Can Bar Kabawa’s Caribbean Patties Become the Next Momofuku Pork Bun?

(Bloomberg) — Can Paul Carmichael do for the Caribbean patty what his boss, David Chang, did for the pork bun? 

That was my question after a recent visit to Bar Kabawa, the just-opened bar from the Momofuku group, which specializes in two things: rum drinks and patties to eat with them. Chang launched the famed brand in 2004 with the opening of Momofuku Noodle Bar; the place kicked off a worldwide obsession for Chinese steamed pork buns. 

Kabawa Bar opened in early February in the Lower East Side spot formerly occupied by Momofuku Ko. On Tuesday, it was joined by the more ambitious tasting menu restaurant Kabawa in the adjoining space. Together, they represent an homage to the food and drink of the Caribbean by Carmichael, a native of Barbados, who’s returned to the city after a long hitch at the helm of the late, much-lamented Momofuku Seiobo in Sydney.

“I want this place to be a love letter to the Caribbean region, a place where I can share my culture,” says Carmichael. “You come to the bar, and we’ll give you drinks from Cuba and food from Haiti and Jamaica.” 

The restaurant is opening at what seems an especially propitious moment for Caribbean cuisine in the Big Apple. Long the preserve of cheap-and-cheerful eateries in New York’s outer boroughs, the food of the islands has been going upscale over the past few years, following a pattern we’ve already seen with Indian cuisine. Classic Caribbean fare like jerk chicken, braised oxtails and fried plantain have been gastronomically gussied up at pricier establishments like Kokomo in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, Tatiana by star chef Kwame Onwuachi at Lincoln Center and Mango Bay in Fort Greene, also in Brooklyn. And now at the restaurants at the brand-new high-style Printemps in the Financial District, chef Gregory Gourdet is spotlighting Caribbean ingredients and dishes.  

But Chang puts it more simply: “The restaurant is Caribbean because Paul is—simple as that.”

At Kabawa’s prix-fixe ($150 per person), the menu features dishes like imposing Puerto Rican chuletas kan-kan (tomahawk pork chops), blaff (lime-poached fish) and duck and rice sausages. The one thing you won’t get is the most familiar Caribbean dish of all. “I will never serve jerk chicken,” says Carmichael. He thinks it’s too much of a culinary cliché. “There are lot of other things in Caribbean cuisine, even in Jamaican cuisine, and I want to showcase those things,” he says.

The restaurant menu won’t feature patties, either. The closest you’ll get is a Bajan coconut turnover, one of the dessert options. 

Carmichael’s restaurant menu wasn’t ready for tasting on the night of my mid-March visit, but the bar was already buzzing. As you might expect from an island-themed spot, the cocktails menu leans heavily into rum-laced daiquiris, with ingredients ranging from pineapple and coconut to bay leaves and brown butter.  And likewise, the nibbles menu features Caribbean classics such as Solomon Gundy (dried-fish paste, which Carmichael tops with a crème-brulee-like crust of caramelized sugar).

But the pride of place at Bar Kabawa goes to the patty. Carmichael says he briefly considered making another island staple, the Caribbean roti, the bar menu’s centerpiece. Stuffed flatbreads would have made for excellent bar food. However, making rotis would have required more equipment than the compact kitchen at Bar Kabawa can accommodate, so the decision to go with patties was made for Carmichael.

Like the bun that Chang turned into a sensation—his version of the classic Chinese steamed bao featuring top-quality pork belly—the Caribbean patty has the humblest of origins, as street food for laborers. But it has more diverse culinary antecedents, matching the cross-hatched cultural heritage of the islands.

The patty owes as much to the empanada of the Spanish colonialists as to the Cornish pasty of their British contemporaries and to the samosa of Indian indentured laborers. The Indians can also stake a large claim to the spice mixes of the fillings, but the real kick is imparted by the hot peppers of the islands and the Central and South American mainland. The preferred fillings are ground beef or shredded chicken, although I’m partial to curried goat.

Patties come in all shapes and dimensions, but the most common form is the palm-size half-moon. The most common Jamaican patty tends to have a flaky dough crust usually made with shortening and often colored with turmeric, whereas the Haitian variation is puffier.

The crust on Carmichael’s patties is halfway between the two, crispy and light, with the crunchy mouthfeel of a slightly overbaked croissant. The eight options on the Bar Kabawa menu are evenly split between baked and fried. They come in triangles, squares and rounds, each presented in a banana-leaf pocket.

Carmichael’s fillings are more adventurous than the norm and include some unusual combinations, such as short rib, conch and bone marrow. A committed carnivore, I was nonetheless taken by the eggplant, tomato and raclette patty, which was the last one I tried: The subtlety of the melted cheese provided an interesting counterpoint to the spiciness of the patties that had gone before. But my hands-down favorite was the baked Geera goat, which balances the slight gaminess of the meat with the strength of cumin to produce a robust overall taste. The patties range in price from $10 to $20; an order of pork buns at Momofuku Noodle Bar goes for $17.

Patties are plenty flavorful in and of themselves, and they don’t really require dunking sauces. But if you ask nicely, Carmichael will bring out a small dish of Bajan hot sauce, a simple concoction of mustard oil, fresh turmeric and either scotch bonnet or habanero peppers that adds zest to the patties without singeing your taste buds. The recipe is from his father; his mother sold bottles of the sauce back in Barbados.

And that brings me back to my original question: Are patties the next pork bun? For my money, the answer is yes. Carmichael’s patties have many of the ingredients—metaphorically, anyway—that made Momofuku’s pork buns such a breakout hit. Patties have a heritage that resonate with a wider audience; why, even the folks at Carbone have an ode to the patty on the menu at Torrisi in the form of the cavatelli with Jamaican beef ragu, which tastes like the filling of a patty poured over pasta. It’s an interesting, sophisticated take on what is essentially street food.  Like the pork buns, Carmichael’s patties are deceptively simple and easy to hold, and you always think you can have one more. 

“Dave didn’t invent the pork bun, and Paul didn’t come up with the patty,” says Marguerite Zabar Mariscal, chief executive officer of the Momofuku group. “But like Dave, Paul has an ability to take food he loves, filter it through his perspective and for it to really connect with people.” 

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