Black Trumpet Chef Evan Mallett entered the restaurant business in 1989 under the tutelage of Chef Jeff Tunks, then at Washington, DC’s River Club. In the early Nineties, Evan took a break from restaurants to pursue his other passion, writing. In 1998, after serving as a restaurant critic, food writer and freelance writer for numerous Boston-area magazines and news journals, Evan moved--with his wife, Denise--to Portsmouth.

One meal at Lindbergh's Crossing (along with some urging from Denise) convinced Evan to apply for a job there as a line cook. When Lindbergh's opened a Spanish-themed sister restaurant, Ciento, in 1999, Evan was named Executive Sous Chef. When Ciento closed in 2001, the Mallett family (including one-year-old Eleanor) moved to San Miguel de Allende, a mountain village and artists' community in Central Mexico, where Denise and Evan jointly operated a Cajun-themed restaurant and gourmet food shop. Evan returned to Portsmouth with his family in 2003 to assume the post being vacated by founding Lindbergh's Chef Jeff Tenner.

At Lindbergh’s, Evan steered the kitchen’s focus toward the bright flavors of Iberia and North Africa, while maintaining the adherence to French technique that had made Lindbergh's a local institution.

While hiking with his family in the summer of 2006, Evan—an avid mushroom forager—happened on a meadow filled with black trumpet mushrooms. The name Black Trumpet, which at once evokes sleek lines, a wild edible mushroom and jazz, was an epiphany for the chef.  

Evan and Denise bought the restaurant in March of 2007. They live in southern Maine with Eleanor (8), Cormac (5), Evan’s dad, one dog, one cat and several chickens on a mushroom-rich woodland parcel.