But there's also a slice of barbecue history: Mitchell learned his art of cooking a whole hog from his elders. And there's a taste of barbecue's future: a meal he wants to make from free-range, hormone-free pigs rather than the cheapest feed lot animals available. Also included is a story: Mitchell is back working the pit only after spending time behind bars for tax evasion.
Surely such a meal qualifies as fine dining. Not convinced? Then check out those sides: Brunswick stew with caramelized barbecue pork belly, jalapeno cornbread crackers and Russian red kale. And off to the side of the fancy space in downtown Raleigh's warehouse district, a "pig bar" where diners can sample delicacies from the entire animal.
"I felt with the population as large as it is and as diverse as it, that maybe we can eat a plate of barbecue with something besides a glass of iced tea and cole slaw and boiled potatoes," Mitchell said.
He's about to find out.
More than two years after an arrest on charges of embezzlement led him to close Mitchell's Ribs, Chicken & Barbecue in Wilson, the 61-year-old pitmaster whose culinary degree came from "Mother Doretha's University" is back with "The Pit." Working with Raleigh developer Greg Hatem, he's running an upscale restaurant serving a cuisine made famous in tar-papered shacks.
"I think barbecue is an honorable food cooked by honorable men and women, and I think it's deserving of a pedestal," said John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss.
"We're still talking about a barbecue restaurant," Edge said. "Even if the side dishes may be riffs on tradition, the core of the menu is an African-American man cooking barbecue in the ways his forebears taught him."
For Mitchell, as with all other masters of the eastern North Carolina style of barbecue, that means cooking a whole pig instead of just a pork shoulder. His barbecue is a blend of the difference textures of the hog, melded into one flavor by a vinegar-based sauce that defines the style.
"When you have a chance for all of that to hit your palate, then you really have a true taste of barbecue from the traditional state," Mitchell said.
Mitchell grew up fixing meals for his two brothers and other relatives on a wood stove, under the direction of a demanding teacher -- his mother Doretha. The lessons read like the menu at a top-notch country diner: fried chicken, beans, peas, collards, mac and cheese, candied yams, chopped cabbage with onions, steamed cabbage. Oh, and "a mean potato salad," he said.
"I used to hate it when mother would teach me how to do these things and tell me, at a certain time, I'd better turn that stove on and put that pot on, you'd better not scorch these beans, you'd better not overcook the collards," he said.
He eventually started to head out with the men when they left for all-nighters to cook pigs -- and, as Mitchell learned, sip a little white lightin'. He was 14 when he cooking his first pig solo -- and took his first snort.
He left home for Fayetteville State University, earning a degree in sociology before starting a career at Ford in Boston. His father's death in 1991 brought him back to North Carolina, where he fell back into fixing barbecue.
It was while running his restaurant in Wilson that he announced plans in 2003 to build a network of small farmers to breed free-range pigs with the right taste for his 'cue. Mitchell believes his tax problems stemmed from those plans, which Edge said could pose a threat to industrial hog butchers by proving you can profit from a pig raised on a pasture.
But Mitchell had already been arrested in 1998 and 2000 on charges of failing to pay sales and withholding taxes. The 1998 case was dismissed when he testified that his mother was responsible for the payment. In the second case, he failed to comply with the terms of a deferred-prosecution agreement. That case was dismissed when he paid about $50,000 in outstanding taxes.
In 2005, Mitchell's closed after authorities charged him with embezzlement. He pleaded guilty to lesser charges of tax evasion and served a 30-day jail sentence on weekends.
He still hopes to reopen Mitchell's Ribs, Chicken & Barbecue, but for now is focused with Hatem on transforming a cool, modern interior of the previous restaurant into brightly furnished barbecue palace. For now, they serve dinner only, although they hope to add lunch eventually -- all crafted from the best hogs Mitchell can find.
"Typically, you don't get that unless you're going to a pig-pickin' somewhere in eastern North Carolina in a backyard," Hatem said. "Even then, there's a 50/50 chance on whether you get coal or gas."
