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He dispatches African-American cuisine inside David Geffen Hall, which pays homage to the famous producer (from John Lennon or Bob Dylan to Aerosmith or Guns N’Roses) and founder of the Geffen Records label, who earned the honor of a hall named after him in 2015 after donating $100 million to Lincoln Center. When, in 2022, those in charge of this complex dedicated to the performing arts – located on the Upper West Side – considered renovating the building’s offerings, the name Kwame Onwuachi immediately came up.
The chef, a new-fangled celebrity who walks around Instagram (272. 000 followers) thanks to a sponsorship agreement with Nike or Lexus, seemed like the perfect potential recipe to turn the Lincoln into a culinary destination, beyond artistic: a guy born in the Bronx, with roots in Nigeria, the Caribbean and New Orleans, trained in haute cuisine at the Culinary Institute of America (New York) and luxury restaurants like Eleven Madison Park or Per Se, with a television background -in five years, he went from debuting as a contestant on Top Chef to being a judge on the show- and a real object of desire for fashion and lifestyle brands. Who can give more? There’s more: before he turned 30, he had already opened five restaurants, including Kith/Kin, a Washington D.C. eatery that had won him plenty of accolades.
Onwuachim took on the challenge of refreshing Lincoln Center’s gastronomic offerings and, in November 2022, opened Tatiana, named after his older sister, under a proposal of “Afro-Caribbean inspiration with New York influences”, based on his mother’s home cooking. It is a sophisticated, casual space, with tables without tablecloths and with little distance between them, without a tasting menu and with a la carte dishes to share; loud music, cocktails and dynamic service to guarantee a high rotation of diners in a single dinner service (from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.). Is Tatiana a culinary indicator of what is to come? “A very profitable business”, completes a sector source in the city.
NYT’ and 50 best’ tip-offs
What might appear to be a “trendy” adiscoteque restaurant format is the table of the moment in Manhattan. This is corroborated by daily fillings and long waiting lists, which are not only explained by Onwuachi’s media hype. In March of 2023, Pete Wells premiered Tatiana with three stars out of four in his review in The New York Times (NYT) and, in April, when issuing his verdict with The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City -with the most interesting of the year in the city-, he crowned it as number one, just ahead of Atomix -tables of the Koreans Junghyun and Ellia Park, eighth in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants- and Le Bernardin -tristellado classic of the Frenchman Eric Ripert.
In June, the opinion of 50 Best arrived, whose annual bet through the One to watch award was Onwuachi’s space. Thus, it points to the “business to watch” as the revelation of the moment or the one with the greatest projection. That could mean that, when the 2024 edition of the ranking that today heads the Lima-based Central is presented in Las Vegas in June, it should include Tatiana in its Top 50 or, at least, in the 100. Thus, it would fulfill a trend: in 2017, the One to watch went to Disfrutar, which debuted the following year at number 18, while today it is the second in the world; in 2019, it went to the Italian Lido 84, today seventh in the ranking; and, in 2021, to Ikoyi, number 35 this year.
Hay más “chismes” que hacen mirar a Tatiana. En septiembre, NYT presentó la tercera edición de la selección de los 50 restaurantes que “más entusiasman” a su docena de reporteros, editores y críticos tras visitar cientos de mesas en Estados Unidos. La mitad de los primeros puestos de The Restaurant List 2023 son aperturas realizadas el año pasado y, por supuesto, no falta el comedor de Onwuachi. “A pesar de las turbulencias de los últimos años, este es un momento de expansión para los restaurantes independientes”, argumenta el periódico.
At 34 years old, Kwame Onwuachi collects, in turn, recognitions: he was included in 30 Under 30 by Forbes and Zagat and in Time’s 100 Next’list; in 2019, Best New Chef award by Food & Wine or Rising Star Chef of the Year by the James Beard Foundation. He is the author of the book My America, and his memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef is being made into a film.
The “Tatiana experience”
Ephemeral pull or not, what is this supercool chef cooking at Lincoln Center? It’s August 2023 and Tatiana is bursting at the seams. A quiet lobby behind the southwest corner colonnade of David Geffen Hall is the welcome before the hustle and bustle that awaits inside. Are we entering a restaurant or a club where rap is playing? A tiny table for two is the destination before choosing a cocktail as an appetizer or dinner accompaniment.
What Onwuachi – who got his start in the kitchen thanks to his mother – presents as “a love letter to New York” is a succession of dishes that, in many cases, add delicious dough – bread, rolls, pita… – to accompany the protein. The menu is a list of 15 dishes with exotic and spicy flavors. “I’ve tried to reflect different experiences in my cooking,” he says. There are two blocks: Small Share, with pinto bean hummus, spiced Berber lamb, or Rangoon (a type of dumpling) of oxtail and crab; and Large Share, with a crab curry or the truly delicious wagyu short rib pastrami presented with coconut and red cabbage bread, the ultimate metaphor for the chef’s homage to the eclectic gastronomy of the Big Apple.
Good sized, three savory dishes are more than enough for two diners, adding a dessert like Harlem Chocolate Factory’s White Chocolate Cheesecake; with a couple of cocktails, it comes out to an average ticket with a tip of about 300 euros at the exchange rate.
The very friendly – and very well mannered – waiters take the order as quickly as the dishes almost arrive at the table. Tatiana is full in several successive shifts. The terrace overlooking the Lincoln Center’s outdoor plaza, designed just for its cocktail menu, is offered as an after-dinner drink. An amalgam of cool New York clientele, including affluent African-Americans, parade by. Occasionally, it tops off some evenings by transforming into a club, sometimes with Kwame Onwuachi as DJ.
Whether or not we’re looking at a formidable marketing strategy, only time will tell, but Tatiana is something different and it’s a format with character. The Eater portal poses the question, “Will Tatiana be able to keep the hype train rolling?”, not without acknowledging it as one of the best diners in town in 2023.
Surely there’s something about what’s happening at Tatiana that begs the question of whether, aside from confirming the trend of “casualized haute cuisine,” perhaps, it previews what’s coming in a swath of the New York and global culinary scene, under a different style of luxury than Le Bernardin or Eleven Madison Park. “I’ve never seen a restaurant address what’s happening in [U.S.] culture the way Tatiana does,” wrote a fascinated Pete Wells in NYT.
After blowing up New York’s culinary status quo, Onwuachi threatens, “Let’s keep the party going!” he said via Instagram as he celebrated the first anniversary of his successful home. His table is nearly impossible: reservations open no more than a month out, with all seats filled instantly and a system managed by Resy (a One To Watch Award sponsor!).