Black Svm - Echelon Guest Chef Serie
January 26, 2027 06:00 PM
Join us on Tuesday, January 26th for Echelon's 2027 Guest Chef Series featuring a special guest: Black Svm
In late 2023, South Florida-raised, Chicago-based rapper Blvck Svm sat down for his first ever tasting menu dinner. The precision, ingenuity, and thoughtfulness he experienced within each course left him spellbound. He left the dinner thinking, “I just ate my way through an album. Why don't I make an album that sounds like a tasting menu?" That idea became the seed for ‘michelinman,’ his debut LP. But Black Svm didn't think a cursory enjoyment of high-level food and a basic curiosity about fine dining were good enough to properly flesh out the concept. He set out to study food and fine dining, but first he had to figure out how to gain entry into that world.
A couple days later he came up with the concept for a music video series to accompany michelinman, the premise being that the videos would be filmed exclusively in restaurant kitchens. After pitching the idea to hundreds of chefs and restaurants, from March to December 2024 he and his videographer filmed videos with 14 restaurants in 11 North American cities, completing the series he titled "Bvck of House."
During his travels he got the opportunity to observe some of the best chefs on the continent, pick their brains, experience their food, and examine the inner workings of high-level restaurant kitchens. And he poured everything he learned into his then-forthcoming album, which changed shape considerably as his interest in food as a muse became an obsession.
What was initially on pace to be a haphazard mosaic of name-dropped luxury ingredients and culinary wealth signifiers became much more intentional throughout the 10 months he spent asking questions, taking notes, and eating dinner at the restaurants with which he collaborated.
In November 2024 Svm released michelinman, the culmination of his near-yearlong culinary immersion, an examination of the countless intersections of two seemingly dissonant art forms, and an attempt to channel the granularity of a tasting menu into a 13-track album. But Svm wasn't content with simply releasing michelinman and moving on to the next project. So he created the concept for a first-of-its-kind dinner series that would allow him to further showcase the album within the environments that inspired its creation. Since January 2025 he has completed collaborative dinners with 19 restaurants across the US, Canada, Switzerland, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden.
Black Svm will serve a prix fixe, multi-course menu for $200. There will only be an omnivore menu and no modifications. A wine pairing will be available to add-on during your dinner; with cocktails available a la carte as well.