{"id":199561,"date":"2026-04-16T16:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T16:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199561\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T16:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T16:51:10","slug":"gourmega-new-york-restaurant-review-an-all-out-celebration-of-african-diasporic-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/199561\/","title":{"rendered":"Gourmega New York restaurant review: an all-out celebration of African diasporic culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the centre of Gourmega<\/a>, a new restaurant in New York<\/a>, there\u2019s a single long table, topped with interconnected circles of Nubian alabaster. Guests sit around its unusually contoured edge on walnut chairs that, when placed back-to-back, resemble the arches of The Bronx\u2019s High Bridge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Gourmega isn\u2019t in the Bronx. In fact, it\u2019s located in Manhattan\u2019s Greenwich Village. The choice was an intentional one: Gourmega sits in what was known more than three centuries ago as Land of the Blacks<\/a> \u2013 the first free African settlement in North America. Later on, it played host to many Black supper clubs.<\/p>\n

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Such references are at the heart of Gourmega, which was designed by award-winning Niamey, Niger; Zurich and New York-based Nigerien architect Mariam Issoufou<\/a> for celebrated culinary collective Ghetto Gastro<\/a>. The restaurant marks Ghetto Gastro\u2019s first permanent, self-operated eatery and is a holistic celebration of both African and African diasporic culture. Every detail, colourway and material \u2013 as well as a closely curated seasonal chef\u2019s tasting menu \u2013 nods to this rich source of inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u2018One of the reasons I helped start Ghetto Gastro 15 years ago was because I was going to all of these restaurants and they were playing \u201890s hip-hop and I would look at the dining room and the kitchen and there was no representation of the people that created the style,\u2019 says Jon Gray, Ghetto Gastro co-founder and Bronx native. Today, less than five per cent<\/a> of Greenwich Village\u2019s population identifies as Black. With Gourmega, Gray adds, \u2018I wanted to do something to turn this on its head.\u2019<\/p>\n

Wallpaper* dines at Gourmega, New York <\/p>\n

The mood: New York cool with sacred references <\/p>\n

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\"Gourmega\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Seth Caplan)<\/p>\n

Gray set out to create a space as an immersive in-person experience, not just a social media \u2018moment\u2019. He wanted Gourmega to recapture the sense of discovery he felt when he first frequented downtown haunts like La Esquina and The Box two decades ago. He tapped Issoufou, an old friend, for the job.<\/p>\n

\u2018I noticed that in many restaurants, couples and groups of friends sit together and spend much of their time looking at their phones,\u2019 Issoufou says. \u2018In my view, placemaking is ultimately about making people feel that they can appropriate the space, that it was made for them, with care.\u2019<\/p>\n

Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.<\/p>\n

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\"Gourmega\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Seth Caplan)<\/p>\n

One of the main moves was the custom table, which breaks into smaller units for cafe seating during the day. During dinner hours, however, the pieces create a communal table, which allows for impromptu conversations among guests, not just those you came with.<\/p>\n

The move is also a subtle rebuke of the \u2018hegemony and patriarchy,\u2019 as Gray puts it, of traditional European rectilinear tables and instead evokes the ancestral practice of gathering around a fire. \u2018It\u2019s more diplomatic and egalitarian,\u2019 he adds.<\/p>\n

Another key feature \u2013 a swinging semi-transient, semi-circular, yellow-toned door that separates the kitchen from the main dining space \u2013 evokes the sun, a divine force in many African cultures.<\/p>\n

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\"Gourmega\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Seth Caplan)<\/p>\n

The kitchen is shared with Rethink Food<\/a>, a long-established non-profit taking restaurant food waste throughout New York City and turning it into fine-dining meals delivered to neighbours in need. A similar spirit of resourcefulness informed many of Issoufou\u2019s material choices: cork flooring, engineered wood wall panels limewashed in black. ‘When the first African Americans arrived in this area, they too had to make do with whatever materials they could source to build shelter,\u2019 she explains. \u2018The contrast with alabaster is not a contradiction but an argument: humble and sacred materials in dialogue, the way communities themselves contain multitudes.\u2019<\/p>\n

Issoufou also incorporated bronze wall hangings by Nigerian designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello that evoke the Kingdom of Benin tradition of scarification, the scratching and etching of women\u2019s faces to represent health and nourishment. \u2018Because we\u2019re close to King Street, we really wanted to think about the idea of honouring Queens, especially Black Queens throughout the diaspora and from the continent: Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba; Queen of Sheba and Nefertiti, but also revolutionaries like Nina Simone and Angela Davis. Artworks by Rashid Johnson and Hugh Hayden will soon follow.<\/p>\n

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\"Gourmega\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Seth Caplan)<\/p>\n

The food: an intentional fusion <\/p>\n

The dining experience \u2013 two nightly services with a maximum of 14 guests who reserve by word-of-mouth by DM-ing Ghetto Gastro on Instagram \u2013 is also in fact a carefully sequenced ritual. They enter through an unassuming garage door and are immediately ushered into a side-kitchen where Pot Likka \u2013 a collards and unani broth \u2013 is served from an altar custom built out of the USM Haller system. They\u2019re then led into the main black-toned dining room and seated around the table where the chef\u2019s tasting menu \u2013 right now a careful fusing of receipts and ingredients from Asian, African, and the Americas \u2013 continues to unfold. As the dishes arrive \u2013 the bluefin with rice and watermelon \u2018Roll Play\u2019 and N.O.T.I (Nori Butter Roti) \u2013 the Sun Door opens again and again, revealing what\u2019s happening behind the scenes in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Aligned with Issoufou\u2019s intersectional sustainability<\/a> philosophy, the current menu reflects what Gray calls \u2018cultural collusion.\u2019 The first offering focuses on melding Asian and African influences with Americana, \u2018not the white supremacy version but the Americas version: Chinese influences in Peru, the Japanese in Brazil<\/a>, Indian curries throughout the West Indies,\u2019 he explains.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve always been a sampler, like a hip-hop producer that takes things that don\u2019t typically go together; All of these ingredients can be used to create a new vernacular,\u2019 Gray continues. \u2018That\u2019s what we want to do with food, space and everything else.\u2019<\/p>\n

Gourmega<\/a> is located at 116 West Houston Street NYC 10012, USA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the centre of Gourmega, a new restaurant in New York, there\u2019s a single long table, topped with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-199561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}