If You Have to Ask About This Harlem Dinner Party, You're Not Invited
The lobby lacks the swirly marble flooring and chandeliers of finer residential buildings. The long hallways are almost dingy. But behind one of the apartment doors on a recent night, the mood was anything but dull.
Butterflied branzino was about to go in the oven. A pan of glistening buns rested on the stove. Fariyal Abdullahi, executive chef at Marcus Samuelsson's restaurant Hav & Mar, and the private chef Nana Araba Wilmot were hovering over the dishes. At the bar, a punch of bourbon, sweet tea, mango juice, ginger liqueur and fresh mint was being poured.
The jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater arrived after a long evening at the recording studio. Her dog, Daisy, a fluffy Maltese-Shih Tzu mix, perched valiantly atop her wheeled suitcase.
The party's host, Alexander Smalls, perused the scene.
'This is an interesting place to hang out,' he boomed in a baritone that rose above the party chatter.
The guests erupted in laughter.
In New York, members-only clubs with steep fees and private restaurants in luxury towers have become powerhouses for socializing and networking over food and booze. So many have opened in recent months that the monetization of community seems practically like a new business strategy.
But there are some spaces you can't buy your way inside. Mr. Smalls's cozy apartment in West Harlem is one of them, its own humble seat of power. There, guests find a setting for community and connection. They can generate buzz for a new idea or project and sometimes even find investors who are eager to listen.
'The Vanderbilts used to do that, and the Astors,' said Mr. Smalls, a well-known chef and former opera singer. 'They created these enclaves of power and elevated air to breathe. They relished in bringing in creatives. The celebrities, they all pass through here on their way somewhere, and I feed them and nurture them.'
Last month's dinner party organized by Mr. Smalls was partly a celebration of his new cookbook, 'The Contemporary African Kitchen,' and partly a birthday bash: He had just turned 73. And it was a chance for Mr. Smalls to let two chefs, Ms. Abdullahi and Ms. Wilmot, show off their skills (he made one dish himself, a black-eyed pea and poached-pear salad). The guests were successful or up-and-coming painters, dancers, curators, musicians and chefs, many of whom have multi-hyphenate titles.
But mostly, it was just another evening at the home of an artist whose work in both cooking and music has earned James Beard, Tony and Grammy Awards.
'I live to throw parties,' said Mr. Smalls, outfitted in dark-rimmed glasses, a black suit jacket and Dolce & Gabbana slip-on loafers.
When Mr. Smalls was a child living in Spartanburg, S.C., he wanted so badly to entertain that his father built him a clubhouse in his backyard so he could invite friends over and make food for them. That impulse endured though his early career in opera.
'When I moved to New York and got my apartment, the parties began. It was my way of creating community,' he said. 'What I learned as a child is the person with the spoon wielded the power.'
When his opera career took him to Paris and Rome, he held dinner parties there that attracted fashion designers, actors and dancers. His voice coach at one point told him that if he didn't ease up on the dinners, he would never have a career in opera. Eventually, he felt like he had hit the glass ceiling as a Black man in opera.
He shifted his focus to food with the aim of making sure Southern cooking had a place in fine dining. He had five restaurants in New York: Café Beulah, Sweet Ophelia's, the Shoebox Cafe, the Cecil and Minton's Playhouse, which he helped to reopen.
'I opened my first restaurant so someone else would pay for dinner,' he said. 'Entertaining was an addiction. I almost forgot what it was like to eat alone. I had to find a way to support my habit.'
His establishments drew Gloria Steinem, Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. George Clooney and the cast of 'Saturday Night Live' showed up at Café Beulah one evening. Catherine Deneuve would sit at the bar. Glenn Close was a regular.
Mr. Smalls closed his last New York restaurant in 2018. He has written cookbooks and a children's book and opened an African food hall in Dubai. He plans to start a similar food hall in Harlem. And he hopes to create a nonprofit, Smalls House, which will provide hospitality training and a community kitchen.
Meanwhile, he's still throwing dinner parties. His aim these days is to elevate lesser-known Black chefs and chefs from the African diaspora, letting them do most of the cooking. He curates the party playlists and the guest lists.
'I speak the language of music and food,' he said, 'and through those conversations I am able to introduce that circle to new chefs, artists and creatives.'
The setting — his apartment — is practically a museum, covered wall to ceiling with framed restaurant reviews, a plaque from Ms. Morrison and paintings, some of which are portraits and caricatures of Mr. Smalls by friends. Tables are piled with art books, cookbooks and novels stacked seven deep. It's the kind of place that begs for annotation, which Mr. Smalls willingly provides.
As he divulged family secrets, the photographer Dario Calmese was chatting in the living room with Elijah Heyward III, a scholar of Southern African American culture, and Dr. Darien Sutton, an ABC medical correspondent. Conversation among another set of guests shifted to chatter about the chef and author Lazarus Lynch. Did you hear he plans to get his master's degree in sociology?
'He went to Buffalo State, and I went to Fredonia College,' said Nia Drummond, a jazz and opera singer.
Mr. Smalls, hovering nearby, perked up. 'I made my debut with the Buffalo symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas in the late '70s. The photo is right there,' he said, pointing to the wall displaying a photo of the famed conductor and Mr. Smalls. 'I was 24 years old.'
'I didn't know he was in Buffalo,' Ms. Drummond said.
Mr. Smalls looked at his empty glass.
'I need some more bourbon before I tell you that story,' he said.
At about 8 o'clock, Mr. Smalls stood and beckoned guests toward the dining room hidden by green velvet curtains that he pulled back.
'Please, ladies, take it away,' he said to the chefs who were standing before the table.
'We have quite a spread for you guys tonight,' said Ms. Wilmot, whose parents grew up in Ghana.
Among the dishes on the table: Ghanaian buns bread made with nutmeg and evaporated milk, omo tuo (rice balls), nkate nkwan (peanut butter soup) and Ethiopian gomen (collard greens). The branzino was dressed half with Ghanaian green shito pepper sauce and half with doro wat, the national dish of Ethiopia.
'We wanted to create a dish that represented both of us,' said Ms. Abdullahi, who spent her childhood in Ethiopia, the other side of the continent from her co-chef's family ties to Africa. 'As gorgeous as this is, it tells a story of East meets West.'
'Can we eat now?' Michelle Miller, the 'CBS Saturday Morning' co-host, interrupted, and everyone laughed.
Guests spread out across the two small living rooms with plates in their laps. A late arrival slipped in, a coconut cake in her arms, prompting whispers. Was that the soprano Kathleen Battle, the one who commanded a standing ovation last year at the Met? (It was.)
Plates were cleared, and Jim Herbert, a fashion consultant, slid behind the piano and started playing. Mr. Smalls sat down in the living room and began to riff along.
'This is out of a book,' said ruby onyinyechi amanze, an artist who spells her name in lower case. She had driven from Philadelphia to attend the dinner and marveled at the scene.
After a few minutes, Ms. Drummond walked into the room.
'You know, I feel like I want to take the piano. Jimmy, move your ass,' she said before sitting at the keys and launching into a Billie Holiday song followed by a spiritual.
She finished and stood up to a stunned room.
'Let the church say amen,' Mr. Smalls said.
In unison, the partygoers responded: 'Amen.'
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