A tireless strutter and multi-tasker (just this month he launched a kitchen collection for Target, appeared on A&E’s “Fix This Kitchen” and took a vacation in Sweden), Marcus Samuelsson is set to open the splashiest restaurant/speakeasy/performance space Harlem has ever seen. Aptly, he named it the Red Rooster, after the cock of the walk himself.
When he isn’t busy making Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Bobby Flay look like unambitious bums, the Top Chefs Master/James Beard-award winning, half-Ethiopian, half-Swedish, 100 percent American Samuelsson mines the streets of Harlem for musical and aesthetic inspiration.
“Food tells a story, just like Kehinde Wiley tells a story with his art or the Talking Heads tell a story with their songs,” he told Papermag. “I want it to taste like I took a bike from the East side of Harlem to the West side of Harlem and told the story of everything I saw.”
Samuelsson’s food will be farm to table (no surprise there), but he goes a step further: Everything, from the proteins to the china to the art, will be sourced from the sidewalks abutting his venture.
The music too. When the Red Rooster finally crows in November (the start date keeps getting pushed back), hoof it over to 310 Lenox Avenue. President Obama himself slurped down some of the dishes Samuelsson has on the menu, all for less than an average drink costs a few blocks south.
TOPICS: Eat to the Beat, Kathleen Willcox