Chef Ouita Michel’s Kentucky Restaurants Feature Local Foods
In partnership with: Kentucky Department of Agriculture
Kentucky native Chef Ouita Michel’s first encounter with local food was from her childhood in the form of a family plot in the faculty garden where her dad worked as a medical school professor.
“Gardening and eating out of that garden was part of my life as a kid,” she recalled. “But I didn’t really associate it with sustainability at that time because we didn’t really think about sustainability in the ’70s other than the Keep America Beautiful ad campaign with the Indian chief who was crying. I started really thinking about buying local in the early ’90s.”
Based in Midway, the eight-time James Beard nominee, cookbook author, and guest judge on Bravo’s Top Chef Kentucky series has since become a passionate champion for Kentucky farmers, fishers, and other suppliers.
Michel’s eight restaurants – Holly Hill Inn, Wallace Station, Windy Corner Market, The Midway Bakery and Cafe, Smithtown Seafood, Honeywood, Zim’s Cafe, and The Thirsty Fox – as well as her events company and new cooking studio, all focus on locally sourced cuisine.
See more: How Chaney’s Dairy Barn in Kentucky Is Elevating Agritourism
The Secret Ingredient
Since the 2001 opening of her first restaurant, Holly Hill Inn, Michel has always strived to incorporate local ingredients whenever possible.
“It was in our business plan,” she said. “Most of the great cuisines of the world use artisanal agricultural ingredients: French, Italian, Spanish. I wanted to not only re-create that for my own restaurant in Central Kentucky, but be involved with farming. I’ve always felt that the chef and the farmer are partners.”
Many of those local ingredients still appear in her popular dishes. She uses fresh local corn in her summer corn pudding, Swiss chard stems in cheese-laced gratin, and eggplant in souffle, plus her restaurants serve fresh-baked bread made with flour from Weisenberger Mills in Midway.
Michel has gone to great lengths to buy proteins from Kentucky growers, including chicken, lamb, chuck roast, ground beef, and catfish.
“I think it’s easier to buy local now than it ever has been before,” she said. “When I first started Holly Hill, just to get the local meat was really, really hard. There were not as many processors as there are now.”
Michel is also dedicated to environmental sustainability. Behind the old bread factory that is now Smithtown Seafood is an urban farm called FoodChain. A recirculating aquaponics system converts wastes from tilapia that swim in huge tanks into fertilizer for herbs and lettuces.
An ardent supporter of the Kentucky Proud initiative, her restaurants have purchased $10 million worth of Kentucky Proud foods, making them lifetime members of the Buy Local program.
“I feel like anything that we can do that can elevate farming in our community is positive for the entire state,” Michel said.
See more: Value-Added Products Boost Kentucky Agriculture
Taste Maker
In the summer of 2024, Michel traveled to Bahrain as an ambassador for the U.S. Culinary Corps, a collaboration between the U.S. State Department and the James Beard Foundation. For five days, she taught college-age students how to prepare Kentucky fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, pimento cheese, biscuits, and other Southern favorites.
She is also a founding board member of FoodChain, a Lexington nonprofit with a teaching kitchen, aquaculture farm, and – in the near future – a grocery store. Kids, both on-site and in schools, learn how to cook, try, and identify new foods, and appreciate ingredients from local partnering farmers.
Scheduled for release in 2025, You Belong Here, an eight-part video series produced by Michel’s Holly Hill Studios and Macaroni Art, will showcase Bluegrass State chefs, dishes, and restaurants. All of this outreach is designed to spread the idea of cooking from scratch and honor the sources of fresh Kentucky ingredients.
“Our farmers are part of their communities, and they’re approachable,” she said. “It’s really important that we protect Kentucky’s rich, dynamic food culture. Without the Kentucky farmer, there is no Kentucky cuisine.”