At Henry, a hotel restaurant in Midtown, the chef JJ Johnson’s cooking has a global vision.
Key paragraph, in case you’re out of free articles for the month:
“It was in Harlem, as chef de cuisine at a slinky neighborhood hangout called the Cecil and the history-drenched jazz supper club Minton’s, that Mr. Johnson made his name. Fleshing out a notion suggested by Alexander Smalls, the consulting chef in both places, Mr. Johnson explored the African diaspora, the imprint that Africans have put on cooking around the world. He does something similar at Henry, although his view has grown to embrace flavors from, say, India and Southeast Asia that turn up in Africa and in diasporic countries like Jamaica and Barbados. He calls the menu at Henry “Pan-African.””
