking
By 8:30 a.m. on a humid Friday morning at Weltons Tiny Bakeshop, regulars and tourists line up on the King Street sidewalk and spill over into picnic tables in the sunny alley between the bantam-sized bakery and production kitchen, clamoring for iced salted pistachio milk lattes, cardamom sugar kouign-amann, and focaccia with pickled jalapeños and aged cheddar.
The Tiny Charleston Bakery Setting a New Standard for American Baking
2026 Food & Wine Best New Chefs Zachary and Hannah Welton have turned a former pop-up into a sought-after national spot. Hunter Lewis Tue, September 15, 2026 at 7:00 AM EDT 5 min read Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Add Yahoo on Google Zachary and Hannah Welton at Welton's Tiny Bakeshop, Charleston.
Hannah Welton & Zachary Welton
WELTONS TINY BAKESHOP Charleston BY 8:30 A.M. on a humid Friday morning at Weltons Tiny Bakeshop, regulars and tourists line up on the King Street sidewalk, clamoring for iced salted pistachio milk lattes, cardamom sugar kouign-amann, and focaccia with pickled jalapeños and aged cheddar.
Editor’s Letter
The Optimist Club FEW PEOPLE HAVE DONE MORE to shape a culture of excellence in the hospitality industry (and, thanks to Shake Shack, the fast-casual burger landscape) than Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group. For our annual Restaurant Issue, I spoke to Meyer about his inspiring new book, What Could Possibly Go Right?
Editor’s Letter
“The Real Deal” IN 2001, I TOOK A PREP COOK JOB at a French restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to make some money while I was trying to get my foot in the door at the local newspaper. I’d worked in other restaurants before, making sandwiches, slinging pizzas, and frying wings, but this was my first kitchen with any sense of ambition. It was also the first with a clear hierarchy of dishwashers, cooks, and chefs, and I was right at the bottom.
Editor’s Letter
Awards Season FOOD & WINE recently received a National Magazine Award for Lifestyle Journalism from the American Society of Magazine Editors for “Out of the Wild,” a story by journalist Kim Cross from our July 2025 issue about the journey that wild salmon make from their natal streams to our plates. It’s the second National Magazine Award—the top honor in our industry—in Food & Wine’s 48-year history.
Oven Baby Back Ribs
Credit: Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christina Daley Grinding whole spices fresh creates an aromatic, complex rub that infuses the ribs during an overnight rest. A quick finish under the broiler or on the grill caramelizes the barbecue sauce, creating a sticky, crisp exterior. Low and slow oven baking ensures tender, juicy meat while keeping the ribs intact rather than falling apart.
Editor’s Letter
Culinary Arts THE PAINTING THAT FIRST BROUGHT together Roscoe Hall’s twin identities as a chef and artist took life, fittingly, at the roots of his culinary and family tree. Over a slab of hickory-smoked spareribs at Dreamland Bar-B-Que in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Hall thought about his late grandfather John “Big Daddy” Bishop, who’d started the business in 1958 as a place for friends and family to eat, drink, and dance the boogie-woogie after church.
The Ultimate Guide to Sports Food Culture Original
On the first night of lacrosse practice, I was explaining a drill with my back to our 11- and 12-year-old players when I turned to find all 17 girls performing a dance they’d learned that week in elementary school. I glanced at my wife and assistant coach, Jen, with a look that must have said something like “What in the hell?” My first instinct was to make the Spartans run a lap, but then I thought: Why not have a dance party in the middle of practice on a cold winter evening?
Editor’s Letter
Sense of Play ON THE FIRST NIGHT of lacrosse practice, I was explaining a drill with my back to our 11- and 12-year-old players when I turned to find all 17 girls performing a dance they’d learned that week in elementary school. I glanced at my wife and assistant coach, Jen, with a look that must have said something like “What in the hell?” My first instinct was to make the Spartans run a lap, but then I thought: Why not have a dance party in the middle of practice on a cold winter evening?
Why I Side with Ludwig von Mises
Audio Mises Wire What is the Mises Institute? Become a Member
Why I Side with Ludwig von Mises
People readily line up on one side or another of great economic debates. How do they choose which side to take? This is clearly a question worth asking. I have asked it of myself, and it has led me to being an Austrian and especially a Misesian. To try to answer the question of why people decide about economics, let’s begin at the beginning, by asking how people decide anything. As a general rule, they rely on emotion, factual observation, logic, or intuition.
Hunter Lewis
Articles What is the Mises Institute? Become a Member
Editor’s Letter
A Global Traveler WHEN SHE CLOSES HER EYES to summon memories of her childhood in Tijuana, Mexico, chef Claudette Zepeda smells street vendors’ charcoal grills firing up as they prepare for the morning rush. She hears roosters crowing and schoolkids singing the Mexican national anthem. And she sees herself: a self-described “border kid,” who learned English by watching PBS once she moved to “the other side,” aka San Diego, with her family.
The Trouble With Public Access to Private Markets
The Trouble With Public Access to Private Markets WSJ: "To broaden access to private markets, we should first restore public markets for small and medium-size companies so that all investors have an array of public and private choices." 03/20/2026 • Notes in the Margin • Hunter Lewis image/svg+xml Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.
Editor’s Letter
Never Read the Comments I SHOULD PROBABLY FOLLOW THE ADVICE of a small framed sign that a former colleague made for me. “Never read the comments,” it says in needlepoint, a reminder not to get sucked into social media sinkholes. Recently, our Instagram post about our recipe for nikujaga, a Japanese-style meat and potato stew, drew three comments from our followers accusing us of using AI to create the image. “If this is AI I’m done following food and wine,” one said.
Opinion | The Trouble With Public Access to Private Markets
Small investors are unlikely to know what they’re doing—and the effect on public markets would be undesirable. While the public stock market shrinks, the private market expands. Now small investors may finally be invited into private deals, but probably only second-rate ones for confiscatory fees. Is this what we want? I bear some responsibility for what is happening. Total venture capital in the U.S. amounted to only $400 million a year when I began my career.
Editor’s Letter
A Tale of Two Stoves WE WRITE A LOT ABOUT CHEFS IN THESE PAGES, but do you know Magic Chef? Its logo, a jolly, mustachioed, tuxedo-and-toque-clad chef, is the icon of small kitchen spaces everywhere. This includes the tiny New York City studio apartment where our 20-inch gas oven and range’s four pilot lights started glowing blue at night long before my wife, Jen, moved there in 2009. When we married in 2023, its magic began to rub off on me, too.
Editor’s Letter
I’m making soup tonight. I DON’T REALLY KNOW WHAT KIND OF SOUP, so I begin by peeling and chopping ginger, garlic, and turmeric. Then some onions and carrots. They all go into the bottom of an enameled cast-iron pot where olive oil shimmers, and the soup begins to come together. In go quartered shiitake mushrooms, red chile flakes, and plenty of salt and pepper.
A Winning Mindset
“MAKE IT WORTH IT. Just make it worth it.” These are the words of motivation that Patricia Lynch-Epps spoke over the phone late one night from her home in Virginia to her son Tristen Epps in Canada after her husband and Tristen’s father, Russell Long, passed away. Tristen Epps had a decision to make: Continue to compete on season 22 of Top Chef, or come home. His mom’s words fueled him. He wouldn’t just stay. He would win.
Editor’s Letter
Holiday Express I CAME OF AGE IN THE 1990s, when some of the Christmas cards my family received in North Carolina included novella-length letters. They were always typed and photo-copied and were usually written by a family matriarch, who would share rosy updates about her children, the trips the family took that year, and the family dog.
Jewels of the South
IF YOU’RE A FRUIT LOVER LIKE ME—the kind of person who tracks the microseasons at the farmers market—then right now, at this very moment, you might have a satsuma orange in your hand, savoring the sweetest jewel of the Deep South. Or maybe your fingertips are already perfumed from peeling and eating a couple of them. If so, good on you. Satsumas, a type of mandarin orange, originated in East Asia more than 700 years ago.
Meet the 2025 Food & Wine Best New Chefs
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This year, as the editors of F&W traveled the nation scouting restaurants in search of the 37th class of Food & Wine Best New Chefs, the word that kept coming up was “autobiographical.” At restaurants across the country, from Philadelphia to Phoenix and Oakland to Austin, stories were told on the plates, and menus read like memoirs. In this new generation, chefs and bakers are drawing from their backgrounds, their upbringing, and their hometowns as a source of inspiration.
By Raphael Brion Verified, Hunter Lewis Verified, Melanie Hansche Verified, Kat Kinsman Verified, Chandra Ram
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Food & Wine
Verified
This Chef Is Rewriting the Rules of Lao Cooking in a Former Church Sanctuary in Nashville
Credit: Cedric Angeles In this business of food, we don’t give nearly enough credit to high-school vocational teachers, so let’s start here with a shout-out to Brenda Lewis at Siegel High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Without her early tutelage of a punk rock skateboarder named Colby Rasavong, the city of Nashville might not have the captivating, wine-forward Lao restaurant Bad Idea. Lewis’ culinary arts curriculum called for biscuit-making on day one, Rasavong recalls.
Colby Rasavong
BAD IDEA Nashville IN THIS BUSINESS OF FOOD, we don’t give nearly enough credit to high-school vocational teachers, so let’s start here with a shout-out to Brenda Lewis at Siegel High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Without her early tutelage of Colby Rasavong, the city of Nashville might not have the captivating, wine-forward Lao restaurant Bad Idea. Lewis’ culinary arts curriculum called for biscuit-making on day one, Rasavong recalls.
Best New Chefs 2025
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Mariela Camacho COMADRE PANADERÍA, AUSTIN Vinnie Cimino CORDELIA, CLEVELAND Telly Justice HAGS, NEW YORK CITY Jordan Rubin MR.
By Raphael Brion Verified, Melanie Hansche Verified, Kat Kinsman Verified, Hunter Lewis Verified, Chandra Ram
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Food & Wine
Verified
Editor’s Letter
Year of the Horsemen “THE SECOND I WALKED into that tiny dining room in the Passage des Panoramas, I knew it was where we needed to be,” Justin Chearno wrote in The Four Horsemen cookbook, of his first visit to the celebrated wine bar Racines in Paris with his friend James Murphy. I felt the same way when I visited The Four Horsemen, their 38-seat Brooklyn restaurant inspired by Racines that Chearno, who died last year, created with Randy Moon, Murphy, and Murphy’s wife, Christina Topsøe.
Editor’s Letter
All for Wine, Wine for All THE OTHER NIGHT, I was having dinner at a buzzy new wine bar in New York City when I was introduced to a wine podcaster. After a few pleasantries, he leaned in to tell me he didn’t care for our wine coverage. “Not edgy enough,” he said. “That’s the point,” I told him.
These Charcoal-Grilled Chicken Wings Will Level Up Your Grill Game
Credit: Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless Servings: 4 Wings are F&W Editor in Chief Hunter Lewis' favorite part of the chicken because they offer the best flavor and texture ratio of skin to meat, plus the bone makes them super forgiving and hard to overcook. Grilling the wings gives them a slightly smoky flavor, and as the fat slowly renders over the hot coals, the wings develop a crispy crust.
Top Chef’s Newest Champion Is Changing the Definition of New American Cuisine
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Top Chef’s Newest Champion Is Changing the Definition of New American Cuisine Original
Left to right: Bailey Sullivan, Tristan Epps, Tom Colicchio. Credit: Photo by: David Moir/Bravo “Make it worth it. Just make it worth it. Make it worth it.” These are the words that Patricia Lynch Epps spoke over the phone late one night from her home in Virginia to her son, Tristen Epps, in Canada. Her husband and Tristen’s father, Russell Long, had died, leaving Tristen Epps with a decision to make: continue to compete on Season 22 of Top Chef or return home. His mom’s words fueled him.
Baltimore Crab Cakes Recipe
A good crab cake recipe doesn’t hide the crab—it celebrates it. While some versions load the patties with soaked white bread, crushed saltines, Ritz cracker crumbs, or other fillers, this one puts the crab meat front and center. Chesapeake Bay jumbo lump blue crab is the traditional seafood used in Baltimore-style crab cakes, but most varieties will do, as well as whatever grade fits your budget, including backfin or regular lump.
How to Have the Most Magical Experience in Aspen, According to Our Editor in Chief
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80 Reasons You Can't Miss the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, From Fireside Chats to a Caribbean Cookout
Chefs at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. Photo: Marc Fiorito / Food & Wine Whether it’s your first time or your 42nd, if you’re thinking about joining us at the 2025 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, June 20-22, purchase one of the last remaining tickets available and use my guide below to plan your weekend. Build your schedule by signing up for some of the 80 cooking demonstrations, wine seminars, panel discussions, spirits tastings, and Grand Tastings.
How to Have the Most Magical Experience in Aspen, According to Our Editor in Chief
Whether it’s your first time or your 42nd, if you’re thinking about joining us at the 2025 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, June 20-22, purchase one of the last remaining tickets available and use my guide below to plan your weekend. Build your schedule by signing up for some of the 80 cooking demonstrations, wine seminars, panel discussions, spirits tastings, and Grand Tastings. Producing a Food & Wine Classic is like putting together a special issue of the magazine in real life.
Liquor Industry Executive Dia Simms Plans to Generate $2B for the Black Community in the Next 10 Years Original
Photo: Andrew Thomas Lee Dia Simms has a thing about animals. A 20-year veteran in the spirits industry, she is the CEO of Lobos 1707, a tequila company named after a wolf, a team player known for its cunning and intelligence. Investor LeBron James is a member of the pack, and Simms, the alpha wolf, is also a co-founder of Pronghorn, a new business determined to create more diversity in the $284 billion U.S. alcoholic beverage industry.
Homemade Chicken and Chicken Broth Are the Secret to the Best Meal Prepping
Photo: ALEX LAU / FOOD STYLING by MARGARET MONROE DICKEY / PROP STYLING by JILLIAN KNOX Active Time: 20 mins Total Time: 1 hr 15 mins Yield: 4 quarts broth and 4 cups cooked chicken F&W Editor in Chief Hunter Lewis uses this simple and versatile base recipe to get the most out of a whole chicken, transforming it into tender shredded chicken and a nourishing broth. Both are versatile foundations for pho, chicken noodle soup, chicken chili, tinga, chicken and rice soup, and many other recipes.
How to Renovate Your Kitchen and Not Lose Your Money or Your Marbles
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How to Renovate Your Kitchen and Not Lose Your Money or Your Marbles Original
Photo: Cedric Angeles Let’s get this out of the way first. The process of renovating your kitchen ranks somewhere at the bottom of the fun list between a nightmare and a migraine, unless you have the means to take four months off and jet to a villa in Saint-Tropez while the most important room in your house undergoes open-heart surgery. Know this: A renovation is neither a tidy 30-minute HGTV show nor a glossy before-and-after magazine spread. It will change the way you cook.
These Savory-Sweet Laotian-Style Pork Patties Are a Last-Minute Dinner Winner Original
Photo: Alex Lau / FOOD STYLING by MARGARET MONROE DICKEY / PROP STYLING by JILLIAN KNOX Active Time: 20 mins Total Time: 30 mins Servings: 4 F&W Editor in Chief Hunter Lewis makes these super-aromatic, pungent patties for his family at least twice a month, and serves them with rice and vegetables like cucumbers or roasted brussels sprouts or carrots for a complete meal.
The F&W Guide to Renovating Your Kitchen
LET’S GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY FIRST. The process of renovating your kitchen ranks somewhere at the bottom of the fun list between a nightmare and a migraine, unless you have the means to take four months off and jet to a villa in Saint-Tropez while the most important room in your house undergoes open-heart surgery. Know this: A renovation is neither a tidy 30-minute HGTV show nor a glossy before-and-after magazine spread. It will change the way you cook. It will test your marriage.
Unleash Your Inner Nonna With This Shortcut for Italian Meat Sauce
Photo: Alex Lau / FOOD STYLING by MARGARET MONROE DICKEY / PROP STYLING by JILLIAN KNOX Active Time: 45 mins Total Time: 1 hr 10 mins Yield: 3 quarts F&W Editor in Chief Hunter Lewis’ fast, streamlined version of the typically long-simmered Bolognese sauce from the Emilia-Romanga region of Italy can be made in under an hour in a pressure cooker or adapted easily to a slow cooker for a long, hands-free cook.
Hoppin’ John Soup
“My favorite way to use up leftover ham has got to be hoppin’ John, a humble dish of black-eyed peas and rice, sometimes served with collard greens, that’s typically eaten on New Year’s Day and is said to bring good luck. There’s no consensus on how this specialty—adored in much of the South—got its name, but the food is likely a descendant of similar Afro-Caribbean dishes that make use of field peas or other legumes.
What Investment Managers Aren’t Telling You
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Recipe: Roasted Green Beans with Ginger, Garlic and Chiles Original
Food & Wine editor in chief Hunter Lewis says this recipe is the way he gets his kids to eat green beans. This simple side dish pairs the flavors of earthy, long-cooked, charred green beans with the fresh, aromatic punches of fresh ginger, garlic, chiles, and fresh mint. Equally delicious served hot from the oven or at room temperature, these will become a regular at your table all year long.
Liquor Industry Executive Dia Simms Plans to Generate $2B for the Black Community in the Next 10 Years Original
Photo: Andrew Thomas Lee Dia Simms has a thing about animals. A 20-year veteran in the spirits industry, she is the CEO of Lobos 1707, a tequila company named after a wolf, a team player known for its cunning and intelligence. Investor LeBron James is a member of the pack, and Simms, the alpha wolf, is also a co-founder of Pronghorn, a new business determined to create more diversity in the $284 billion U.S. alcoholic beverage industry.
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