Andrew Black

Executive Chef and Co-Owner

"Every opportunity should be spent cooking without boundaries or barriers."

Chef Andrew Black – a 2023 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: Southwest, and a 2022 James Beard Award semifinalist for Outstanding Chef - is a chef, restaurateur, and entrepreneur in Oklahoma City. Arriving in OKC 17 years ago after being hired by the historic Skirvin Hilton Hotel to open Park Avenue Grill and serve as its Executive Chef, Chef Black has made his home in the city as one of its leading small business owners and tastemakers with three acclaimed restaurants in the growing hospitality group he co-founded, Culinary Edge Concepts. They include inimitable fine dining venture Grey Sweater and trend-setting Black Walnut. He returned to The Skirvin Hilton Hotel to open his new restaurant Perle Mesta in June 2024. 

Chef Black is the author of the cookbook Foraging in Oklahoma: Tales and Recipes from the Open Road, as told to The Oklahoman’s Steve Lackmeyer, and his work has been featured on CBS News “The Dish,” and in Bon Appetit, The Wall Street Journal, Wine Enthusiast magazine (50 Best Restaurants 2022), Zagat Stories, and Thrillist, among others. As the culinary entrepreneur, Chef Black proudly partnered with Dorasti Premium Caviar to present his brand Grey Sweater Caviar, as featured in The Wall Street Journal.

Born in Jamaica to an Indo-Jamaican family, where roti was cooked on a handmade clay oven over an open fire, Chef Black was often tasked with building outdoor clay ovens for his grandmother as a child. From working his way through the island’s resort kitchens, to staging his way through fine dining restaurants in Europe, including the Ritz in Paris, Chef Black has been a trailblazer his whole career, and today is a respected and accomplished restaurateur, philanthropist and leader.