Max Hardy, who helped bring a new level of chef-driven yet accessible cuisine to his hometown of Detroit, and who was widely considered among the most promising black stars of the new generation of black cooking, died Monday. It was 40.
His publicist, David E. Rudolph, announced the death but did not give a cause or location. He said Mr Hardy had been in good health as recently as the weekend.
Although born in Detroit, Mr. Hardy moved with his family to South Florida when he was young. As a budding chef, he drew on the region’s Latin American influences as well as his mother’s Bahamian heritage, learning dishes like pork ribs, fried plantains and aqui and saltfish, Jamaica’s national dish. He married these influences with a deep love of South Carolina Lowcountry cuisine like shrimp and grits, fried fish and hoppin’ John.
After more than a decade as a private chef for basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire, followed by a few years working in New York kitchens, he returned to Detroit in 2017 to open a string of high-profile restaurants, including River Bistro. Coop Caribbean Fusion and Jed’s Detroit, a pizza and wing shop.
He worked constantly and with the energy of a businessman. He had his own lines of chef clothing and dry spices. He partnered with Kellogg’s to bring plant-based items from the company’s Morningstar Farms brand to restaurants like his. And he appeared regularly on Food Network programs like “Chopped” and “BBQ Brawl.”
Until recently, Detroit was an extreme desert, with few options beyond fast food and chains. But in the 2010s a wave of young chefs like Mr. Hardy began to change the image of the city.
“He kind of had the reputation of being the personal chef for a very prominent NBA player, but I found that he came back to the city with very little ego,” said Kiki Bokungu Louya, chef and executive director of the Detroit nonprofit. Food Academy. “He was really keen to know who was already doing the work on the ground.”
He founded his own non-profit organization, One Chef Can 86 Hunger, which raises awareness about food insecurity and healthy eating, especially among young people. During the 2019 government shutdown, he offered free meals to furloughed federal workers. during the pandemic, she opened pop-up food kitchens to feed at-risk Detroiters.
“When I can go into a kitchen and make meals for 500 or 1,000 people, it feeds me and gets me out of the daily grind of the restaurant,” he told The Detroit Free Press in 2021. “It’s really a peace for me to cook for a few hundred people and give back. And it feeds the soul. It’s very nice of you to do it.”
In 2017, The New York Times named Mr. Hardy one of “16 Black Chefs Changing Food in America” (Ms. Louya was one of the others), not only for his skills in the kitchen but also for his willingness to push the boundaries of what defines a successful chef with good food.
“Growing up in Detroit, you didn’t see chefs and restaurants being that high,” he told the Times. “It was Motor City, not Food City. Now I can concoct a dinner based on the recipes of Hercules, a slave who was George Washington’s personal chef, and I can have my restaurant and I can teach kids in the community. There are so many more ways to pursue greatness as a chef.”
Maxcel Hardy III was born on December 5, 1983 in Detroit and moved to Tampa, Florida as a child. His first love was basketball, but an injury in high school ended his dreams of a serious career.
His high school had recently opened a culinary arts program and he soon found himself under the guidance of his principal. He worked at a Ruby Tuesday franchise after school and won a scholarship his senior year to continue his education at Johnson & Wales University in North Miami.
By 21, he was the executive chef at a Miami-area country club, and within a few years he had his own fine dining company. From 2009 to 2014, he was the full-time personal chef for Mr. Stoudemire, who mostly played for the Knicks during those years. The two published a cookbook, “Cooking With Amar’e,” in 2014.
Survivors include his mother and two daughters.
Mr. Hardy’s first restaurant in Detroit, the River Bistro, closed after a few years, but by then he had opened two more. He was working at a third, specializing in fish, when he died.
“My goal is to always open downtown restaurants to help employ the community by providing great food,” Mr. Hardy told the website Eater Detroit in 2022. “I feel that although it may be easier to open in a larger suburban area , it is typical and I would only serve myself.
“Food is at the center of everything,” he continued, “and I want to create restaurants that help sustain communities in need. I’m also trying to show you that you can open successful restaurants in your city.”
