The master biscuit baker used cooking as a conduit for ancestors.

Chris Scott tells Carla Thomas

Zagat Stories showcased "Restaurant 21/22", which is a collection of interviews with leading voices in the fields of catering, hotels, food, technology, and politics. Each story takes the transition of the calendar as a turning point to consider what will happen in 2021, or what may happen in 2022, in the restaurant and food sectors. View all stories here. Feel free to view last year’s series.

Chris Scott is the chef and owner of Butterfunk Biscuit Co. in New York. His biscuits won him a semi-final seat as a top chef and other honors. He is currently a contestant for The Great Soul Food Cookoff.

Butterfunk Biscuit Co. Soho is the first one, it is a ghost kitchen. We started around January 2021, when the indoor dining hadn't really come back. The ghost kitchen is our way of trying to create business for ourselves, for our employees, for everyone to work, and to provide products to the community.

The ghost kitchen is basically a warehouse, where you almost have enough space to walk in the door and front counter. This requires a lot of marketing because you can walk past it on the street and you don't even know it is there because there is no storefront. This is a real warehouse, where the delivery staff pick up the goods and bring it to you.

When we first introduced the Ghost Kitchen to the public, they thought, "Wow, it's like a restaurant." People drive in from Brooklyn, Queens, and parts of Manhattan, thinking they can get in. We approached 50 to 60 people every day, thinking it was a restaurant, but then they would go there to sit on the side of the road, sit down on the porch, sit in their car, hang out in front, and then eat. It's great to see people still come up with it and still want to support us.

The location of the residential area has been constructed for about three years, we should have moved in early, but the COVID has suspended this. Once the indoor catering comes back into play, the construction of the residential area is complete. Then we moved in around July 4. Business has been very good. It is not as sensational as we hoped, because the COVID is still there and people are still very careful, but it forces us to adopt that noisy mentality and go where our business is.

You really have to work hard. When you have a family and a mouth to feed, you really have to chase the money-chase everything to maintain your business development. Not only for yourself, but also for your employees and your community. After all, we all have to eat, so you have to find a way to bring business to you.

That ghost kitchen is working. I have been doing many demonstrations and cookie pop-ups in different high schools. I am making one at Soho House in the Lower East Side. We are trying to enter Ace Hotel and Essex Market. All this is to create more business for our residential area. Then I hope we can also carry out some demonstrations in the restaurant. But you just need to understand the hustle and bustle and continue to do so, continue to hone.

Teaching has always been one of my things. Make this cookie demo, it's not just a demo, you can put on an apron and have fun. I'm talking about bread made with brown hands. I'm talking about bread from different brown countries such as Mexico and India.

One thing especially about my location is that I made it about the food, and the story behind the food. What am I doing? This is the fourth generation of this special cookie passed down to me by my ancestors. I'm just talking about that and black history and general baking. So when you come, you are really tasting and experiencing a culture. You get the backstory, you get some family history, and the experience of black people.

Every time I make cookies, I always think of my ancestors’ conversations in the kitchen—about life, love, happiness, pain, and gossip. One thing about pandemics and baking is to eat this sourdough. Now, don't get me wrong, I like sourdough. I think this is great. There is a lot of scientific basis behind it. But this makes me think, why when we think of bread, we immediately think of a lot of European-centric bread in our minds? Why don't we think about injera, why not think about roti, why not think about biscuits and cornbread? Why don't we think about brown hand-made breads that are made on la planche, baked in a clay oven, and baked on the ground, just like our ancestors did?

Many people will want to come to my house to learn about black and African American baking. When they left, they not only understood the dish, but also the culture behind it. They know why this food or this dish is important to culture. Just like pasta is to Italy and butter sauce is to France, people will learn our style and learn what we do in the kitchen. This is as important as studying in a French, German or Italian kitchen.

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