From the Bay to the Culinary Institute: Reign Chapman’s culinary journey

by Tiara Mbonisi

Before Reign Chapman ever stepped into a professional kitchen, his culinary education had already begun in Oakland’s diverse food scene.

It was carne asada tacos and super burritos from the trucks along East 14th in Fruitvale. Chinese food from neighborhood spots by Lake Merritt. Halal lamb shared with family and community over iftar with his grandfather and Friday night soul food dinners at his grandmother’s house. At home, it was standing beside his mother in the kitchen, learning how ingredients became meals and meals became a reason for people to gather.

Growing up in the Bay meant growing up in a melting pot, and food was one of the ways Reign learned to experience it.

Food also runs deep on both sides of his family — so deep that Thanksgiving becomes an annual negotiation. Home cooks and trained chefs on both his mother’s and father’s sides compete for real estate at the holiday table, leaving the family bouncing between gatherings year after year to give both sides their due. His paternal grandmother is known for her roast and crab boils; his maternal great-aunt for collard greens, black-eyed peas and mac and cheese. In Reign’s family, good food isn’t reserved for restaurants. It is inheritance, celebration and a love language.

Today, the Oakland-raised young chef is preparing for his next chapter after being accepted to the Culinary Institute of America in New York, one of the country’s most respected culinary schools. But his journey there began long before the acceptance letter.

Reign started cooking regularly with his mother around age 11. By 13, he was telling his parents he wanted to become a chef. His father challenged him to decide whether cooking was something he truly wanted to pursue, then gave him tools to find out: chef books and Gordon Ramsay’s MasterClass.

Reign kept cooking.

At MetWest High School in Oakland, he got his first opportunity to take that passion beyond his family’s kitchen. MetWest’s internship model encouraged students to venture into their communities, find mentors and gain real-world experience in fields they imagined for themselves. For Reign, that meant food.

His first internship was at Crispian Bakery in Alameda, where he began learning the rhythms and expectations of a professional kitchen. He later interned at Oakland’s Duende under Chef Paul, a Culinary Institute of America alumnus who would eventually work at CIA’s Napa Valley campus. Those experiences helped transform cooking from something Reign loved into something he could envision building a life around.

Then his family moved more than 2,000 miles away, from Oakland to Atlanta.

There, Reign found a new culinary community through Navigate, a training program where he strengthened his knowledge of food safety and professional techniques while gaining hands-on experience throughout the city. He prepared food for events at the Georgia World Congress Center and Georgia Aquarium and worked in the kitchen at Mercedes-Benz Stadium during the FIFA World Cup. He also won a culinary taco competition at an Atlanta food festival! A fitting accomplishment for a young chef partly raised on East Oakland taco trucks and burritos.

At Navigate, Reign ultimately earned the program’s highest student recognition: Student of the Year. But his ambitions extend beyond becoming a skilled chef.

Reign likes serving people. He is interested in what restaurants can contribute to their communities and how the industry can become more sustainable, particularly by reducing food waste and finding creative uses for ingredients that might otherwise be discarded.

At home, food remains communal. Somewhere along the way, Reign surpassed his mother and became the primary chef in the household. Now he helps teach his younger brother to cook, passing along knowledge much the same way it was first passed to him. In many ways, Reign’s journey is a story about what can happen when a young person is allowed to grow through community.

His family taught him that food holds memory and love. Oakland taught him that a meal can carry culture, migration, faith and history. His mother’s kitchen gave him a place to experiment. His father pushed him to take his ambition seriously. MetWest opened the door to his first professional kitchens. And when his life moved across the country, Navigate gave him another community in which to grow.

Now, the Culinary Institute of America is the next doorway. Reign has earned his place there. His family is raising funds to help close the remaining gap between financial aid and the cost of attendance.

For the Bay Area community that helped shape his palate, curiosity and understanding of what it means to feed people, supporting Reign is an opportunity to help one of its own carry those lessons forward. The dishes Chef Reign creates may someday be served far beyond Oakland.

But the Bay will always be somewhere in the recipe.

The post From the Bay to the Culinary Institute: Reign Chapman’s culinary journey appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.