Vital Names: The 100-Year (and Counting) Legacy of Chef Robert W. Lee
Welcome to “Vital Names,” a series of articles spotlighting influential Black chefs whose names are not as widely known as they should be, and whose marks on the culinary world have been overlooked, misattributed or appropriated. The vital name in part two of our series is Robert W. Lee, the World War II-era leader who mentored hundreds of next generation Black chefs.
Born in 1911, Robert W. Lee became the first Black executive chef in Harrisburg, Pa. in the late 1940s. According to The Patriot News, central Pennsylvania's largest newspaper, Lee put Harrisburg on the culinary map and introduced the city to Southern cuisine. He also provided culinary instruction to legions of Black cooks, empowering them to pursue culinary excellence and, therein, shaping the future of American cuisine.
Advancing Through the Kitchen Brigade
Lee’s culinary career began before he was ten years old. While searching for work to support his family, he observed a man working at the Biltmore Hotel who appeared to be doing well for himself. It was French chef Eugene Bruauier. Lee introduced himself, and then worked as Bruauier’s apprentice for 13 years.
Lee’s work in hotel kitchens took him to Charleston, Atlanta, and eventually, to Harrisburg, Pa. In 1939, as “part of a line of African-American during the 1930s and 1940s,” he was hired as a cook at the Harrisburger Hotel. He worked there for three years, then served four years in the U.S. Army during World War II.
Lee returned to The Harrisburger in 1946.
“Over the next year, the hotel experienced a rapid turnover of executive chefs, [and] finally, Chef Lee was recommended for the position of executive chef,” explains , founder of the Taste of Heritage Foundation.
“It was unheard of... him being an executive chef. There have always been [Black cooks] in the kitchen, but executive chefs, they were usually European,” Randall says. “He infused that [role with his] Southern flavor and skill.”
With Lee at the helm of the Harrisburger Hotel, The Patriot News stated, “The lines stretched for blocks from its doors. No other menu in town offered crab cakes, chicken pot pies and chopped chicken livers prepared in classic Southern style.”
Lee ran the kitchen at the hotel until it closed in 1968—a total of 27 years. He then worked as the executive chef at the Blue Ridge Country Club, followed by employment at the Archris Hotel Corporation of Boston.
Even though he worked North of the Mason-Dixon Line, Lee experienced substantial discrimination. Before a cooking demonstration he was hired to lead in a York, Pa. hotel, Lee saw a sign directing Black patrons to the rear entrance. He refused to use it, and only after threatening to leave was he permitted to use the front door.
Empowering The Next Generation
Throughout his career, Lee trained numerous cooks and helped them advance through the kitchen brigade system.
In a 1999 issue of The Patriot News, Lee's obituary noted that he “received a medal from President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt in recognition of the large number of cooks he trained while an Army cooking instructor and mess sergeant during World War II."
During his tenure as executive chef at the Harrisburger Hotel, Lee employed an all-Black kitchen staff, helping others rise at a time when white chefs held the highest positions in restaurants. One of the cooks he mentored was Chef Joe Randall, aforementioned founder of the Taste of Heritage Foundation. Chef Randall went on to work as an executive chef and to author “A Taste of Heritage: The New African-American Cuisine,” a cookbook celebrating African American chefs and Randall's own recipes. For his efforts, Randall was inducted into the James Beard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame in 1998.
Prior to that, however, the Taste of Heritage Foundation created its own hall of fame. In 1993, the foundation launched the to celebrate and memorialize Black chefs and their contributions to American cuisine. Lee was inducted into and named “Chef of the Year” from 1970-1979, honoring his historic career in the culinary arts.
Despite systemic racism, Lee rose to the highest echelons of the kitchen brigade. In so doing, he introduced Southern cuisine to central Pennsylvania and ensured, through his mentorship of several hundred Black chefs, that Black culinary excellence was cultivated, carried forward and correctly credited.
Revisit part one in the Vital Names series: Edna Lewis
