Chef Lex took unconventional route on her way to cooking up good vibes for Mavs

On her journey to becoming the full-time chef for the Mavericks, Alexia “Chef Lex” Grant didn’t exactly take the conventional route.

“I applied when I was nine months pregnant,” she told Mavs.com. “I said, ‘I want to do this.’ I already take care of players individually, I understand them, their lifestyles, what they need, how to feed them, how to get them into eating healthy food. I need stability.’

“I’m sitting there with a big belly. I was about to have a baby, and I saw the job pop up on my feed for the Dallas Mavericks. I thought, ‘I cannot pass this up. I don’t care if I’m pregnant or not. I’m going to just put my name in the hat. They called me two days later.”

While Chef Lex was overly excited about the call from the Mavs, there was a matter of her baby about to be born that was front and center on her mind.

“There was another chef here, and he was leaving,” Chef Lex said. “I told him, ‘I’m nine months pregnant and I’m about to have my baby in two or three weeks.’ And he said, ‘OK, if you’re the candidate, we’ll wait for you.’ So I did my interviews, then they called me back for another interview, and they offered me the job.

“I said, ‘Y’all know I’m pregnant. I made that clear. You see this belly. They said, ‘We see the belly. We see your dedication, we think you’re an amazing fit. If you want the job, the job is yours.’ “

With that nod of positivity, Chef Lex’s baby boy – Cairo – was born on Oct. 4, 2022. And Chef Lex officially joined the Mavs on Dec. 5, 2022.

“The chef that was leaving the Mavs, he put his departure on hold and held it down until I could come, and they welcomed me with open arms,” Grant said. “It’s been an amazing experience.

“God is good. What’s for you is for you.”

Chef Lex was a private chef before joining the Mavs. Her clients include New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum, former 10-time NBA All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony, and singer/actress Kelly Rowland. She also was the private chef for guard Kyrie Irving before he was traded to the Mavs last February.

Chef Lex’s big break in the culinary industry came when she was pegged by the NBA to work in the NBA bubble in suburban Orlando in the summer of 2020. She describes that as a transformative moment.

“It really changed my perspective on what I wanted to do,” Chef Lex said. “It was a turning point in my career. I got a chance to operate as an independent entity outside of the players, which was really nice because usually it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s Melo’s chef. Oh, that’s CJ’s chef.’ No, I was Chef Lex, and you knew me and you saw me.

“My name and my face was on that flier and that was really good to feel like that. That was my first time stepping out, and then the scale at which I was cooking was insane. I was way far beyond what I thought of myself. I was an excellent leader.”

While Chef Lex was cooking for roughly 400 people a day in the bubble, she and her team in Dallas cooks for roughly 60 people a day with the Mavs.

“During the season we will cook breakfast and lunch during practice days, and make snacks for the players,” she said. “On a game day we cook breakfast, we cook post-breakfast, which is a meal that they take with them. We cook pre-game, which is a meal that they eat when they come in before the game.

“We make their snacks, like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, turkey sandwiches, smoothies. Some of them just like salads that have no veggies in it, so we’ll make chicken salad or tuna salad. Then we make full regular salads, and I also do the in-flight catering on the private jet for them.”

For Chef Lex, the smell and flavor of food represents a conversation piece. She and her team – which includes Dayjus Hill, Mariio Henry and Raymond James – go out of their way to make sure the dining experience at the Mavs’ practice facilities is an unforgettable experience.

“Food is love, food is passion, food is energy,” Chef Lex said. “We try to be all of those things. We are the highlight of most people’s day when they come in here. We feed people. This is their fuel, but we also feed them with our energy. The energy that we have within our bodies is what we are putting into the food.

“I try my best to be as thoughtful as possible when it comes to my team and making sure that they are happy and fulfilled, so that when they come into this place we are here to create and we’re here to give an experience. So that is the culture we bring.”

It’s a culture that drew Hill head over heels in love with what Chef Lex is always conveying.

“Once I heard that she got the job here, I sought after her,” Hill said. “I was working in restaurants previously, and I realized I didn’t really like the culture of that. And one of the things that I’ve been making sure that I try to do is work under a lot of powerful black women.

“When I found out about Chef Lex, I was like, ‘Oh, I want to work here, because she’s here,’ so I actually hit her up on social media. I wrote, ‘Do you have any positions that are open, because I want to learn from you, because I’m in a learning phase in my life and I just want to soak up as much information and skills as I possibly can and build a nice foundation?’ She welcomed me in with open arms, and since I started in March I have grown drastically not just in my skill set, but also just my life skills.”

In essence, Chef Lex has filled Hill’s bucket with much more than just food for thought.

“I wasn’t reading books before,” Hill said. “I’m an avid reader now. She said, ‘I need you to read this,’ and it took me a minute to be consistent, because that’s one of the things that I feel like I lack is discipline. I’ve never played sports. Literally, food is all that I know. So, when she gave me the push and put everything I needed in my lap, it’s kind of like, ‘Well, why not, because I don’t have anything really to do. So, now I’m an avid reader because of her.

“I’m also learning how to work with people in my different relationships — not just in the workplace. On top of that, I’m learning how to manage my time better because of her, and I just feel more confident in my abilities in the kitchen. I used to be the person who like to stay in the back, don’t talk, keep my head down, just work. Now I’m more comfortable speaking and just making connections with people, and I can honestly say if it wasn’t for Chef Lex, I would not be able to do any of that.”

Chef Lex can honestly say, if it wasn’t for her grandparents, she likely wouldn’t be where she is today. Growing up in Newark, N.J, Chef Lex initially had aspirations of one day becoming a psychologist.

“But I’m too emotional for that job,” she said. “I’m a very passionate person, and it just wasn’t going to work out, so I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And my grandfather is – I would say, my father — he was dying. We did in-home hospice and he said, ‘I don’t care what you do, but you’ve got to do something with your life. I cannot be at peace until you figure it out.’

“So, the day I enrolled into culinary school, he passed away. So, I thought, ‘I guess this is the thing that I have to do now.’ And I was 18 years old. It took me a while, though, to really get into it. I went to culinary school (at the Art Institute of New York for two years), and I didn’t take cooking seriously until I was about 25.”

Chef Lex fondly remembers those life lessons her grandparents instilled in her.

“My grandfather (Mathias Grant) was a mechanic,” she said. “He owned his own mechanic shop. He did encourage me to cook in the house. He’s the first person who taught me how to cook anything. He trusted me to fry my own eggs in the morning.

“But my grandmother (Winnifred Grant), his wife, is an amazing chef. She chose a nursing career for practicality, of course. She’s 81 years old and she still cooks for everybody.”

As far as the Mavs are concerned, Chef Lex and her team are the go-to people the folks on the basketball side of the Mavs’ organization turn to for their hunger pangs.

“The kitchen that I’ve created has been dubbed by (Mavs general manager) Nico (Harrison) as the heartbeat of the practice facility, so I want to make sure that we are consistent in that,” Chef Lex said. “We ought to just show up every day and give our best, because that’s what we expect of the players.

“So, if we’re the first people that you see, you have to be greeted with a smile and we’ll say, ‘How you doing? How you feeling today?’

Chef Lex has made a habit of dishing out sage advice that has enabled Hill and others on her team to expand the creative side of their cooking game.

“She has made me more comfortable with trying different things,” Hill said. “I just made curry the other day and it was really good. And I’m not Caribbean at all. Thanks to Chef Lex, I’m able to just keep an open mind and really do great things here, and I owe it all to her.

“We do a lot of team building things, which is new to me because in the restaurant spaces it was kind of like every man for themselves. But it feels more like a family here. We do team stretches. Before we start, we say affirmations. I feel comfortable coming to her with ideas for menus. She’s open to ideas, which is very rare for an executive chef, so I really appreciate that.”

On her bucket list, Chef Lex said she would like to cook for former President Barack Obama, his wife Michelle Obama, and for rapper/singer Drake. She already has cooked for Oprah Winfrey, although she said she wouldn’t mind cooking for her again.

“Drake is my gasoline,” Chef Lex said. “His music has fueled so many aspects of my life. I can pinpoint some major pinnacles in my life, and Drake was my music. Let’s say a song from his album comes on, I can remember what I was doing in my life when that popped.

“But I didn’t even get to go to the concert, which really broke my heart. The tickets were sold out, and the ones I could get were like $1,000. Drake, I say I love you, but this is too much.”

While her life has unfolded over the years, Chef Lex revealed that she is now engaged to Travis South. And in addition to 11-month old Cairo, the couple also have a 14-year old son name Joshua. She plans to get married either next August or sometimes in 2025.

As for her recipe for success, Chef Lex harkens back to her days in the NBA bubble when she was surrounded by inquisitive chefs from various NBA teams.

“I’ve been in sports for about eight years working with athletes independently as a private chef, and doing events for them, and I had the opportunity to have my own pop-up restaurant in the NBA bubble,” Chef Lex said. “It was there that I got to meet the chefs for all the teams that brought their chefs with them.

“They were looking at me like, ‘Oh my God! You got here on your own? Your job is so cool. How did you do that?’

“And I told them, ‘You’ve got a 401K and health benefits. Your job is so cool.’ “

Now, thanks to the Mavs, Chef Lex’s job is additionally so cool.

X: @DwainPrice