In fabulous news out of chef-land, Odd Duck has a new chef de cuisine: Bryce Stevenson, the Ojibwe chef whose restaurant Miijim brought a modern Indigenous dining experience to Madeline Island. Miijim translates to food in the Ojibwe language.
Stevenson has worked at Odd Duck before. He started as a line cook in the old days of Hello Falafel, a short-lived Middle Eastern place also operated by the Odd Duck team. After Stevenson left that job, co-owner Melissa Buchholz says they stayed in touch. That led to a Miijim pop-up last January at Odd Duck.
Stevenson’s restaurant operated in La Pointe, on the Apostle Island of Madeline Island, for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Early this year, I reached out to him to find out his plans for 2025. They were, I learned, to find a new home for Miijim. The Madeline Island space would not reopen due to “logistics, access to the island and infrastructure in the area,” he said in an email. And that “to bring awareness and sovereignty to the foods we cook,” Miijim would be “better suited to success” in Milwaukee, he said.
Among the pop-ups Stevenson hosted in MKE this year, he partnered up with chef Jenny Lee back in spring for “Korea de Rez vol. 2” – an Ojibwe-Korean collaboration dinner – at Goodkind.
Before opening Miijim – for which he was a 2024 semifinalist for the Emerging Chef award from the James Beard Foundation – Stevenson worked as executive chef at the Indigenous Food Lab in Minneapolis and as head chef at Hotel Fauchere in Milford, Pennsylvania.
Miijim’s location was significant. Stevenson is a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and grew up on the reservation, in Bayfield. His style of cooking integrates Indigenous foods (rabbit, bison, venison, wild edibles) with modern cooking techniques to emphasize pre-colonial foods and Ojibwe history. He also served as a guest judge on Bravo’s “Top Chef: Wisconsin.”
At Odd Duck, Stevenson’s impact will be reflected on the fall and winter iterations of the menu. Says Buchholz: “We always sort of had the position open in spirit should the right person come along, and are excited to bring someone back into our team at that level. We are excited for his contributions!”
