Triad Chef Receives National Recognition

A Triad area chef has been inducted into the American Academy of Chefs Culinary Hall of Fame. It's an honor bestowed on just three people each year.

Donald McMillan, or Chef Don as he's known by the thousands of culinary enthusiasts he's mentored over several decades, is now an Honorary Hall of Famer. As chief instructor at The Stocked Pot in Winston-Salem, he's hosted renowned chefs like Julia Child, Jacques Pepin and many others. He's traveled to more than 60 countries, sampling regional cuisine and featuring those recipes on television.

But McMillan says it's his work with the American Culinary Federation's Chef And Child initiative that may have put him over the top. Under his guidance, the local program expanded to 17 other North Carolina counties and was recognized at the White House.

“Michelle Obama wanted to get chefs involved in the nutritional end of it as well, and so, she invited myself — there were three of us from North Carolina who went there — and we worked with different school systems to develop more nutritional-based meals,” he says.

At the awards ceremony in Orlando, Florida, McMillan thanked the people who got him there and stressed the importance of mentoring others. Beginning next week he'll return to that role at the North Carolina Leadership Academy, a charter high school in Kernersville, where he'll be launching a new program teaching two, hour-long cooking classes each day.