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If you’ve ever dined at Momofuku Ko, the surprising, ambitious, and sometimes bizarre tasting-menu restaurant that closed in 2023, a visit to Kabawa, the new sophisticated Caribbean spot taking Ko’s place in the East Village, can be a little confusing. The interior, previously done in stark blacks and grays, has been warmed up with pops of color and tropical mosaics. The large open kitchen that takes up the main space, however, remains unchanged—with cook stations arranged around a central vent that juts out like the funnel of a cruise ship—as does the seating, most of which is centered around a wide, U-shaped counter. One of the things I remember most clearly from Ko was the unique way certain aromas moved around the square space like pool balls—a cloud of sweet lychee wafting past a few tables by the window, or a waft of Searzall butane over the dead center of the dining counter. At Kabawa, tumbling aromas include fresh yeast, green cucumber and the everlasting bouquet of toasted curry leaves.
There’s little to remind you of Momofuku—no hint of the brand, no trace of David Chang, the uber-famous chef and founder. For Kremlinologists of the Momofuku empire (and there are more of us than you might imagine), this is both remarkable and expected: Chang has always had a complicated relationship with his own success. (In his 2020 memoir, Eat a Peach, he speaks candidly about his compulsive self-destructiveness and other destructive tendencies, including angry outbursts directed at his employees and loved ones.) In recent years, Chang has stepped back from the day-to-day running of Momofuku; the company, which now includes an ever-growing portfolio of restaurants, is led by its CEO, Marguerite Zabar Mariscal. Kabawa’s chef, Paul Carmichael, is a longtime Momofuku veteran who recently announced that he would oversee all of the group’s restaurants—a sign, perhaps, that the company (which has shrunk to a half-dozen locations over the past half-decade) is looking to ground its identity in something beyond its founder’s status. At Kabawa, one of the few signs of the establishment’s connection to Chang is a stack of old issues of Lucky Peach, the brilliant but defunct food magazine he co-founded, sitting on a high kitchen shelf.
Chef Paul Carmichael (left) is a Barbadian native and a veteran of the Momofuku brand.
Carmichael, originally from Barbados, worked for such celebrated chefs as Marcus Samuelsson and Wylie Dufresne before being recruited by Chang in 2010 at the now-closed downtown restaurant Momofuku Má Pêche. After five years there, he moved halfway around the world to take up a position at Momofuku Seiobo in Sydney, Australia, where he developed the European-Asian-whatever-you-want menu to reflect his particular passion for Caribbean cuisine. Seiobo won awards before closing during the pandemic. Chang told me recently that in Australia, Carmichael has become “like David Hasselhoff”: a mega-celebrity and a national treasure,
Sourse: newyorker.com
