Menu Talk

Kelly Whitaker had no intention of going back to Oklahoma. He was born in Tulsa and had spent time in Oklahoma City growing up, and he didn’t love it. He didn’t hate it, but as far as the restaurant scene went, he didn’t see it going anywhere. “I said, ‘It’s not gonna turn a corner and all of a sudden someone’s going to think of Oklahoma City as like a Portland or an Austin or something,’” he said. But he now says he was wrong. “I'll say it out loud again: I think it's one of the most interesting growth cities in America, by far,” he said. That’s two years into owning Nonesuch, an award-winning 18-seat fine-dining chef’s-counter restaurant in OKC’s Midtown neighborhood that Whitaker bought in 2024. He had been following the restaurant since 2018, when Bon Appétit magazine named it America’s Best New Restaurant. Whitaker is the head of Id Est Hospitality, based in Boulder, Colorado, which operates a number of highly acclaimed restaurants and bars in that area, including Basta, the Wolf’s Tailor, and Brutø. He has a very strong sustainability ethos. Wolf’s Tailor in Denver was one of the first restaurants in the country to focus on fermentation, and through Dry Storage, Id Est’s Boulder-based artisan bakery and commercial grain milling facility, Whitaker has worked with 13 farmers to cultivate around 1,000 acres of regeneratively-grown heritage grains in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, including Antero Wheat and Ryman Rye. “That was not happening ten years ago,” he said. Nonesuch executive chef Garrett Hare has a similar approach, and to Whitaker’s surprise so does much of Oklahoma City. “Oklahoma’s mostly oil and gas, but wheat grows really well there,” said Whitaker, who has also contacted local tribes to discuss more usages for heritage corn. “There are lots of opportunities, but you need to create demand,” he said. “You need restaurants to buy it for them to grow it.” With all the growth in Oklahoma City, including professional sports and some of the 2028 Olympics games being played there, “and the art, the chefs, the neighborhoods, there’s just an absolute collective — it’s almost like a magic formula,” he said. “I’m also encouraged by the conversations I’ve had with some of the folks who are building new infrastructure … They’re having meetings with us, so Nonesuch can help inform what’s going on. We’re excited to be a part of that conversation for the city.” Listen to the full podcast in which Whitaker shares his vision for Nonesuch, including a reworked bar called Somesuch, and his further plans for Oklahoma City. “We’re in for the long haul,” he said.

Steven Clarke, VP of marketing for Golden Krust, has worked his way up the family-run Jamaican fast-casual restaurant group. The first location opened in Bronx, N.Y. in 1989 by his uncle, Lowell Hawthorne, and Clarke continues to follow his uncle’s mission to bring a taste of Jamaica to the world. Golden Krust now numbers 100 units and has introduced generations of Americans to foods like braised oxtail, jerk chicken, curried goat, and Jamaican beef patties. Every patty that Golden Krust serves has a piece of Jamaica in it — the Scotch bonnet peppers and thyme are grown on the island. When Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica last year, many of the farms that grow those crops suffered severe damage. Clarke and the Golden Krust team have traveled down there to help those farmers replant and offer monetary support to rebuild school cafeterias and more. Recently, the chain has gone through a major brand evolution under Clarke’s leadership, launching a new website, initiating online ordering and a loyalty program, updating digital menu boards, refreshing uniforms and packaging, and expanding into third-party delivery. Clarke’s goal is to make it more convenient for people to get their hands on the food by increasing points of accessibility, he said. Several of the items are now frozen and available nationwide at retail, including in 2,000 Walmart stores. Listen now to find out about Golden Krust’s hurricane recovery efforts, how Clarke is continuing to evolve the brand, and what’s coming next for restaurant and retail growth and the menu.

We Got Company is a subtly music-themed bar in the trend-forward neighborhood of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York. The founders, Jify Shah, Ian Everall, and Paul Ramirez met when working at the Cameo Gallery, a beloved music venue in Williamsburg owned by Shah that closed in 2015. They opened We Got Company four years later, and Ramirez, who had tended bar at Cameo and elsewhere, ended up as the head bartender. The cocktails are almost all named after a song, but not necessarily a well-known or popular one. Instead, they’re often inspired by the songs of bands that the owners or friends of theirs played in. There are other unusual aspects to the bar. It’s a seated-only venue — no standing around and jostling for the bartender’s attention — and the cocktails are generally made without heating any of the elements. Instead, Ramirez stirs them a lot, sometimes for hours during shifts. The result, however, is distinctive-tasting drinks that can’t be had elsewhere. Listen as Ramirez discusses We Got Company and his approach to cocktail making.

Menu Talk: The executive chef followed his passion, pivoting from a teaching career to the restaurant world, and is making waves with his inspiring seafood menu. Josh Hunt, executive chef at Cordelia Fishbar in Washington, D.C., started out as a high school Spanish teacher. After several years on the job, he realized his true passion was cooking — a passion he developed from a foundational memory of mom and grandma in the kitchen. Although he had no formal culinary training, he landed a job at Hog & Hominy in Memphis, Tennessee, a lucky break since the restaurant’s head chefs had just been named to Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs list. Hunt was fortunate enough to work at Hog & Hominy for nine years and his career took off from there. When the pandemic threw a wrench into the industry, he moved to D.C., bounced around at different restaurants and hotels, and landed at Cordelia Fishbar, one of the concepts in the well-known Clyde’s Restaurant Group. Cordelia specializes in open-fire grilling and cooking in charcoal ovens, both of which infuse seafood with unique flavor. Hunt tries to source local species as much as possible, including rockfish, striped bass, crab, and oysters, gravitating toward simpler, more approachable preparations. He also dry ages salmon, turbot, and other seafood to deepen the flavor and enhance the texture. Listen as he explains what differentiates the menu at Cordelia Fishbar, how he’s balancing the menu to offer value, and the innovative dishes he’s cooking up for fall and the holiday season.

Ryan Poli opened the first restaurant where he was the boss just three years ago. Before that, he’d spent decades running other people’s restaurants in Chicago — Butter, Perennial, Tavernita — as well as Catbird Seat in Nashville, but Iggy’s, an Italian restaurant in the Nashville neighborhood of Wedgewood-Houston, is the first one that he fully owns, with his brother Matthew Poli. Ryan’s the chef, and Matthew, a certified sommelier and cicerone, runs the front of the house. Ryan Poli is highly credentialed, having trained at The French Laundry in the Napa Valley under Thomas Keller as well as at Le Français in the Chicago suburbs under Jean Banchet. He also worked overseas in Europe, Asia, and Australia, and gained further acclaim at Catbird Seat in Nashville. Next came a somewhat tumultuous period in his life when he traveled the world to recenter himself. He staged with other chefs, including Dan Barber and Marc Vetri, worked overseas, and spent several months working with Will Goldfarb on the Indonesian island of Bali before returning home at the onset of the pandemic. He and his brother opened in Iggy’s in 2023 under a business model that allowed everyone to get paid well while also turning a profit, and he has similar plans for Claymore, which the Polis plan to open a few blocks away in the first half of next year. Listen as Poli discusses his journey, his management philosophy, and his plans for Claymore.