Michael Shelton Can Do Anything

When I asked Michael Shelton what he wanted everyone reading this biography to know about him, he immediately replied, "I want them to know that I'm serious. I'm not perfect or maybe even good, but I am serious about improving. And I am serious about the placement of minority and women workers in my industry."

It was a perfect statement of purpose coming from a man who's spent the last twenty years overcoming personal tragedy and a near-death experience to become one of Louisiana's most respected and innovative chefs.

In high school, Shelton was one of those instantly likable classmates who seemed to get along with just about everyone - a rare soul cool enough to be called by his last name. His confident smile conveyed (and still conveys) a genuine friendliness, while his intelligence made him the perfect partner for a conversation or debate.

I can't go without mentioning the fact that he also worked nights and weekends at Burger King and always had the hook-up on Hershey's Sundae Pies long before they were available to the general public.

But the seriousness was always there. Maybe not in his playful personality, but definitely in his thinking and his gargantuan work ethic. After graduation, he took off for Jackson State University (one of America's largest HBCUs) and aggressively pursued a degree in marketing until a personal tragedy knocked him for a loop in 2001.

Shelton prefers not to go into too much detail about this part of his life, saying only that it left him in an emotional daze that lasted a very long time. Unable to focus on school, he threw himself into a series of restaurant and retail management jobs, always working at least two at a time. “Retail is something I’m very good at,” he says, “but I hate it.” This went on for five years.

And then, a moment of clarity.

From the time he’d started cooking for his siblings at the age of 10, Shelton had always wanted to be a chef. “But I’d never met or even really seen a black chef before. If you look through cookbooks, usually the only black people - if it's not a black author - are dish washers or stewards. It wasn't something that I really thought of as a real possibility.” Once he became a master grill operator at Waffle House, however, he realized he had found his golden ticket.

Though often jeered for its popularity among drunken late night party crowds, Waffle House requires an intense level of speed, skill, and accuracy from its kitchen staff. It was the perfect boot camp for a budding culinary talent who was just beginning to understand his own strength. "Waffle House is serious," Shelton tells me. "It's not easy."

To this day he tells all his friends in fine dining that if they want good cooks in their kitchens, they should hire people who’ve worked at Waffle House or Cracker Barrel. “We’ve been through wars.”

Applying his craft with a newfound sense of focus, he relocated to Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2008, and began working at both the Olive Garden and the International House of Pancakes. “I’d go to Olive Garden from 11 to 8, then go down the street to IHOP and work from 9 to 7 a.m. Then I’d go home, take a nap, wake up, and do it all over again.”

The non-stop nature of this lifestyle might have suited his disposition, but over the course of two years it took a terrible toll on his health. In 2010, with a blood sugar count of 710 and weighing somewhere between 280 and 300 pounds, he was admitted to a Shreveport emergency room where he lost consciousness and almost died. “It was bad,” he recalls. “I was hospitalized for five days.”

Returning to work the following year – first at Jersey Mike’s Sub Shop and later at 2 Johns Steakhouse – Shelton found that his brush with death had gifted him with a sense of reverence for the tools of his trade. “I'm surrounded by everything that can kill me all day. It makes me reassess food and become more conscious of what I'm feeding people.” Bearing this in mind, he became a serious student of the entire restaurant industry, adding to his vast personal experience with the wisdom of his friends and managers. “I owe a lot to the guys at 2 Johns,” he says. “They really took me seriously and showed me a lot of things.”

It all came together in 2015 when Michael Shelton accepted his first position as an executive chef at the Little Gem Saloon in New Orleans.

Two years later, he moved on to Apolline on the city’s fabled Magazine Street.

Widely recognized as a hip-hop historian among his friends, he keeps his kitchen environment vibrant with all the best jams. “Ragtime Hightimes by Camp Lo is my all-time favorite kitchen album,” he says. “Plus, A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Wu Tang, Bahamadia, Jay Z, Mobb Deep, Outkast, Jurassic 5, and anything from Rawkus Records. I also have a 150 song 80's playlist that is perfect. It keeps people in a good mood.”

Among the selections you'll find his jubilant kitchen crew serving up for their guests: fajita pizza, clam risotto, and Shelton’s signature Cioppino.

These savory dishes have been enjoyed by a motley assortment of locals, tourists, and celebrities, including Jennifer Coolidge (a.k.a Stifler’s mom, the original MILF, whom Shelton says is very bright and smells amazing), Guyanese-American actress C. C. H. Pounder (“a treasure of a woman”), and of course the legendary John Malkovich.

Shelton says his most memorable moment as a chef was the day his old friend Thad Martin came to eat at Apolline. “I cooked at his house in high school, so I had to pat myself on the back. It was the final signal that I had ‘made it.’”

He received two more signals in 2019 and 2020 when he was awarded back-to-back Best Chefs of Louisiana recognition from the American Culinary Federation.

“My biggest challenge in this industry was myself,” he says. “I had tremendous support, but maybe not the intimate instruction I needed to get to the next level. I was not confident.”

He also notes that he got a late start and was thus older than a lot of his contemporaries. And black. “Unapologetically so. And in moderate spaces, the desire is to mute your blackness and homogenize. I resented that. A lot of times I wanted to quit. But I finally met real friends and mentors, a multi-ethnic and gendered group that really allowed me to open up. I got that when I really needed it for my soul. Now I'd say I have the best group of chef friends ever.”

In an effort to befriend others facing the same sorts of challenges he faced, Shelton now volunteers his time with a number of industry charities like Café Reconcile, a program that helps at-risk young people acquire life skills and training through the prism of the culinary industry. “I love being there and I love to help. I do mock job interviews to get them prepared for real life scenarios. It's great.”

He’s also worked with Son of a Saint, an organization that provides mentoring and services for young men whose fathers have either been victims or perpetrators of violent crime. “I have done classes and put on a dinner or two with another chef friend. I don't get to them as often as I’d like, but I love the group,” he says.

“Same with Fair Kitchens. I don't do much with them, per se, but they provide resources that help me be a more fair-minded chef. This industry is sexist, racist, and classist, and it will cost you your sanity, family, and sobriety if you let it. Fair Kitchens provides a real moral compass and basis.”

Organizations like Fair Kitchens might act as a compass in his professional life, but anyone who knows Shelton knows that his personal life is guided by his love of family. He's the father of five children - Marques, Cameron, Jaden, McKenzie, and Charlotte - and in order for their life as a family unit to function, he knows he needs to work hard.

Shelton's love for his children has also led him to fill an entire room of his home with his extensive toy collection. "It's very hard to get angry or want to spank someone in a room filled with toys, so if I need to have a serious talk with my kids I always do it in there."

Of course, that's not the only reason for the toy room. Like his love for music, his fondness for (and encyclopedic knowledge of) the playthings of his youth are deeply rooted in his upbringing during the 1980's and '90s.

"My mom and dad introduced us to everything, bottom line. My mom was a Trekkie and into like crime shows, serial killer books, mysteries, and scary stuff."

"My dad was all about kung fu, action, and comedy."

"It was a great environment. That's the source. My parents made being a kid dope as fuck."

"By the way," he mentions, "if a customer ever brings me the USS Flag from G.I. Joe or the Cat's Lair from Thundercats, I'm cooking for them forever! Those are the last two major playsets I do not own."

He might still be a kid at heart, but never forget, that seriousness is always there. In the wake of the covid pandemic, Shelton has taken a closer look at himself and his place in the restaurant industry. "Covid almost killed us," he says. "All chefs. It paused my comfortable career. It broke the hearts of my colleagues and made us take a look at everything wrong and right with how we treat each other and ourselves. It's made me question exactly how I want to progress. I have to be a better person."

To this end, he is currently working to develop Flossie Hayes Culinary Endeavors, a personal brand he will eventually use to open two restaurants of his own. The first will be an upscale Southern eatery with a casual feel, which he plans to name after his maternal grandmother, Flossie Hayes. The second will be an upscale Southern diner named for his grandfathers, George and Earl. As the proprietor of these establishments, Shelton plans to rectify what he considers the injustices of the New Orleans restaurant industry.

"How is there only one famous black chef from New Orleans?" he wonders.

"We have a few who are notable in the culinary world - and that is great and they are awesome - but truly it's sad. You can be white and famous for cooking any culture's food with minimal credit given.”

He continues: “I'm for equity for minority and women workers in my industry. I'm black, and in New Orleans the population is at least 60-70% minority and women. We account for that much in our industry, but we account for less than 20% of the top jobs. It's insane."

Chef Michael Shelton's gonna do something about that. It's a monumental task, but he's the right person for the job.

I told you from the beginning, this man can do anything.