3 months ago
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The former Momofuku Seiobo chef longed to fulfil his creative vision in Sydney, but the lure of Manhattan has scuttled those plans – for now.
Earlier this year, New York City got something that Australia should have had: A new Paul Carmichael restaurant. Kabawa, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, isn’t exactly what Carmichael envisioned when he was trying to find partners, funding and space in Sydney during the years after two-hatted Momofuku Seiobo closed in 2021. But the basic building blocks are the same: something fun, an exploration of Caribbean flavours and history, rum drinks, and Carmichael’s particular brand of exuberance and singular cooking.
The chef was lured back to the US to work once again for Momofuku, the company that brought him to Australia in the first place. In New York, he’s been given the opportunity to create a space and menu that fully unleashes his creativity. Bar Kabawa, a 20-seat room adjacent to the main space, opened in early February serving Daiquiris, wine and snacks.
On March 25, Kabawa opened, serving a prix-fixe menu that celebrates the foodways of the Caribbean in intensely personal and thoughtful dishes. Less than six weeks later, it appeared at No.4 on the New York Times’ list of the 100 best restaurants in the city. The reviews have been rapturous: The New Yorker’s Helen Rosner called it easygoing and joyous; new New York Times critic Ligaya Mishan gave Kabawa a rare three-star review last month.
All of this is cause for celebration, to see a talented chef get his due. But for food lovers in Australia, it should also be frustrating, because what Carmichael really wanted after Seiobo closed was a chance to open something as personal, standard-setting and excellent as Kabawa is, but in Sydney.
If one of the most decorated chefs in the country can’t get the backing to do something true to themselves, what does that say about our dining scene?
And Kabawa is excellent. I was lucky enough to eat there in May, starting with a bracing Daiquiri next door, the ice shaved by hand, then moving to a seat at a counter that runs around the kitchen. Half the fun of eating there is Carmichael himself, who gives out hugs and banter and delight wherever it is welcome.
Pieces of Paul’s personality that weren’t able to shine at Seiobo, a restaurant in The Star casino, are on full display here: there’s a grandma-themed bathroom, and the chef picked everything from the music that plays in that bathroom to the glassware in the bar.
The food made me intensely comforted and excited in equal measure. There were sproingy little cassava dumplings in a lightly spicy tomato sauce that tasted like pure sunshine. Slow-cooked goat shoulder comes drenched in a scorching liquid made from habaneros and dried scallops, the richness of the meat squared against the fiery, umami-rich sauce, a glorious balancing act. It made me miss Seiobo, but more, it made me wonder what could have been if the right opportunity had come along in Australia.
It wasn’t as though the conversations didn’t happen in Sydney. “Don’t get me wrong, people offered me decent money,” he says, “but there was nothing there that was like: we want to grow with you. We see where you are, we see where you want to be.”
Instead, he says, the deals he was offered were more along the lines of, “We’ll build the restaurant, we’ll loan you money as your part of the investment, you get some small amount of equity. But then you’re just stuck.” Or, he says, he was offered figurehead roles that had nothing to do with the food or the type of restaurant he envisioned.
The scenarios he describes speak to the bind many chefs find themselves in, and also highlights the cycle we see in which restaurant projects open with a well-known chef as the draw, only for that chef to leave six months or a year later.
“And then that person’s gotta start over,” Carmichael says. “This is my gamble to not have that happen.” But he is sad he had to leave Sydney to make that gamble in a way that felt smart.
“I wasn’t expecting the huge deals, the ones truly famous chefs get,” says the man David Chang unabashedly calls “one of the best chefs in the world” (I concur), “but I did feel as though I proved my worth and that worth wasn’t being acknowledged.”
If one of the most decorated chefs in the country can’t get the backing to do something true to themselves, something that might easily wind up being considered one of the best restaurants in New York City, what does that say about our dining scene?
Do we really need another upscale steakhouse, another bombastic trattoria, another PR-driven concept? Or would we be better served by allowing the creative force behind our industry – our chefs – to work from a place of passion? If Carmichael can’t get that backing, it’s hard to believe that anyone with his brand of trailblazing vision could be successful.
Thankfully, he now has that backing. It’s just on the other side of the world. “I’ve had a lot of Australians come through,” Carmichael says, “which has definitely helped my homesickness.”
Despite it all, he hasn’t given up on his Australian life. He’s committed to Kabawa, to seeing it through, and to his longer-term role as a leader in the Momofuku universe.
“But if I die here, it was an accident,” he says. His dream for that authentically Paul Carmichael restaurant on Australian soil is alive and well.
“Tell Sydney I’ll be back.”
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Besha Rodell is the chief restaurant critic for The Age and Good Weekend.
