Restaurant Review: Kith and Kin
A couple weeks ago restaurants in Washington DC were starting to open for outdoor dining after our Covid-19 stay at home orders were lifted. My boyfriend and I decided it was a perfect time to go back to one of our neighborhood favorites, Kith and Kin at the Wharf in Southwest DC. It was also the first restaurant on my list to review as part of my new mission to highlight wonderful black-owned restaurants or those run by a black head chef.
Kith and Kin is an Afro-Caribbean restaurant, run by executive chef and James Beard Rising Star winner Kwame Onwuachi. Kwame got inspired after the election of Barack Obama to reboot his life and start cooking. He worked at top NYC restaurants before deciding to open his own restaurant to forge his own path, free of the unspoken racism he experienced as a young black chef. He told one story of alerting his head chef about a word on the menu that was also a racial slur, and the head chef bluntly told him that black people don't come eat at this restaurant. It harks back to my last blog post about why the implicit segregation we have at most restaurants.
I'd gone to Kith and Kin for my birthday earlier this year with my parents and my boyfriend, and even though the restaurant was careful to tamper our expectations on the level of cuisine that would be done in the first phase of pandemic re-opening, the food far exceeded my expectations. The restaurant said we would have a simpler menu inspired by street food. Well, street food or not, the dinner we were served left very little to be desired.
We picked two main courses to share: Duck breast jerk and a chickpea Trinidadian curry. We chose braised cabbage and Brussels Suya as our vegetable sides, and both dishes were served with coconut rice and beans, fried plantains, and lime. First the duck: each bite of duck was perfectly spiced, tender, with the perfect balance of jerk seasoning to complement but not overwhelm the taste of the duck. It was marinated in jerk seasoning, smoked, and served with honey BBQ sauce. The chickpea curry was succulent: not too firm or too soft, with a mellow curry flavor. It came with mango chutney.
The braised cabbage was unlike any cabbage I'd eaten. Normally, you expect a braised cabbage to have a very strong and distinct flavor. The cabbage was far from bland, but it was full of flavor and the slight acidity of the dish balanced out the gamey duck jerk and the mellow chickpea curry. The brussel sprouts were served cut in half, perfectly crisp and blackened. The plantains were firm, hardly sweet, and delicious. I'd never eaten a plantain quite like it! The curry also came with small tomatoes that were ever so slightly cooked in some type of acid - and they were absolutely amazing! The coconut rice was a good companion for the food, but not particularly notable compared to the coconut rice you might eat a good Asian restaurant. It was the only thing I ate that left something to be desired.
Prices are very moderate for cooking of this caliber. Each main course was between $16-29. In fact, this is one of the few restaurants I've been to in DC where I would consider the cooking to be of Michelin-caliber, and I would just as happily eat at Kith and Kin as I would at any of DC's Michelin 1 Star restaurants. Lucky for me it's my neighborhood place!
The Restaurant
Kith and Kin is an Afro-Caribbean restaurant, run by executive chef and James Beard Rising Star winner Kwame Onwuachi. Kwame got inspired after the election of Barack Obama to reboot his life and start cooking. He worked at top NYC restaurants before deciding to open his own restaurant to forge his own path, free of the unspoken racism he experienced as a young black chef. He told one story of alerting his head chef about a word on the menu that was also a racial slur, and the head chef bluntly told him that black people don't come eat at this restaurant. It harks back to my last blog post about why the implicit segregation we have at most restaurants.
I'd gone to Kith and Kin for my birthday earlier this year with my parents and my boyfriend, and even though the restaurant was careful to tamper our expectations on the level of cuisine that would be done in the first phase of pandemic re-opening, the food far exceeded my expectations. The restaurant said we would have a simpler menu inspired by street food. Well, street food or not, the dinner we were served left very little to be desired.
The Food
We picked two main courses to share: Duck breast jerk and a chickpea Trinidadian curry. We chose braised cabbage and Brussels Suya as our vegetable sides, and both dishes were served with coconut rice and beans, fried plantains, and lime. First the duck: each bite of duck was perfectly spiced, tender, with the perfect balance of jerk seasoning to complement but not overwhelm the taste of the duck. It was marinated in jerk seasoning, smoked, and served with honey BBQ sauce. The chickpea curry was succulent: not too firm or too soft, with a mellow curry flavor. It came with mango chutney.
The braised cabbage was unlike any cabbage I'd eaten. Normally, you expect a braised cabbage to have a very strong and distinct flavor. The cabbage was far from bland, but it was full of flavor and the slight acidity of the dish balanced out the gamey duck jerk and the mellow chickpea curry. The brussel sprouts were served cut in half, perfectly crisp and blackened. The plantains were firm, hardly sweet, and delicious. I'd never eaten a plantain quite like it! The curry also came with small tomatoes that were ever so slightly cooked in some type of acid - and they were absolutely amazing! The coconut rice was a good companion for the food, but not particularly notable compared to the coconut rice you might eat a good Asian restaurant. It was the only thing I ate that left something to be desired.
Pricing
Prices are very moderate for cooking of this caliber. Each main course was between $16-29. In fact, this is one of the few restaurants I've been to in DC where I would consider the cooking to be of Michelin-caliber, and I would just as happily eat at Kith and Kin as I would at any of DC's Michelin 1 Star restaurants. Lucky for me it's my neighborhood place!
Comments