As a Black Diaspora, we have never let adversity win. We’ve learned to endure our situations, evaluate our options, and then elevate above it all. Our current reality is calling for these same actions in all areas of our existence, especially the culinary world.
Our most talented chefs are struggling. They have financial obligations and families that depend on them using their culinary gifts in order to survive. They have the drive and the talent but in the midst of our current times of social distancing and the closing of restaurants, they have been left without a vehicle to do what they do best.
Enter Mi Zã Plaz Culinary & Lifestyle, innovators of the private fine-dining experience. Mi Zã Plaz has always been your source for everything Black and plated, merging the intersection of culinary and lifestyle.
While we are known for Pop-Up restaurants and private dining experiences in exciting venues, we know your seat is now at home. Though true, this doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the experience.
In enduring our current times and evaluating all options, we have found a way chefs and their potential diners can elevate above it all.
We have elevated the typical Pop-Up concept, bringing it directly to your homes; to your table.
With our take-out concept, we are giving brilliant chefs the opportunity to once again, do what they do best while allowing you and other food-lovers, to experience a talented group of chefs you may not know and whose amazing food you may never have had the opportunity to taste. All in the comfort and safety of your own homes.
How It Works
Chefs
Twice a month, one amazing chef, who is changing the narrative and elevating the status of Diaspora Cuisine to the masses, will have two weeks to cater fine-dining meals to be delivered to the home of their diners.
Mi Zã Plaz commits to the success of the chefs by marketing them to an established network of eager diners, providing the ordering system, and supplying the packaging for the meals including bags. The chef’s only obligation is an agreed-upon upfront commission of 26.5% and the commitment to provide the highest quality experience to their diners.
Chefs will have the ability to set their own prices, market themselves directly to their diners, and begin to see an immediate and lasting process to provide for their loved ones.
This is a partnership. While we expect chefs to place our branded stickers on the bags that reach the eyes of the customers, we go a step further and help our chefs by providing a vehicle for their personal marketing. Mi Zã Plaz will provide a scannable QR code to go on the packaging. As long as the chef has a website or social media platform, we have made it convenient for diners to find them online. All they have to do is scan, then follow.
Mi Zã Plaz doesn’t solely see this venture as a way to bring money to our company, we view this as an opportunity to build relationships with our chefs. We are committed to making sure that, after the two week period we work together, they will begin to develop a list of followers who will turn into brand ambassadors for both the chef and Mi Zã Plaz.
Diners
Diners can be brought to ease knowing that each chef is rigorously evaluated not only for their talent but their customer service as well. Among other important qualities of customer service, the most vital, especially in our current times, is the cleanliness of their work environment.
Each chef will go through an application process where Mi Zã Plaz will make visual verification of their work area. Be assured, the safety of the diner is our number one priority when making our final decisions on which chefs we highlight.
Once the chefs make it through our process, diners can be assured that when they see there is a new chef available for the next two weeks, they will be in for an experience they will remember for a lifetime. An experience they can have every month, right at home.
Changing the Narrative
What cannot be missed among supporting local chefs and providing a sense of normalcy to diners, is the opportunity to continue to change the narrative of what competing cuisines reign supreme.
Consumers are conditioned to believe things are a statement of fact and they are not always privy to the history behind why things the way they are. This is especially true in the culinary world. There are misconceptions about what food equates to fine-dining and there are misconceptions about the true history of food.
Mi Zã Plaz sees this new concept as a way to bring out the realities of these misconceptions. We believe this at-home experience with these Black plates will have you re-evaluating your own misconceptions about food and serve as the beginning of your education of foodways. We believe European constructs can be eliminated and your pallet will thank you for it.
Change all starts with one conversation, one order, and one bite.