Chef Roshara Sanders tells a story with every dish she makes.
It’s a story of culture, family, history, across North America, South America, Africa and the Caribbean, known as the Pan-American diaspora table.
“It’s about people, places and things that inspire us,” Sanders said of her style. “There’s always something you’re going to learn from chef Ro.”
Gather55 Restaurant in Hartford is trying to attract more guests for dinner.
Now an accomplished chef with many titles and accolades, Sanders defied the odds to get there.
She was born impoverished, raised in Bridgeport by a single mother and joined the U.S. Army after graduation from high school, with the sole goal of someday attending Culinary Institute of America on the GI Bill.
Chef Roshara Sanders (Courtesy)
After six years as a combat veteran in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, her mission was accomplished.
Not only did Sanders, 36, graduate from CIA, today she’s a professor there, the first Black woman to hold such a position there in the culinary arts.
She’s earned her place as a super star on the culinary scene with all kinds of titles.
Next month she’s coming to Hartford’s Gather55 restaurant as a guest chef and leaders at the non-profit are excited. Each month, Gather55 welcomes a celebrated guest chef. Revenue from evening dinner service helps sustain Gather55’s daytime pay-what-you-can café.
“Chef Ro’s journey is one of perseverance, service and purpose,” said Rob Maffucci, restaurant director of Gather55. “Her passion for mentorship and storytelling through food reflects everything Gather55 believes in—that a meal can nourish people, spark conversation and strengthen community.”
Among Sanders’ accolades: She’s a Food Network Chopped champion, a Forbes Top 30 under 30 fellow, named one of Food & Wine’s 2024 Game Changers, a James Beard House featured chef, and a partner in an upcoming Bridgeport hotel project. The 36-room boutique hotel is scheduled to open in 2027.
She also completed an ambassadorship at the acclaimed Harlem restaurant, Red Rooster, under celebrated chef Marcus Samuelsson.
The hotel purchased by investors who brought her in will have a speakeasy restaurant, market place, lounge and “strong breakfast program,” she said.
“I believe Bridgeport is turning around,” she said. “The hotel will bring a spotlight to Bridgeport. In the next 10 years it’s (Bridgeport) going to look different. ”
Her Pan-American Diaspora Table at Gather55 will be served throughout August.
The culinary journey will trace the movement of people, traditions, and flavors across North America, South America, and the Caribbean.
Chef Ro will be in the Gather55 kitchen on August 12 and meet with guests.
The menu also tells a story of memory, migration, resilience and celebration, a Gather55 spokesman said.
The meal goes like this: an Heirloom cherry tomato & Bing cherry salad, whipped ricotta, citrus dressing and okra gremolata; a skillet; skillet cornbread trio with onion jam butter, chipotle adobo lime butter and guava butter; a seared lamb chop; mojo rojo fried potatoes, charred scallion relish and for dessert, spiced rum carrot cake with cream cheese mousse, dark rum glaze and warm spices.
The dessert she calls, “Somebody’s Grandmother Made This” because the dish was shared with her by a student whose grandmother made it. The student was Black, Sanders said.
There are many stories in that meal, she said.
She may tell the story of how the rum trade was a major financial driver of slavery and how so many slaves died or were injured in the process.
That makes the carrot cake part of the African American struggle, she said.
Sanders said she’s been in the kitchen since age six, as her mother brought her to work with her in a kitchen.
Diagnosed with PTSD after her military service, Sanders said cooking helps keep her centered and happy.
What does she love about being a chef?
“Food is healthy. Food is medicine. Food brings people together,” Sanders said.
