Published in Focus on the Coast Magazine, April/May 2015
Many folks turning an eye toward Kinston, North Carolina, specifically have dinner at Chef & The Farmer in mind–and why wouldn’t you? Chef Vivian Howard’s popular PBS show, “A Chef’s Life,” doesn’t mislead viewers when it comes to this “progressive eatery’s” take on Southern food and hospitality. But what many may not realize is that Vivian and her husband Ben’s vision for the restaurant is only one (albeit largely influential) part of why Kinston is one of our state’s last small towns with a growing pulse of innovation, culture, and taste.
As soon as we parked in front of the unassuming Chef & The Farmer building in downtown Kinston–where parking meters have yet to sprout anywhere–Vivian’s assistant, a Mississippi transplant named Holley Pearce greeted us, “You ready for the Kinston Crawl?”
Shannon Rae Gentry 