Dr. Lezli Levene Harvell isn’t a chef. She’s a board-certified pediatric dentist from New Jersey, the mother of five girls, and for more than a decade she’s had an uncanny habit of finding the chefs who go on to define American dining, long before anyone else does.
Harvell built The Iconoclast Dinner Experience from a single dinner at the James Beard House 11 years ago into a platform now built around five signature events each year. A Spelman College alumna and first-generation Jamaican-American, she has spent that decade bringing together chefs, cultural leaders and visionaries she believed deserved a bigger seat at tables they hadn’t been offered.
That instinct is the same one behind The Iconoclast Dinner Experience overall: chefs and beverage professionals of color weren’t getting the recognition Harvell thought they deserved. This year’s King Is Dead. sharpens that same focus specifically for women, aiming to put them at the center of an industry the event describes as still largely defined by male leadership.
The King Is Dead. returns for its seventh year
This Sunday, Aug. 9, that mission returns to Martha’s Vineyard for the seventh annual edition of The King Is Dead. It’s presented by Target and held in partnership with The FARM Institute, a 162-acre working farm and educational center dedicated to connecting people to food and farming.
Chef Ting, founder of Black Joy Kitchen in Oak Bluffs, is this year’s Host Chef. Preston Clark, culinary director of Lure Fishbar and Bar Mercer in New York City, joins as Culinary Chair, with Harvell herself as Event Chair. The Chefs-in-Residence include Monika Dominguez of Shiso in Miami, India Doris of Markette in New York City, Sahar Siddiqi of Chai Pani in Atlanta and Whitney Stancil of Clean Slate Eatery on Cape Cod, with Jahdé Marley, portfolio manager of Zev Rovine Selections, leading wine. Painter Tschabalala Self, whose work has shown at the New Museum and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, joins as this year’s Honorary Chair.
The dinner’s rules are as deliberate as its guest list: every chef must source ingredients from the island itself, tying the meal directly to Martha’s Vineyard’s farming community and regenerative agriculture. This year’s edition sold out within 24 hours of its announcement.
The track record behind that demand is real. Chefs Paul Carmichael, Nina Compton, Kwame Onwuachi and JJ Johnson all passed through Iconoclast’s tables before their names carried the weight they do now. Harvell’s eye for talent hasn’t gone unnoticed elsewhere, either. The Iconoclast Dinner Experience just won four Telly Awards for its film “No Farms, No Food Vol. 3: Grey Barn’s Final Season”: three Silver Awards that span nonbroadcast, social impact and sustainability categories, plus a Bronze Award in branded content.
Beyond the table, net proceeds from Iconoclast events go toward international students at Spelman College from Jamaica and sub-Saharan Africa, and the fund has raised more than $150,000 to date.
An eye for what comes next
Eleven years in, Iconoclast isn’t slowing down. This year’s Honorary Chair and Chefs-in-Residence roster, paired with the fresh Telly recognition, suggests Harvell’s reach is still expanding rather than settling into routine. The chefs at her tables today are the ones the rest of the industry will likely be watching in a few years, if her track record holds.
The King Is Dead. returns to The FARM Institute in Edgartown this Sunday, with reception at 5:30 p.m. and dinner following at 6:30 p.m.
Jennifer Allen is a retired professional chef and long-time writer. Her work appears in dozens of publications, including MSN, Yahoo, The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. These days, she’s busy in the kitchen developing recipes and traveling the world, and you can find all her best creations at Cook What You Love.
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