Southern Table is a web series that goes beyond the plate to capture the soul of Southern food culture. In an era where food content saturates digital platforms, we're creating something different—intimate, authentic storytelling that reveals the deep cultural currents flowing through Southern kitchens. This isn't about celebrity chefs or viral recipes; it's about the family legacies, cultural fusion, and quiet innovation happening in restaurants across the South every day.

Each episode takes viewers inside three unique restaurants in a single Southern city, where roundtable conversations and stunning kitchen cinematography reveal how food becomes heritage, how tradition evolves, and how every dish tells a story about place, identity, and resilience.

With the production quality of premium food television and the authentic storytelling of documentary filmmaking, Southern Table offers audiences something they can't find anywhere else: the real stories behind the South's most compelling culinary voices.

THE STORY.

When Food Becomes Heritage: The Untold Stories Behind Southern Kitchens

The Cultural Landscape

Across the American South, restaurants serve as more than dining destinations—they function as cultural archives, community gathering places, and living laboratories where tradition meets innovation. Each kitchen represents a unique intersection of history, geography, and personal narrative, where recipes carry forward generations of knowledge while adapting to contemporary palates and values.

The People Behind the Plates

Southern Table captures this dynamic landscape through the voices of the people who shape it daily. These are the restaurateurs, chefs, and kitchen teams who navigate the complex relationship between honoring culinary heritage and pushing creative boundaries. Their stories reveal how Southern cuisine continues to evolve—influenced by changing demographics, new ingredient access, sustainable practices, and shifting cultural perspectives—while maintaining its deep roots in place and tradition.

The Stories We'll Tell

The series explores the multifaceted nature of Southern food culture: how family recipes adapt across generations, how immigrant communities contribute new flavors to established traditions, how young culinarians reinterpret classic techniques, and how seasoned professionals preserve knowledge that might otherwise be lost. Each conversation unveils the personal motivations, creative processes, and cultural connections that transform simple ingredients into meaningful experiences.

The Vision in Motion

Through intimate kitchen access and authentic dialogue, the camera captures both the artistry and the labor—the precise knife work and the sweat of service, the quiet moments of tasting and adjustment alongside the controlled chaos of dinner rush. This is the story of how food becomes culture, how kitchens become communities, and how the South's culinary identity continues to be written through countless individual choices made in restaurants across the region.

THE PROJECT.

Southern Table is a regionally-focused web series that celebrates the depth and diversity of Southern food culture through intimate storytelling and stunning culinary cinematography.

**Format & Structure**

Each **45-50 minute episode** focuses on **one Southern city**, diving deep into its unique culinary identity through **three distinct restaurant stories**. Every **10-15 minute segment** spotlights **one restaurant**, allowing sufficient time to explore their narrative, showcase their food, and capture the authentic conversations that reveal deeper cultural connections. This structure creates both **episodic cohesion** around each city's food scene while giving **individual restaurants** the space they deserve to tell their stories fully.

Visual Approach

Our documentary-style cinematography blends intimate roundtable conversations with dynamic kitchen coverage. The roundtable segments feature warm, conversational interviews that capture authentic dialogue without feeling staged or forced. Meanwhile, our kitchen coverage employs a run-and-gun style that captures the raw energy and controlled chaos of professional kitchens during service. We'll also create beautifully lit, detailed shots of finished dishes and cooking processes, complemented by atmospheric b-roll of restaurant ambiance, customer interactions, and city landscapes. Archival integration through historical photos, family pictures, and cultural documentation will add depth and context to each story.

**Storytelling Elements**

Each episode features a **local food guide** who facilitates conversations **without dominating the narrative**—drawing inspiration from **The Shop with LeBron's** conversational flow rather than traditional host-driven food shows. Our **core discussion topics** include **personal culinary journeys** and **family influences**, **ingredient sourcing** and **local partnerships**, the balance between **cultural heritage** and **innovation**, each restaurant's **relationship to their city and community**, **kitchen culture** and **team dynamics**, plus the **challenges and triumphs** that define working in the industry.

Production Approach

Our process begins with extensive pre-interviews to identify compelling story angles and understand each restaurant's unique narrative before filming. We'll conduct extended recording sessions that allow for natural conversation flow, letting discussions develop organically rather than rushing through predetermined questions. By leveraging our existing restaurant relationships and community ties, we can access authentic stories while ensuring restaurant owners and chefs drive their own narratives rather than having stories imposed upon them.

Series Mission

Southern Table showcases the South's culinary landscape as a living, breathing culture where every restaurant tells a story about heritage and innovation, and the people who keep traditions alive while pushing them forward. This is food television that honors both the plate and the people behind it, revealing how Southern cuisine continues to evolve while staying true to its roots. We're creating content that goes beyond surface-level food coverage to explore the deeper cultural currents that make Southern food culture so rich and complex.

The restaraunts.

This is a preliminary cast list, including confirmed talent and potential individuals we intend to approach. We see these characters as entry points to uncovering additional storylines and on-the-ground perspectives. The list is still in development.

Jamie Rhoads

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
James (Jamie) Rhoads has been at the University of Georgia since 2014 as an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Crop and Soil Science and Assistant Director of the Feed the Future Peanut & Mycotoxin Innovation Lab.
Justus Chintu

RESEARCHER
Dr. Chintu received a Ph.D. from the University of Kwazulu Natal in 2012. He works as a plant breeder for the Department of Agricultural Research Services in Malawi.
Agnes Mwangwela

PROFESSOR
Dr. Mwangwela has two decades of experience teaching food science, food product development and food analysis at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (formerly Bunda College of Agriculture of University of Malawi). From 2013, Dr. Mwangwela has served as dean of food and human sciences. She holds a Ph.d. in Food Science from the University of Pretoria.

Episode 1 - Athens

Episode 1. Disrupted Foundations

At the University of Georgia, Dr. Jamie Rhoads and Dave Hoisington lead a team of researchers and scientists to save years of groundbreaking peanut research just as a stop-work order halts the project—putting at risk critical soil data, drone technology, and a looming virus that could devastate peanuts worldwide without warning or cure.

Episode 2. Crimson Earth

In Malawi, where tobacco exports once dominated, a $15 million peanut value chain reacts to the severance of the Feed the Future lab—uniting U.S. and local farmers, plant breeders, and social scientists in an ambitious effort to build a resilient, gender-conscious agricultural system ready to withstand an invisible global threat.

**Episode 3. Legacy Under Fire**

Back in the U.S. Peanut Belt, farmers and industry leaders working with the lab confront the impending viral threat, strategizing how to protect their crops, their livelihoods, and a centuries-old agricultural tradition on the front lines of a crisis with no clear solution.

Made by an Award-Winning Team

OF INTERNATIONAL PRODUCERS

Meet the Team

Wendy Muñiz
Director | Writer | Producer

Guillermo Zouain
Director | Writer | Producer

Wendy and Guillermo both immigrated from the Dominican Republic at different points in their lives.Wendy, a first- generation student, obtained her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She’s also an Andrew W. Mellon and Woodrow Wilson Citizens and Scholars fellowship alumni for her work as a researcher and educator. Guillermo graduated with an M.F.A. in directing at the prestigious Catalonia’s Escola Superior de Audiovisuals. Their work as producers throughout Latin America and the U.S. has received the support of the Sundance Film Institute, ITVS, Film Independent, Chicken & Egg, the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms, and the Tribeca Film Institute, traveling worldwide from Cannes, True/False, Visions du Réel, Guadalajara, and the Atlanta Film Festival, to NOLA, BAFICI, DOC NYC, BFI Flare, and Camden International Film Festival. Michelle Rojas is not Okay (2023), their first podcast show as creators, directors, producers, and writers, starring Dascha Polanco and The Kid Mero, was picked up by Broadway Video and Audible.

Thank you!

CONTACT US:

wendy@thelightroom-ath.com guillermo@thelightroom-ath.com