Evan Hanczor
“Running a restaurant is amazing in lots of ways, but your main goal in a restaurant is to provide a sense of comfort and deliciousness so that people want to come back — purely tap into the pleasure centers of the brain. But one of the things I love about fiction is you can do other things. You can tap into lots of other emotions — darker, more complicated. ”
Evan Hanczor is a chef, arts organizer, and food systems advocate whose work focuses on food, sustainability, and storytelling. For over a decade he was the chef at Egg in Brooklyn (with an outpost in Tokyo), a farm-to-table breakfast restaurant and community space. In 2012 Evan founded Tables of Contents, which creates unique experiences of literature, art, and culture through food. Since its inception, Tables of Contents has brought together over 250 leading contemporary writers and artists with audiences to share food and conversation inspired by literature and art. For more info, follow @tables.of.contents on Instagram or visit www.tablesofcontents.org.
As a co-director of FIG NYC, Evan helped lead FIG’s 2020 emergency food security program, mobilizing with other chefs and food workers to support underserved communities across New York City in the face of increased food insecurity due to COVID-19. He is an alumnus of the James Beard Foundation's Chef's Boot Camp for Policy and Change and a Glynwood chef ambassador. He has worked on food, sustainability, and climate advocacy with the Chef Action Network, OXFAM, Chefs Collaborative, the SDG2 Advocacy Hub, ReFED, and One Fair Wage, among other organizations.
Evan is the co-author of Breakfast: Recipes to Wake Up For with Egg founder George Weld, and is the creator and editor of the Tables of Contents Community Cookbook, named one of the best cookbooks of 2021 by The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.
“Tables of Contents is quite literally my favorite reading series that has ever existed, and maybe the best idea that’s ever been conceived.”