Meet Chef Aliya LeeKong In-Person At Her Pop-Up Supper Club At Jill Lindsey

Part of what makes our neighborhood so vibrant is the diversity and creativity of the people living here, from authors to filmmakers, chefs to business owners of all industries, health care workers to educators. And when two or more of these groups collide, fun things happen.

Case in point: this coming Thursday, October 29, from 7-9:30pm, Fort Greene chef, cookbook author and mom Aliya LeeKong and local entrepreneur Jill Lindsey are teaming up to present a Seasonal Supper Club at Lindsey’s store at 370 Myrtle Avenue.

On the menu are some of LeeKong’s latest culinary creations from around the world: Seasonal Chaat with black salt and chiles, Ethiopian carrot “tartare” kitfo, homemade tagliatelle pasta with wild maitaki mushrooms, pork belly confit inspired by Haitian pikliz, and Arabic coffee cream pots.

Tickets are $89 ($125 with wine) and there are only 20 of them, so act fast if you’re interested.

We caught up with Chef Aliya to chat about what guests can look forward to at the supper club and from her in the future.

You’ve served as chef and culinary creative director at restaurants the likes of Junoon, Jean Georges, Devi, and Per Se, and have published your own cookbook (“Exotic Table — Flavors, Inspirations and Recipes from Around the World to Your Kitchen”). Why did you want to do a supper club?

I left the restaurant world after my cookbook came out, but I really wanted to get back to cooking at an intimate level where I can connect with people, try out different recipes, and see people’s reactions. Food should be fun. I hope you have a good time. A lot of eating is communal, so as much as it’s about food, I want people to connect. And I chose Jill Lindsey because it’s around the corner and I love the store and her philosophy.

How did you decide on the menu, which runs the gamut of inspiration from Ethiopian to Haitian?

The supper club’s menu, I wanted this to be about different levels of flavor, so each dish has acidity, heat, highs and lows of texture and flavors. There will be Seasonal Chaat with sulphur in the black salt and a carrot tartar based on Ethiopian kitfo. Then there will be homemade tagliatelle with maitaki mushrooms — I use them instead of bacon on Sundays and my husband doesn’t mind!

Experience has taught me that food is getting smaller, targeted to people’s personal experience while exposing them to tastes they haven’t seen in the past.

You’ve traveled the world and learned so many cooking techniques from people who have practiced it for generations. What is unique to your food compared to other international-inspired cuisine out there?

My perspective of food is informed by my multicultural upbringing (Tanzanian and Indo-Pakistani), my husband’s West Indian portion, bake sales in Florida, and traveling. . . It’s how I’ve filtered that information. It’s not fusion. What I cook is literally what I cook at home. Food, to me, is all about flavor and technique. I’ll admire something and recreate it at home.

I make this corn pudding — somewhere between traditional and with a technique that makes it a bit more creamy — with mustard seeds, curry leaves, fresh chiles, and mozzarella, My friends have since taken the recipe for their home, too.

Has living and working in Fort Greene affected your cooking and perspective?

Fort Greene and Clinton Hill have a completely different feel [than the rest of the city]. My blood pressure lowers once I walk here. I can let my two-year-old run down the street. We’ve admired the neighborhood for 10 years and would come here for date nights before we moved her.

My cooking has evolved since moving to Brooklyn. The access to local ingredients makes it seamless to do on a daily basis. My cooking is seasonally focused and I now make my own almond milk and kombucha; it has seeped into my daily life. Having a child, too, has made my cooking more nutrient–dense, healthier, richer, but without sacrificing taste.