A tasting menu — or even a prix fixe — can feel like a hostage situation, with all the fuss and formality and time involved. But not at Reverence Phoenix, the centerpiece of the new Unity Market at the top of Central Park on Saturdays through October 31. You take a spot at a standup table in a tent overlooking the Harlem Meer and whip through a succession of dishes assembled in a tiny, hyper-efficient kitchen and served with a straightforward explanation of components: “corn custard, trout roe, mini tomato salad and nasturtiums.” Fifty-five dollars and you’re over and out, unless you’ve opted for the nonalcoholic beverage pairing for an extra $35. The cooking has the rigor of haute cuisine— the portable grill sits alongside a sous vide bath — but the experience is high-end picnic, with glass vases filled with herbs lined up amid the single-setting compostable flatware and bowls.
Unlike in a traditional Michelin kitchen, the chef himself is literally standing by to engage, in his black ball cap, imposing apron, high-top sneakers. Russell Jackson, whose brick-and-mortar Reverence in Harlem had a cult following for its emphasis on food over fine-dining conventions, will not only explain how the ballotine of French hen was put together but offer to sell you the chicken and prep it if you want to come back next week and pick it up from his Provisions/Boucherie kiosk. (He also sells beef, sausage and other meats plus South Carolina rice from his favorite purveyors as well as a whole line of fermented products and condiments like Saint Fauci hot sauce.) And if you like any of the produce in his dishes, aside from the herbs he grows himself, at his home in Washington Heights, he will direct you to the Norwich Meadows stand just steps away — can’t do that in a Greenmarket. One of his coups in curating the market in collaboration with the Central Park Conservancy, after all, was enlisting the farm that supplies so many of the highest-end restaurants in the city.
“Some chefs just want to cook,” Jackson says. “I like to feed people and see the reactions.” He grew up in a Southern California beach town and learned to cook and run restaurants in that state, so his style is his own. “I used to eat at Chez Panisse every Sunday. Dominique Crenn is godmother to my son.” He also writes a column for Kolor “to connect African-American food to what I do and give a greater idea of chefs of color than the pretty narrow view.”
Despite my resistance to tasting menus, I booked a spot on Tock faster than you can say “degustation” after reading a review in the Amsterdam News. And not least because there was no “your table is not ready” nonsense when I got there early, and it was such an uplifting experience, I went back a few Saturdays later to watch how Reverence Phoenix and Unity Market all come together for a bustling few hours once a week.
At 8:30 in the morning Jackson and a helper were wrestling the 30- by 10-foot black tent up and anchoring it and setting up the kitchen and kiosk. He and his crew of three roll in coolers full of prepped ingredients and drinks and all the accoutrements to put on what is almost a cooking show in the park. (Jackson was a contestant on both “Food Network Star” and “America’s Culinary Cup,” so passersby will excitedly say “I know you!” and request a selfie with him.)
As Reverence Phoenix takes form, with banners out front and on 110th Street, other vendors roll in and set up on the asphalt on a bend in the road into the park at Farmers Gate. All were chosen by Jackson to serve and advance one of the more economically and racially diverse neighborhoods in the city, so you can pick up Harlem honey from BeeFlavored, focaccia and muffins from Artisanal Bakes by Chef Jessica, tamales and burritos from La Palapa in the East Village and West African dishes from Gracey’s Culinary Specialties from the Bronx, among other products. Sugar Hill Creamery, with neighborhood cred, is one of the anchors of the market.
Jackson takes pride in deviating from the city’s Greenmarkets, which he says have a different audience: “Union Square and Grand Army Plaza are hard-core institution-level products built around chefs and tourists and locals. There’s nothing else around here — everything’s haphazard. I have a chance to make a difference in my community.”
Phoenix meals always start with a small selection of fermented vegetables like carrots and beets; dessert might be a madeleine made with fig leaves or a cornbread-miso blondie with big chunks of Tcho chocolate. Jackson posts each week’s menu on Instagram on Thursday.
Throughout the day, one patron might wander up and be tempted by the Petit Provisions takeaway dish of the day, with corn over miso tofu crema and black barley mole topped with Mexican tarragon and paired with grilled pain de mie. Another might be coming from another farmers’ market with a huge bunch of sunflowers, check the menu and say: “I’ll take a quick three.” (Reservations are not required.) Two joggers will stop to check the menu and say “we live four blocks away — how did we never know about this?” Then one remembers she once ate at Reverence and “it was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had — we’ll be back.” Another two women indulge in the full menu and decide to book Jackson’s Underground Restaurant (a whole other story, but he says the first question is always “where is it?”)
Late in the day, Jackson is joined by his Bulgarian wife, Lora, with whom he owns a farm in her home country, and 7-year-old son, Bowie, who makes the paper fans sold at the standup table as “exotic cooling implements.” They and his crew all take apart the restaurant and kitchen around 4, right down to the stainless-steel sink hooked up to a fire hydrant; everything goes back in storage in a shipping container hidden in the trees nearby.
Jackson says he originally thought of opening only Provisions in the park but “decided to go whole hog and make something truly unique.” He crowd-funded Phoenix, including with contributions from J. Lohr Vineyards.
“It’s a spectacular location; people come by and see it and next week they’re in the reservation book. People think we’re a food concession. But Phoenix is a standing restaurant.” And it will be back next season.
Jackson ran Reverence on 138th Street for six years. “I was doing great until the pandemic. I put everything into it to keep the staff alive and dug a generational hole, but money’s money — you can always make it back. What matters more: Are we making a difference?”
It tastes that way.