Sally Seymour

Sally Seymour (died 3 April 1824), was an African American pastry chef and restaurateur. Seymour built up an elite culinary business in Charleston, South Carolina and was one of a few African American business owners at the time. She influenced food styles in Charleston through her restaurant and the numbers of chefs she trained.

Life Seymour was enslaved by Thomas Martin, who was the father of her children. In the 1780s, Seymour oversaw Martin's house and kitchen. She received training as a pastry chef by Englishman Adam Prior, one of only two French-trained chefs in Charleston.

The types of food she learned from Adam Prior were cakes, hot meat pies, sweet pies, trifles, jellies and confectionery, her food became more popular than her teachers. Seymour was very successful: in 1817, the St. Cecilia Society held their meeting in her establishment. Thomas Grimké, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Thomas Pinckney convened the Mutton Chop Club every fortnight at Seymour's restaurant.

Described as a matriarch of a dynasty of pastry chefs and restaurateurs in Charleston, part of Seymour's legacy was the African American chefs she trained, which included those who were enslaved kitchen workers, free black women, and her children Eliza and William. Some of the people she taught included Camilla Johnson, Eliza Dwight, Martha Gilchrist, Cato McCloud, and the Holton sisters who became rivals of Seymour's business. Seymour's teaching influenced the food of Charleston for vegetables to be cooked in a French style of balanced flavor as highlighted in the cookbook, The Carolina Housewife, by Sarah Rutledge.

She left her business to her daughter Eliza Seymour Lee when she died in 1824, who was also a noted pastry chef. Eliza Lee expanded the business.