Each year, star chef Camari Mick (part of Food & Wine’s 2024 class of Best New Chefs) recognizes Black History Month by hosting an event at her MICHELIN-Starred NYC restaurant The Musket Room. And this year’s dinner might just be one of the most exciting collaborations yet.
She’s bringing together top chefs from both New York and outside of the city—including James Beard Award winner Charlie Mitchell of Saga and Tavel Bristol-Joseph of Austin’s Emmer & Rye and Canje—for a multi-course, one-night-only dinner on February 3 called Follow Your Roots.
Each chef will highlight an ingredient that’s central to the African diaspora and include it as part of a creative dish that has a personal connection to each of them. “These are all things we grew up with; these are staples in our collective cuisines,” Mick says.
Read on for what you can expect at this one-of-a-kind dinner from chef Camari Mick and her friends, and make a booking on OpenTable.
The stories the ingredients tell
Mick worked in collaboration with famed culinary historian Jessica B. Harris to identify the key ingredients that are found throughout the cuisines in the African diaspora. “I wanted to see how they traveled from the West coast of Africa to the Caribbean and all the way to the Americas,” Mick says. “I wanted to see how it speaks to certain people.”
Each chef was assigned one of the following ingredients to use as the central component of their dish: Corn, okra, salt cod fish, sweet potatoes or African yams, black eyed peas or field peas, pork, rum, sugarcane, and sorrel.
At the dinner, you’ll get a booklet not just with the menu, but words from each chef about what their dish means to them, and words from Dr. Harris about the historic context behind each ingredient. “I hope to see that everyone garners a little more respect for some of these ingredients,” Mick says. “A lot of time Black American food is considered poverty food, I would love to see it rendered and accepted in the fine-dining realm.”
What to expect at the dinner
The eight-course feast kicks off at 6:30 pm with a special course prepared by three cooks that are part of Elizabeth Street Hospitality (the group behind The Musket Room, Raf’s, and the soon-to-open Cafe Zaffri). You’ll see each of them create a canapé that nods to their heritages. Laura Luciano nods to her Dominican roots with a corn fritter that’s like an arepa with a corn coconut smoked mousse and Emma Linville is doing a stuffed tart shell dish that’s a play between popcorn and cornbread.
As you move through the evening, you’ll be treated to courses including johnny cakes with with salt cod fish, escabeche foam, and trout roe from Bristol-Joseph; jerk pork with scotch bonnet-glazed Brussels sprouts from renowned chef Brittney “Stikxz” Williams; and an okra stew from Akwasi Brenya-Mensa who was named Eater London’s Chef of the Year in 2022.
Mick, of course, is tapping into her pastry wizardry and creating both a pre-dessert and a dessert course that incorporates rum, sugarcane, and sorrel. Think an ice-cream float of sorts with rum ice cream and a sugarcane soda with chartreuse-y aromatics and a showstopping sorrel île flottante with all-spice meringue, sorrel semifreddo, and a thyme-infused crème anglaise to cap the evening.
Mick has also asked each of the chefs to provide up to 10 songs for a playlist that will play over the course of the evening and really give you a sense of what gets the group pumped while cooking. Ultimately, Mick hopes people will leave the dinner feeling reinvigorated. “I hope to see us build community outside of our respective establishments, especially within the Black and brown community,” she says. “I would love for people to feel inspired leaving this event, whether it is to visit all these restaurants [that the chefs are from], go to another one of these dinners, or cook with these ingredients at home.”
Event details
Location: The Musket Room, 265 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY 10012
Time: 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Participating chefs:
- Akwasi Brenya-Mensa (Tatale, London)
- Brittney “Stikxz” Williams (BWC Catering, NYC)
- Camari Mick (The Musket Room & Raf’s, NYC)
- Charlie Mitchell (Saga, NYC)
- Sophia Roe (Apartment Miso, NYC)
- Tavel Bristol-Joseph (Canje & Emmer and Rye, Austin)
Price: $275 per person. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Edna Lewis Foundation to support Black students and professionals working in agriculture, culinary arts, and storytelling.
Tanay Warerkar is a content marketing manager at OpenTable, where he oversees features content and stays on top of the hottest trends and developments in the restaurant industry. He brings years of experience as a food editor and reporter having worked at the San Francisco Chronicle, Eater, and the New York Daily News, to name a few.
