Connie's Underground — A Supper Club & Liberation Movement

About Mariya Moore

The First.
A Return to the Table.

James Beard Semi-Finalist. The first Black woman to earn a Michelin Star.

Chef, cultural worker, and storyteller. Mariya Moore spent years inside the world's most demanding kitchens, refining a craft that earned her the highest accolade in fine dining: the Michelin Star. Then she stepped away.

She built Connie's Underground: a traveling supper club and sensory experience inspired by the homes she grew up in. Here, she lets go of the perfectionism and heavy criticism that fine dining demanded, and cooks the way Black kitchens have always cooked. With care, with creativity, with the freedom to feed people well.

Mariya works at the intersection of food anthropology and storytelling. She treats food as a portal to memory, healing, and liberation. Her work honors the lineages woven into the foundation of what we cook, and builds kitchens that feel like they have always been ours.

"Connie's is a reflection of who I am, and is my life's work." — Chef Mariya Moore

In Honor of Aunt Connie

Aunt Connie holding a platter of food in her kitchen

Aunt Connie Jones

My Aunt Connie is one of the reasons I became a cook. She was the oldest of my dad's siblings, and her home was a place we could always return to. Warm, steady, and open. Her house felt like a safe haven.

We ate together, talked about food, and I'd sit watching cooking shows while she made meals for us. Alongside my parents, she nurtured my curiosity, encouraging me to try new things, to experiment, to find joy in the unfamiliar. She carried wisdom often wrapped in humor. She taught me to honor my feelings, stand in what I believe, and be fully myself.

Naming this work Connie's is in honor of her, and of the women in my family, given and chosen, who shaped me through care, strength, and love. I carry them with me in everything I do.

The Underground holds the rest. It speaks to something passed quietly, held collectively, and built outside of the expected. It carries the spirit of spaces created beneath the surface, where care, resistance, and imagination take root. It is also a nod to a deeper lineage. From the Underground Railroad to Ms. Georgia Gilmore's Club from Nowhere, where food was used to fund and sustain the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Black liberation has long moved through intentional networks of gathering and feeding.

My family kitchens were my first underground. A place where care was the practice and the table was the gathering. Connie's Underground is an offering, and a beginning, an invitation to rethink what food, community, and care can look like when they are built with people at the center.

With love,

Mariya Moore

The Food

Soul food legacies.
Global technique.

Mariya cooks from a lineage. Grilling, roasting, braising, pickling, smoking, preserving, jamming. Soul food is a technical tradition and is the foundation of her kitchen. From there, her plates draw on ancestral and indigenous ingredients: beans, rice, grains, peppers, leafy greens, tomatoes, fish, sweet potatoes. She layers in the techniques she has gathered from kitchens around the world, and is guided by what is locally available, and in season wherever she gathers.

The result is food that is unmistakably Black, deeply considered, and shaped by the many places, people, and traditions that continue to nourish her.

Slicing dessert plates at the kitchen counter

The Dinner

An evening at Connie's Underground.

From the moment you walk in, you are greeted by warmth, intention, and the smell of something extraordinary. Mariya and her team guide each evening through food, conversation, and care. Stories are shared, glasses are raised, and strangers become familiar. You don't just eat at Connie's. You belong.

The Connie's Underground team in service

The Community

Where everyone belongs.

Connie's Underground is growing a global community with each place it gathers. Each dinner brings together educators, artists, philanthropists, cultural workers, LGBTQ+ community, community leaders, cooks, chefs, and family, alongside those who value Black foodways and cultural practice.

Food is the medium. Belonging is the outcome.

The Movement

A supper club. A liberation movement.

Connie's Underground is centered around sustainable nourishment, authentic human connection, and ancestral reverence. The movement rests on six principles. Each one a practice that runs through everything we do: how we cook, who we gather, and what the table is in service of.

Two members of the Connie's Underground team in the kitchen

— 01

Care & Community

A space where the health and wellbeing of everyone is protected, and where care moves in every direction. Rooted in relational practice, we each take responsibility for sustaining a culture where people are seen and supported.

— 02

Ancestral Reverence

Honoring those who came before us by carrying their traditions forward, keeping their legacies alive through food, memory, and intentional gathering.

— 03

Stewardship

Sustainability isn't just about preserving resources, it's about preserving people, culture, and dignity. Rooted in the traditions of soul food, Connie's draws on a lineage of resourcefulness, and community, practices long held in African American communities and the foundation of how we truly live well.

— 04

Black Culture, In Practice

A practice of creating spaces where safety, care, and connection are foundational, where expertise is shared, empowerment circulates, Black culture is honored and celebrated, and where the freedom to dream, live, and be fully expressed is the standard.

— 05

Radical Inclusion

A membership model rooted in access and shared responsibility, supporting the presence of community builders, nonprofits, and those who might not otherwise be able to attend, so the table remains expansive and representative.

— 06

Intentional Living

Every ingredient, every choice, every gathering is deliberate, reflecting a way of living and feeding one another that is conscious, humane, and deeply considered.

Gallery

At the Table.

Inside the rooms we gather in. Faces, hands, plates, and the small gestures that hold the night together.

Overhead view of fish, greens, and stew at the service table

Upcoming Dinners

Reserve your seat at the table.

Private Events Welcome

DateTBA

Connie's Underground — Spring Dinner

Intimate Supper Club 20 Guests

Inquire

DateTBA

Ancestors at the Table: Community Night

Community Dinner Sliding Scale Tickets

Inquire

DateTBA

Summer Solstice Supper

Traveling Edition Limited Seats

Inquire

Guest Voices

What guests are saying.

★★★★★

"Chef Mariya executed absolute perfection. The menu, the vibe, the hospitality, the love: simply marvelous. The extra touches like a warm beverage and hot towel greeting us at the door... the flowing sparkling and still waters... the family pictures adorning the table... what a beautiful experience. Can't wait to attend another one! Cheers!"

Rachel · Chicago

★★★★★

"One of the BEST dining experiences we have ever had. Everything was so unique. We genuinely felt like we were a part of the family. Thank you and we look forward to future events."

Dee B. · Chicago

★★★★★

"It was art. It was healing. A communal experience of excellence. Highly recommend!"

OpenTable Diner · Chicago

Connie's Underground.

The First.
A Return to the Table.

In Honor of Aunt Connie

Soul food legacies.
Global technique.

An evening at Connie's Underground.

The table holds our stories.

Where everyone belongs.