On Saturday, October 23, Edward Lee (CAS '95) was awarded the Alumni Achievement Award at the virtual 2021 CAS Alumni Achievement Award Ceremony by interim dean, Matthew Santirocco.
Alumni Achievement Award
About Edward Lee (CAS '95)
Edward Lee is the chef/owner of 610 Magnolia and Whiskey Dry in Louisville, KY and the Culinary Director for Succotash in National Harbor, Maryland and Penn Quarter, DC. Lee was the recipient of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award for Writing for his book "Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting Pot Cuisine." Lee has also been a six-time finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Southeast. In 2018, Food & Wine Magazine named 610 Magnolia one of the country’s most important restaurants of the past 40 years. The Michelin Guide DC awarded Succotash a Bib Gourmand in 2019.
Lee appears frequently in print and television and his writing has been featured in The New York Times, Esquire, Food & Wine and many other national publications. He was nominated for a daytime Emmy for his role as host of the Emmy-winning series, "Mind of Chef" on PBS. He has hosted and written a feature documentary called "Fermented."
His philanthropic work includes the Lee Diversity Scholarship to support the Southern Foodways Alliance Oral History Workshop. In 2018, Lee launched The LEE (Let’s Empower Employment) Initiative, which works to bring more diversity and equality to the restaurant industry.
Lee is the author of "Smoke & Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen" (Artisan Books, May 2013) and of "Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef’s Journey to Discover America’s New Melting Pot Cuisine" (Artisan Books, April 2018).
His luxury small batch bourbon created with Trey Zoeller is called Chef’s Collaboration Blend with Jefferson's Reserve and is sold wherever fine whiskey is sold.
Photo Credit: Jolea Brown
As an Alumni Achievement Award recipient, Lee joins other alumni luminaries, including bestselling authors Sara Shepard (CAS ’99) and Elizabeth Gilbert (WSC ’91); physician Stanley Plotkin (ARTS ’52) who discovered the rubella vaccine; and screenwriter Robert Kamen (ARTS ’69) who wrote The Karate Kid, The Fifth Element, and the Taken franchise.
View the full list of past CAS Alumni