About Chef Dee

Personal Chef, Restaurateur, and Philanthropist, Chef De’Bronya Hodges, is the young talented chef tantalizing the palates of some of Miami’s hottest hip-hop artists, athletes, and entertainers with delicious southern/fusion cuisine; promising full stomachs and empty plates every time.

Early Life

Chef Dee has spent the majority of her life surrounded by food and family. For her, cooking is about more than just the end result; although that’ s important, it’s about the way her food makes people feel. Her earliest memories of her grandmother bringing the family together for delicious food and the smiles it brought to so many faces, led the passionate chef on a culinary journey to bring the same joy to every person that eats her food.

Born and raised in Miami, Chef Dee attended the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, where she graduated with an associate degree, and later received a bachelor’ s from Johnson and Wales University’ s North Miami Campus. While completing her degree, she got her start working as a pantry and dessert chef, then transitioned to sous chef, and ultimately working her way up to Executive Chef.

Career

The name Chef Dee became urbanly known through a great opportunity presented by her then mentor, the Late Chef Wayne Bryan. An icon in the entertainment scene, and best known as the personal chef to many high-profile actors and actresses. Chef Bryan made the offer of a lifetime, the opportunity to be the personal chef for DJ Khaled. Since then, Chef Dee has gone on to cook for professional athletes and hip-hop superstars.

In May 2012, Chef Dee launched Empty Plates Catering. The Empty Plates mantra comes from the confident promise that once her customers have had her food all plates would return back empty (Promising Empty Plates & Full Stomachs).

In April 2017, Chef Dee announced the Grand Opening of The Empty Plates Restaurant. The restaurant is an extension of her wildly successful catering company, serving delicious Southern-Fusion cuisine in the heart of Miami’s Little River District. The place is quaint, artsy, with very limited seating. “I wanted to capture the rich cultural heritage of the neighborhood, the arts, and the food”, says Chef Dee. The menu features fan favorites such as Chef Dee’s specialty crab cakes, curry lobster, conch balls, mac and cheese, jerk chicken pasta, shrimp n’grits, and best of all she is serving it up with her secret dipping sauce, the dang-dang sauce.

The restaurant grew beyond Chef Dee’s own expectations. In Spring 2018, Chef Dee made the decision to close down the restaurant but made her fans the promise to be back with a new concept.