Chef Lay Alston’s rise in the culinary world reads like a modern folktale. She has endured fortunes and spoils in a winding path guided by grit, luck, and an unshakable belief that possibility exists even when you can’t see it yet. Raised in Queensbridge, a sprawling and formidable public housing development in Queens, New York, Lay grew up watching the Food Network while other kids watched cartoons. She could pronounce “Anthony Bourdain” and “Emeril John Lagasse” before she could reach the stovetop. 

Cooking was her calling. “I didn’t choose it,” she says. “It chose me.”

Her earliest lessons in food came from her grandmother’s Sunday dinners. Big pots of fragrant, stewed dishes were stretched to feed more than 30 relatives. That weekly ritual taught her that cooking could be an expression of love. Even her mother, who Lay lovingly notes “was not a great cook,” had signature dishes like black‑eyed peas that brought the whole family together. Those flavors and moments formed her foundation long before she ever wielded a chef’s knife.

By middle school, Lay told her guidance counselor that she wanted to be a chef. It was a statement, not a declaration. She was sure enough to know what she wanted, but admits that at the time, she didn’t think it was possible. No one she knew had a job they loved or a career shaped by schooling, so why would her life be any different?

Still, she said the words out loud, and things started shifting. She won a rare lottery spot for a dream high school for the arts with a culinary program. There, two educators noticed both her spark and her struggle. Her assistant principal, Joe Clausi, saw a kid acting out because she had something to say, but no outlet. Chef Lynch, who ran the culinary program, saw raw talent. He pushed her to enter a cooking competition, but it required extra hours, discipline, and a commitment to step away from her social circle. She had a tough choice to make with no guarantee that her sacrifice would pay off. Did she want to isolate herself from her friends to follow a dream?

Well, you can probably guess the path she chose by reading this, but she made the hard choice. For the first time, Lay said that instructors were telling her, “You’re good. Really good.” And finally, she believed them and believed that her life could be what she imagined.

Lay went on to earn a scholarship to Monroe College, completing an associate’s degree in culinary arts and a bachelor’s degree in hospitality by age 20. She was young, ambitious, and discovering the intensity of professional kitchens. She worked at Morimoto in New York and fell in love with Japanese cuisine, then at Café Boulud, where she fell in love with the intentionality of fine dining. She loved the seasonality, precision, and the art of building a dish from start to finish. 

She proved herself on stations from garde‑manger to pasta, gaining confidence along the way. Yet she also sensed that she wanted to walk a path beyond the traditional kitchen hierarchy, where a domineering chef rules their staff by intimidation rather than co-creation.

Then came the plot twist. She was invited back to her alma mater to teach a short course. During a seemingly ordinary class demonstration back at Monroe, a new student walked in to observe. The student turned out to be the famed chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson, who was filming Celebrity Undercover Boss. He saw her leadership, her calm, and her skill, and offered her a job opening Red Rooster London. 

At 22, she traveled abroad for the first time, worked grueling but exhilarating hours, and even cooked in Samuelsson’s restaurant in Sweden. “I could never have imagined this happening to me,” Lay said. “It really just showed me how far my dreams could take me.”

After returning home, Lay realized that to truly flourish, she needed to step outside the environment that shaped her. California had been calling since she first visited in 2013, and she eventually moved to Los Angeles. She embraced her love for teaching the next generation of chefs in 2019 when she became an instructor of Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education. 

She taught in a way that began to demonstrate the patient leadership style she wanted to see take root in commercial kitchens across the country. At the time, she didn’t have a solid footing, so she juggled multiple jobs while imagining a future that blended creativity, intimate dining experiences, and innovation. She dreamed of a mobile dining concept that would create a space that could travel to different locations, bringing people together and building community.

Then a year later, life shifted dramatically again. First came the global plot twist: the pandemic. Lay doesn’t like to dwell on what happened next, so let’s explain this quickly: her mother contracted Covid-19 and after a long stint in the hospital she succumbed to the virus, kitchens were closed and Lay was out of work, crashing on her sister’s couch, hopping from couch to couch, then one night misfortune struck and left her with a spinal cord injury resulting in paralysis that meant she had to learn to live and work from a wheelchair.

Many stories would end there, but remember that this is a modern-day folktale.

Within a year, she was back in the kitchen cooking for the James Beard Foundation. They offered her a one-month fellowship and an opportunity to develop and earn income from crafting gourmet meal kits for a subscription cooking series in the fall of 2021. The series was launched to spotlight emerging chefs as kitchens slowly reopened post-pandemic. 

As she rebuilt her life and her relationship with cooking, she also began conceptualizing new ways to make culinary spaces accessible—physically, emotionally, and creatively. She learned to cook from a wheelchair, adapting kitchen tools and surfaces, and began conceptualizing what a fully accessible professional kitchen could look like.

Today, Lay’s work lives at the intersection of food, design, and storytelling. She is also an avid ceramist. She wandered into a pottery studio one day on a whim. “I wasn’t even sure I could do it from a wheelchair because you usually have to work a pedal with your feet,” she said.

But she learned that it was accessible to her, and like cooking, it became an instant passion. Now, she handcrafts plates, bowls, mugs, and even bento boxes for her intimate dining experiences. Guests leave with a piece of signature ceramic dishware made by her just for that occasion. 

“I love the idea that they take something home that lasts beyond the meal,” she says. “Something made with intention that sparks conversation … something that continues the story.”

Her food runs the gamut, but her specialty is an Afro‑Asian style with a strong pescatarian focus that reflects her heritage, her training, and her obsessions. 

She blends Soul Food roots with the delicacy and precision of Japanese and other Asian cuisines. She celebrates fish, vegetables, and aromatic spices with ingredients that require attention and respect. 

Lay’s experiences, travels, teachings, and reinvention all converge in her latest venture: Yaya’s Crib, a dining and storytelling experience named for her mother. It’s welcoming, warm, and deliberately grounding. Her dining experiences start by leading guests in meditation. Then the small social circle of diners embarks on a multi-course culinary adventure. 

A recent pop-up dinner featured an array of mouth-watering, culture-blending flavor combinations, including Senegalese jollof rice in an Onigiri-style served with pickled dandelion greens, and egg salad topped with tobiko. 

She crowned Binchotan-grilled albacore tuna with a coconut shimmy sauce packed with herbs and served it with caramelized curry sweet potato rounds. 


And instead of pairing her tasting menu with wine, she leaned into Japanese cultural references and worked with a mixologist to create a cocktail menu crafted with Sake Ono.

“A lot of people think of sake as warm and maybe harsh or intimidating, and I wanted to find a way to represent that aspect of Japanese culture in a way that is more approachable,” Lay said. 

Now you’ll have to stay tuned as her next chapter unfolds. The little girl in Queens who wanted to be a chef is now a woman creating a life full of artistry, beauty, courage, and purpose. 

“Food is my passion,” Lay says. “But my purpose is to inspire. You determine your destiny. No matter what you’ve been through, you can choose the light.”

Follow along with Chef Lay with a new snailmail series called Lomein Letters, a recipe print club including seasonal recipes, letters, and handcrafted keepsakes each month. Subscribe at soulandwheel.com/recipe-print-club-1.

Upcoming events 

April 26, 2026

10am to sell out

Brunch Pop-Up at Provecho Coffee

Fried fish with greens and housemade hot sauce with sweet potato cornbread in a bento box. 

Next Yaya’s Crib dinner May 24, 2026.

Look for seated dining experiences in late May.

» soulandwheel.com 

» @laylomein on Instagram