Brittney Williams, who runs Brittney’s Famous Alabama Kitchen. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Brittney Williams scooped a spoonful of her Mississippi chicken onto a plate, careful not to spill any of the juices. She moved on to the garlic mashed potatoes, velvet smooth with a fragrant kick of salt and herbs. As she added a golden square of cornbread and dollop of jezebel sauce, she channeled a tradition of Southern matriarchs, from her mom Pam to her great-grandmother, Magnolia.
Wednesday afternoon, Williams joined fellow graduates of Collab and CitySeed’s Food Business Accelerator at the Dixwell Community Q House, where CitySeed’s farmers market takes place weekly in the Daniel Y. Stewart Plaza. For three hours, the midweek market became a platform for culinary alchemists and small business dreamers, with flavors that ranged from hot kimchi slaw and garlic chicken to strawberry cheesecake.
The Food Business Accelerator is a 12-week program for early-stage food entrepreneurs to receive one-on-one guidance and training from the organizations that run it. Wednesday, businesses included Tortilleria Semilla, Brittney’s Famous Alabama Kitchen, Heartfelt Catering, Caribe Soul, Momma Kiss Kitchen Cuisine, Pup Pizza Dog Bakery, Suga & Spice Me, Mitho Garden, Razzi’s Eats & Treats, and Auntie Sheelah's Cheesecakes. They represent just a fraction of the Accelerator’s work since 2018.
Top: Chef Kismet Douglass of Momma Kiss Kitchen, which serves food at CitySeed's weekly farmers' markets. Bottom: Chef Aaron Lee and his kids, Aaralyn and Noah.
“They just have so much talent and innovation and they have the potential to grow,” said Cara Santino, food entrepreneurship director at CitySeed. “It’s so hard for any emerging small business right now, so why not support them? Eating together, it helps build community. That’s what we have right now.”
Wednesday, that community was in full force, chefs quietly cheering each other on from a series of tents and vendor tables that encircled the plaza and grew the market to three times its mormal size. Close to the Q House’s back entrance, chef Aaron Lee of Heartfelt Catering doled out generous portions of vegetarian nachos and Korean jerk barbecue chicken, the latter served neatly on a skewer with ginger-kissed barbecue sauce and crisp slaw.
On either side of him, his kids Noah and Aaralyn transformed into young sous chefs, learning the tricks of the trade as they served samples to an ever-growing line of attendees. A former Yale hospitality staffer and 2021 graduate of the Food Business Accelerator, Lee now caters both small and large events across the tri-state area, from private meals to corporate events at Yale.
Shayne "Chef Razzi" Miller (at center) with Johnnoy Golding and Jaylisha Gary.
As he worked, he glanced over every so often at his peer Shayne “Chef Razzi” Miller, a fellow son of New Haven who is working to give back as his culinary star takes off.
“To make good food is to love,” he later said. “That’s why ours is heartfelt.”
One table over, Miller often glanced back, giving Lee his due as a culinary inspiration in the little big city that raised him.
Born and raised in New Haven’s Westville neighborhood, Miller started cooking in earnest at 19, when he became vegan. For years, he worked in the food business, with stints at Sage American Bar & Grill, Forks & Fingers, and Burke’s Catering in Greenwich. During that time, he was also freelancing as a photographer, earning him the nickname Razzi, as in paparazzi.
Even then, he said, he knew he wanted more. In 2016, Miller entered ConnCAT’s still-nascent culinary program, then run under Chef Eric Blass (it now operates under the guidance of Chef Jenna Martin). Within weeks, he could feel his world opening up, from the new dishes students learned each day to the skills they built in the kitchen. After six months, he took an externship at the University of Fairfield, where he ultimately worked in catering for three years.
Miller liked the job, he said—but he was always interested in growing that culinary footprint. After working in catering at the Dolan School of Business, he returned to ConnCAT as a teacher, working full time under Martin to train students. In addition to his peers, he said that his inspiration is his young daughter, Khloe, and his students at ConnCAT.
Top: Josi Contreras and Anabel Hernandez of Tortilleria Semilla. Bottom: Zoey Hodge of Pup Pizza Dog Bakery, inspired by New Haven's love affair with pizza.
Wednesday, he brought out two of those mentees, ConnCAT students Johnnoy Golding and Jaylisha Gary, to help serve jerk chicken and kimchi slaw wraps with fruit, olive oil cake and New York-style candied cashews. Inside the slaw wraps, a pairing of hot-on-the tongue spice and a sweet, tangy mango finish waited for hungry attendees.
“This is great,” he said as Gary lifted more dainty packs of candied cashews onto the table. “I think this is what I’m here for. I have to make sure that students know I’m here for them.”
Just a few tents away, Williams presented her garlic and Mississippi chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, homemade cornbread and jezebel sauce, the recipe to which remains top-secret. No sooner had she set up than a line had formed, attendees taking in the scents of garlic, onion and banana pepper that swam around in the warm air.
With each new face, she took a moment to point out different dishes, from the sweet, hot banana peppers to a golden crumb on the cornbread.
Shakeema Romero (in yellow) of Suga & Spice Me with her daughter, Cadence. Her business, which started in 2021 and is based in Bridgeport, is based on creating healthy, tasteful food with natural ingredients.
Born and raised in Alabama, Williams has loved cooking since her childhood, when her mom, Pam, and great-grandmother, Magnolia, taught her the fundamentals. For two decades, she worked in restaurants after studying film and theater at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Almost two years ago, she moved to New Haven to help take care of her niece, then a newborn.
As her niece grew out of those tiny onesies and started approaching her second birthday, Williams could feel the familiar pull of the kitchen. “Titi’s trying to get back to work!” she said with a laugh as she looked across the plaza at her mom, Pam. Cooking felt like the homiest place to return to: it’s the culinary arts that have always made her feel empowered, and sometimes even sassy depending on the dish she’s making.
“It’s my happy place,,” she said. “It’s my calm.” After graduating from the most recent Food Business Accelerator in March, her goal is to get her food into major retailers like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Target within the year.
Top: Lebron. Bottom: Attendees Jerome Washington, Gloria Gray, and Joyce Woods.
Beside her, Caribe Soul’s Hazel Lebron handed out still-warm empanadas wrapped in wax paper, ready to chat about her guava lava (jammy, sweet guava and mozzarella cheese; just trust it), sweet potato cheesecake and roasted green (Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes and sriracha) flavors for anyone who was curious enough to ask.
In the past year, Lebron said, she’s been able to expand to CitySeed’s weekly markets and focus more on catering. She credits the Food Business Accelerator with helping her make that pivot as she still runs her brick-and-mortar space, Madeleine’s, in the Hill.
Nearby, Smita Shrestha and her parents, Bharat and Rupeshwori Shrestha, served warm momo, or dumplings, and spicy potato salad from their pop-up based business Mitho Garden. Launched in the spring of last year, Mitho Garden is meant to be a cultural bridge between New Haven, Connecticut and Nepal, where the family originally hails from. Currently, the three use the incubator kitchen at the Q House, with Rupeshwori taking the bulk of cooking responsibilities.
Top: The Mitho Garden Team. Bottom: Aya Washington, Nyashia Grant, and Alaysia Grant.
As she drizzled two vegetable momo with timur achar, a creamy, vibrant tomato sauce that folds in garlic, chilis, and Sichuan pepper depending on the recipe, Smita said that she was thrilled to introduce people to Nepalese food and culture, which remains relatively unknown in New Haven.
“It’s amazing” to watch people’s reactions when they eat the food, she said with a smile. “We are welcoming you to Nepal—we love the cultural part of it.”
As if on cue, sisters Alaysia and Nyashia Grant scored some of the last chicken momos, balancing them in pint-sized plastic cups that were empty within seconds. Nyashia, who is 17, said she liked how flavorful the combination of chicken, cabbage, and finely chopped vegetables were from the moment she bit into the dumpling.
She added that she’d enjoyed everything she tried, with especially high praise for 2023 Food Business Accelerator graduate Auntie Sheelah's Cheesecakes. “Ten out of ten,” she said, before heading over to Shakeema Romero’s business, Suga & Spice Me, just one table over. Soon, she was testing out Romero’s chili and vegan chocolate cake, with a cocoa finish so deep that a person could almost swim in it.
Top: Marlo Edwards and his four-year-old Yorkie/Maltese, Tego, stop for Pup Pizza. Bottom: CitySeed Executive Director Sarah Miller with Lindy Lee Gold, a senior development specialist with the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (CT DECD).
Sarah Miller, who became the executive director of CitySeed earlier this summer, noted that events like Wednesday’s highlight the need for more space and a larger, functioning commercial kitchen—a plan that the organization has started to work toward with a new building in Fair Haven. Already, food businesses are often competing for space at the Q House, where the kitchen is almost always in use.
Meanwhile, they've outgrown a space on Legion Avenue, where Sanctuary Kitchen prepares food each week. It marks a kind of full-circle moment for the accelerator: Sanctuary Kitchen was one of its earliest ventures in 2018.
“This is an illustration of why we need that building,” she said.
The CitySeed Farmers’ Market at the Dixwell Community Q House runs each Wednesday at 197 Dixwell Ave. from 3 to 6 p.m. through October 25. More information is available here.