Caribbean food is having a moment in New York, and Brittney Stikxz Williams does not think a moment is a payday.
Williams is culinary director at Miss Lily’s 7A and the founder of the NYAM dinner series. On October 19, Adidas named her to its NYC Creative Class, a group of six. She used the platform to make an argument about who ends up owning a cuisine once a city decides it is fashionable.
“I think the attention Caribbean food is getting is great, but attention alone doesn’t build wealth,” she said.
“We have to think beyond getting people through the door and start thinking about ownership,” she said, and about “scalability and creating businesses that can stand on their own for generations.”
Then the line that is the whole argument: “The next step is making sure we have ownership in that future, not just a seat at the table.”
She is specific about what that takes, which is the part most of these conversations skip. “Creativity needs structure behind it,” she said. “You have to understand your costs, price your offering properly, know your audience.” Her pop-ups taught her that the plate is not the only thing a diner is paying for. “People are willing to pay for a feeling as much as they are for a meal,” she said.
She also refuses the idea that running somebody else’s kitchen is a compromise. “I don’t have to choose between building my own legacy and contributing to someone else’s success,” she said.
She named Nicola Blaque, Andre Fowles, Kwame Onwuachi and Renee Blackman as the chefs who laid the groundwork for the shift she is describing. “There’s room for all of us to win,” she said.
The other five in the Adidas class are the producer Anysia Kym, the textile artist Cyle Warner, the knitwear designer Gabe Gordon, the grillz duo Bitter000000 and the print studio Secret Riso Club.
A cuisine getting popular and the people who cook it getting rich are two separate events, and they do not reliably happen to the same people. Oxtail on a tasting menu in a neighborhood that could not spell it ten years ago is attention. A deed, a trademark and a business that outlives its founder is wealth. Williams is naming the difference while the attention is still in the room, which is the only point at which naming it does any good.
