Getting a table at Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi is now a gastronomic trophy. Located at the heart of Lincoln Center, the restaurant has become a symbol of the new post-pandemic New York: conscious, cultured, and identity-driven. Credit goes to a charismatic chef who has turned Afro-Caribbean cuisine into a powerful cultural statement—proudly rooted in his family history and the legacy of the Black American diaspora.
You don’t come to Tatiana just to eat: you come to hear a story told through ingredients, spices, and memory. But if you arrive alone—and perhaps with a European palate—the impact can be disorienting. I made it (I absolutely wanted to try it, and used the trick of arriving well before the 5 PM opening, being one of the first in line outside, and scoring one of the six bar seats), and ordered freely from the menu.
The food is intense. Everything is marinated in spices and sugar, then either fried, stewed, or glazed—without holding back on fat. The flavor is, of course, delicious: rich, bold, sweet, and fatty. An explosion of comfort food, unapologetically indulgent—but also not light. The dishes are all designed for sharing, served in generous “small” and “large share” portions, with no half-size options. So eating alone, I found it very hard to try more than one thing without feeling overwhelmed.
But the biggest surprise for me didn’t come from the plate—it came from the table setting. As an architect and founder of Raremood, I always observe the mise en place closely: the dishes, materials, textures. And here, my gaze was left somewhat unsatisfied. The plating is cheerful, ironic, super colorful, deliberately anti-minimalist—but the care for tableware and ceramics is almost nonexistent. No object tells a story on its own, and the mise en place overall feels “easy,” even at times careless—a shame, considering that the visual narrative of food can be as powerful as the taste itself.
Still, it’s an experience worth having. Because as powerful as the culinary storytelling is, the approach remains that of American comfort food: excessive, caloric, rarely healthy. This is a cultural fact that goes beyond any one restaurant: even today, in American television ads, the most represented foods are still fast food, street food, extra-saucy, cheesy, enveloping. An aesthetic of abundance, still answering a deep need for protection and immediate gratification—one I didn’t expect to find so deeply rooted in the U.S.
The rise of Afro-American “poor” cuisine—now finally celebrated even by fine dining—is a positive phenomenon, both historically and in terms of cultural identity. But the fact remains: American food culture still seems to have a complicated relationship with health, moderation, balance, and the concept of “less is more.”
Tatiana is the authentic and fascinating tale of a collective memory—but does it truly represent today’s New York? Or rather its nostalgia? It’s not the place for those seeking refined, balanced cuisine—or something closer to a contemporary sensibility. I experienced it as a journey into the past and into another way of eating. Of living. Of telling one’s story through food.
In conclusion: is it worth trying? Absolutely yes. But once might be enough.
Photo credits: www.tatiananyc.com
