Chef Erick Williams is the award-winning restaurateur, community-builder, and mentor whose dedication to equity, leadership, and culinary excellence makes him one of Chicago’s most influential voices in food. He understands the importance of hospitality in making people’s days better—especially in a city like Chicago, which he sees as the perfect blend of southern grace and northern polish, the quiet strength that keeps the city’s cultural fabric alive and well. He comes to the studio to talk about his journey from his formative years at mk to founding Virtue, the South Side restaurant that has become a national beacon of inclusive fine dining. We hear the story behind his distinctive hospitality philosophy (rooted in memories of his grandmother’s kitchen, where every meal was a gesture of love) the moving experience of being cared for by nurses after a kitchen accident, the legacy of Black culinary labor in Chicago, and so much more.