Candy Dwelling Café

By: Zachary Blumberg

Candy Dwelling Café is situated contained in the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past & Tradition in Washington, D.C. The title comes from the tune “Candy Dwelling Chicago,” a blues commonplace by musician and songwriter Robert Johnson.

The café is located on the underside flooring of the museum, underground on the furthest level from the above-ground entrance of the constructing. This uncommon format is by design. The meals at Candy Dwelling Café gives a small sampling of Black tradition and historical past. This format guides guests via the reveals, offering context and information concerning the tradition behind the meals and the historical past behind that tradition, earlier than they arrive on the café. So, after they do lastly sit down and benefit from the meals, they will admire it from an enriched perspective.

Government Chef Ramin Coles gives a gradual, guiding hand for menu growth on the café. A graduate of Maryland’s L’Academie de Delicacies and a restaurant business veteran, Chef Coles makes use of his information to assist lead the restaurant via the distinctive challenges of working a restaurant inside a museum. The menu itself is an ever-rotating mixture of meals from African American historical past, present traits inside the neighborhood, and potentialities for the way forward for the neighborhood. It additionally modifications when the time of yr coincides with a vacation or historic occasion.

Seafood makes up round one-third of the menu. Every day, Candy Dwelling Café gives a unique fish of the day, in addition to all kinds of different seafood-centric dishes. The restaurant makes full use of the information base at its disposal to assist assist this range, starting from the advanced layers of taste present in jambalaya to less complicated dishes like mussels. The menu has additionally included shrimp and grits, crab quiche, oysters, fried bass, catfish, and extra. The café additionally gives off-premise catering.

For visitors seeking to recreate Candy Dwelling Café’s menu at residence, there may be The Candy Dwelling Café Cookbook (A Celebration of African American Cooking). Boasting a powerful 109 recipes that the restaurant has cooked over time, the cookbook additionally gives the histories and other people behind the dishes.

Candy Dwelling Café feeds not solely the physique but additionally the thoughts. It’s a excellent spot to take pleasure in scrumptious meals, study concerning the historical past that formed that meals, and perceive the tradition that formed that historical past.