DeVonn Francis, a popular chef, will appear as a guest on Selena Gomez’s culinary program Selena + Chef, which is slated to return for its fourth season on HBO Max. The popular cooking program will premiere three episodes on Thursday, August 18, 2022. It will include skilled chefs leading the host through a variety of entertaining, summer-themed dishes via video conference.
DeVonn Francis is a homosexual first-generation Jamaican-American artist who formed Yardy in 2017 to investigate parts of his history and culture. The artist combined his two loves, painting and cuisine, to establish his studio and spread the word about the value of food and culture. Yardy employees honored their roots by hosting Caribbean-themed dinner parties.
Three more episodes of Selena + Chef will premiere on August 25, followed by the remaining four episodes on September 1, for a total of ten episodes in Season 4. The upcoming season, according to Deadline, “will be set at a beach home where Selena will continue to learn the delights of cooking with all-star chefs,” with each episode showcasing a different charity.
DeVonn Francis had an interest in cooking from an early age.
DeVonn was an introverted child growing up. He wasn’t as into sports as his brother and preferred to remain at home with his mum. They would spend their days cooking together. After retiring from the Navy, his father opened his own family restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia, inspired by his boyhood in Jamaica. Growing up in Virginia as the son of Jamaican immigrants, he despised being the kid who showed up at his middle school cafeteria with oxtails in his lunchbox. It wasn’t until he was a teenager, watching Food Network with his mother and working at his father’s business, that he got interested in Jamaican traditional ingredients and dishes.
DeVonn went to New York City in 2011 to attend art school at Copper Union while still working in eateries. His first restaurant job was at Estela, but he quickly discovered that he couldn’t work it around his school schedule. He subsequently started serving tables at the restaurant and developed a strong rapport with the head chef, proprietors, and management.
Every morning, the chef would accompany the crew to the market to discuss ingredients, and he recognized that creativity and eating went hand in hand. Soon after leaving Estela, he embarked on a gastronomic trip of the United Kingdom with a buddy.
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They traveled to Scotland, England, and Wales, cooking on farms and over open flames to better understand the effect of food production, beginning with small businesses. Yardy was conceived in the summer of 2017 in New York City, upon DeVonn’s return from the United Kingdom, and formally launched in 2018. He embraced his family values, culture, and legacy by holding salons in several locations, including Williamsburg, Saipua, and Lee’s in Chinatown.
He spoke out to MYKITA about his studio and said:
“It was crucial to me to make Yardy salons seem more like home, and that world has coincided with my Mom and Dad bootstrapping his way to a lounge area. The term “home” was crucial to me, as was keeping the experience open and not institutionalized.”
Following the epidemic, DaVonn started selling takeout dishes outside of the SoHo café Smile to Go and made her YouTube debut as a presenter on Bon Appétit’s renowned Test Kitchen channel. Adrienne Cheatham, Rachael Ray, Gordon Ramsay, Kristen Kish, Ludo Lefebvre, Matty Matheson, Nick DiGiovanni, Paola Velez, and Priya Krishna will all participate in Selena + Chef. Don’t forget to watch a brand-new season of Selena + Chef on HBO Max on Thursday.
