RESTAURANTS • First Person
Kabawa isn’t just serving some of the most delicious food in New York City right now, it’s doing so in a particularly joyful way, launching New York’s dining scene into the future, while at the same time staying very true to the Momofuku brand.
Like the bar next door, Kabawa’s helmed by chef Paul Carmichael, who ran the excellent, dearly departed Momofuku joint Má Pêche in Midtown before decamping to Australia to oversee the extremely elevated tasting menu at the group’s also-shuttered Sydney restaurant Seiōbo. Having dined at both those restaurants, we knew Carmichael’s cooking to be technically incredible, and of a piece with Momofuku founder Dave Chang’s culinary philosophy of serving dishes that surprise but also supremely delight.
Now, the Barbados-born Carmichael has been given the green light by Chang & Co. to cook Caribbean food his way at Kabawa, remixing all the influences that comprise the region’s melting pot of culinary traditions. The three-course prix fixe ($145 per) features seven or eight starter options, around half a dozen entrees, and five desserts. A few of them have supplemental charges and/or bolt-ons (which are fun, but also okay to skip).
Everyone’s seated at the horseshoe counter framing an open kitchen in the middle of the room, a holdover from the space’s past life as Momofuku Ko. Interaction (and an occasional fist bump) with the chefs is inevitable, very much part of the show. Caribbean music blasts from speakers in the ceiling as the opening bread course — hot, buttery, griddled roti, served with four chutneys and relishes — sets a ridiculously high bar for what’s to come. The sauces are citrusy, acidic, sweet, and hot, sometimes all at once. The roti tastes as though it was genetically modified to perfection, and not just plain evidence of Carmichael’s flawless grasp of the fundamentals (which it is).
With the appetizers, it’s hard to see any way to go wrong except with the pepper shrimp, the only dull dish we’ve sampled at Kabawa. The cassava dumplings bear special notice, the Caribbean root vegetable fashioned into small, silky smooth balls stewed with creole sauce — a truly ethereal offering.
The mains are all terrific. Carmichael’s beloved scotch bonnet fried chicken has sadly disappeared from an early menu — if you see it, get it — but you’ll be more than fine without it. A hunk of goat served under a spicy scallop creole has immediately earned a place in the firmament the city’s great dishes, a slightly oceanic funk from the scallops emerging from a dollop of curry unlike any other you’ve had, permeating meat that barely needs a fork (let alone a knife) to cut through.
It wouldn’t be a Momofuku restaurant without some sort of large-format selection, and here, it’s chuletas can can, a pork chop roasted and deep fried, served with the fat very much still on it (and, at the tips, crisped into phenomenal crackling). Like all the mains, it’s accompanied by a green salad, plus bowls of rice and beans, as well as two slices of Asian pear. Those seemingly innocent beans are revelatory — tender, and as though they have access to an extra dimension of flavor that Carmichael had to cut a Faustian bargain to access.
Does a palate cleanser of untouched fruit have any right (or need) to be a meal highlight? Not until a chilled bowl of tamarind shows up, in its whole form, one per diner, with instructions on how to eat it. Beyond being delicious and fun, it’s a thing so many restaurants don’t (or simply can’t) aspire to: enlightening.
Many desserts involve coconut — a turnover with cream cheese for two seems to be a big hit; one night also offered a coconut sorbet, a fixture that will rotate flavors — but whatever you do, elect the birthday flan, a custardy delight covered in a featherweight caramel and rainbow sprinkles. It is, after all, cause for a party. Momofuku and Carmichael’s don’t-call-it-a-comeback banger speaks to a burgeoning rearrangement of New York restaurant map, as flavors and cuisines that have yet to find themselves dutifully represented in the city’s dining scene are now being beautifully stood up in its highest echelons. What isn’t there to celebrate? –Foster Kamer & Lockhart Steele
→ Kabawa (East Village) • 8 Extra Pl • Tue-Sat 530-10p • 3-course prix fixe $145 per • Reserve.