Grain bins and garlic tattoos: Meet Devon Knight

I have no problem waiting in line. The longest I ever waited for a restaurant was at Lucali’s in Brooklyn – probably the best pizza in the world. So when I decided, last minute on a Friday, to finally try Chubby Fish, I knew there would be a wait.

What I hadn’t done before was wait with my kid. He didn’t go to school that day. He’ll be 8 in May and he loves seafood. I told him there would be a long wait and that we may not even get a table, but that didn’t discourage him. We got there at 3:30 after losing valuable minutes looking for parking and the line was long. Chubby Fish doesn’t take reservations. You show up, you wait, and you hope to get a table. The wait can be so long that a small economy has formed around it – you can pay someone to wait in line for you.

It wasn’t long before he started asking how much longer. Sometimes, at a place like this, they tell you your seat won’t be ready until 7 or 8 – a problem when you have a kid with a bedtime. I told him that might happen, but he still wanted to wait. Somewhere in the hour and a half we stood out there, a young woman from New York pulled out a deck of cards and started playing Go Fish with him on the sidewalk. Southern charm is apparently contagious.

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At 5:00, the hostess came out and the line started moving. People behind us weren’t so optimistic. And then she said the words we were hoping for – “who else wants to sit now?” We made our way and got seated.

Earlier that day I reached out to Devon Knight for an interview. He’s new to Charleston and started working at Chubby Fish last year. The plan wasn’t to meet him, but I guess thinking of Chubby Fish that day made me want to finally try the restaurant after living here for four and a half years. Louis Pasteur said chance favors the prepared mind. I’d add: chance favors the person prepared to wait an hour and a half on a sidewalk with a hungry kid. Devon was working that afternoon and we just happened to get seats at the chef’s counter.

I introduced myself to Devon and assured him I wasn’t stalking him. Then the food arrived and it was excellent, especially the tuna belly toast. The kitchen at Chubby Fish is small and from the counter you see everything. Nothing felt rushed. Devon and the rest of the team moved around each other with the kind of ease that comes from knowing exactly what you’re doing. Tickets came in, plates went out, and the whole thing had a rhythm to it.

I’ll remember Chubby Fish for the great food, and for what hit me days later, when I read Devon’s interview answers. At just 23, he made me feel old for the first time in 40 years.

Devon grew up in Mulberry Grove, Illinois, a village with a population of about 500 people. It’s the kind of place where the horizon is grain bins and silos, where the land outside the village limits is almost entirely corn, soybeans, and wheat. The surrounding county is also home to dairy, beef, and pork farms. “An intensely AG community,” is how Devon describes it. He watched where food starts, grows, and ends.

You’d think experiencing food that way is what made him pursue a culinary career. It didn’t. He wanted to be a biologist. “I had always had lofty goals, not quite astronaut or the President,” Devon says. “But I was really focused on learning about how the world works through biology.” Food found him anyway. His mother bartended when he was young, and some of his earliest memories were made sitting on a high chair at the bar.

He started working in kitchens when he was 14, at a small pizza place in Greenville, the next town west of Mulberry Grove. He stayed until he graduated high school, picking up summer shifts at a burger joint called Kahuna’s and cooking constantly at home out of his family’s big garden. Then came what Devon calls his Turing test: a Valentine’s Day shift in 2019 at a restaurant called Mario’s. His manager told him to get into the kitchen and effing learn something. That was the moment cooking stopped being a job. “After that,” he says, “it was off to the races.” He enrolled in a vocational cooking program called OKAW, where he learned the basics of classical cooking – the mother sauces, braises, soups, knife cuts. The tattoos came later – including a large garlic on his left hand and forearm. “I think after I got it, I had to be locked into it.”

After high school, Devon moved to San Antonio to attend the Culinary Institute of America, one of the most respected culinary schools in the country. He worked at a well-known spot called Cerroni’s Purple Garlic as a baker and pizza cook, picked up shifts at a poker hall kitchen, and delivered DoorDash on the side.

CIA requires students to intern at a restaurant of their choice. Devon chose Lilia, Missy Robbins’ Brooklyn restaurant. “I would say that choice is what has really cemented my identity in the professional sense,” he says. “Chef Missy instilled a ‘keep it simple’ attitude in me that I have carried since.”

After graduating, he moved to the Napa Valley and worked across Christopher Kostow’s restaurant group – Ciccio, Loveski Deli, and The Charter Oak. Kostow, who earned three Michelin stars at The Restaurant at Meadowood, is one of the youngest chefs to receive this honor. In Napa, Devon’s mantra evolved: keep the ingredients simple, but make the techniques complex. Extract as much flavor from any one thing as possible.

Then Devon made the move to Charleston. “Napa Valley has a much older demographic and I was looking to meet more people my age, as well as progress and learn more in my industry,” he says. After a short stint at FIG, he landed at Chubby Fish in January 2025.

So far, Charleston has proved to be the right place for meeting people, but the real work is maintaining these relationships, which is not easy for a culinary professional. “Getting to work at noon and out at midnight doesn’t often leave a ton of time to socialize,“ Devon says. Besides the social aspect, he’s enjoying how convenient everything is. “There’s always a store of some kind two minutes away.” He’s also attracted to the gorgeous sunrises. “A lot of the native Charlestonians that I’ve met seem to miss the forest for the trees.”

Recently, Devon made a big purchase in the Lowcountry – a house. Where he’s from – a town where homes cost $70,000 to $100,000 – that’s what you do. “It’s almost expected that you are married and own a home by 25,” he says. Here, it’s a stretch. “I think I unconsciously put that pressure on myself to get it done early to set myself, and hopefully my eventual family, for the future,” he says. Speaking of family, while Devon still enjoys dating, he’s looking for the person to start one with. He’s thinking about maybe three kids, and if that’s the case, his beloved Mini Cooper may be in jeopardy. He’s put 65,000 miles on it in two years. “It’s such a fun car to drive, and I love rolling down the windows, opening the sunroof, and slinging my hand out for a nice cruise.”

More about Devon
Favorite dish: Cheeseburger, no tomato.
Favorite fast-food chain: Shake Shack by far, then Culver’s.
Favorite spots: Heavy’s Barburger, Elliotborough Mini Bar, and Pho and Padthai.
Favorite movie: Menace II Society.
Favorite song: Like a Stone by Audioslave. My daily listening is dictated by what my mood is – could be anything from Daft Punk to Eric Clapton to Larry June or Jack Johnson and anything in between.
If he could cook for anyone: Barack Obama. As a mixed race kid I’ve always looked at him as the epitome of what I can do. There is nothing more that I would love to do than just have a real, genuine conversation about life and belonging with him.