Vishwesh Bhatt: Snackbar (Oxford, MS)

Vishwesh Bhatt has been a part of Chef John Currence's City Grocery Restaurant Group in Oxford, MS since 1997. He started off as a prep cook at City Grocery and worked his way up to Executive Chef at Snackbar, where he has developed a menu that intertwines both Southern and subcontinental foodways. His new cookbook, I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef, celebrates and explores this intertwining of cultures through his own unique personal lens, and it was masterfully photographed by past guest Angie Mosier. Vish was Southern Living's 2019 Southerner of the Year and that same year won James Beard Foundation Best Chef: South. I wanted to catch up with him on his debut week before it took months for our paths to cross, but as is sometimes the case in the life of an independent podcast, my fancy remote recording equipment went wonky because of our respective locations, so we resorted to an old fashioned phone call. It was nevertheless a wonderful conversation, as you'll soon hear.