4 Black Women Who Mixed Fine Dining, Fashion and Art in New York

The dining rooms created by these restaurateurs weren’t just eye-catching; they were stages for their owners’ personal stories.

These four restaurants were synonymous with their owners, all serving their takes on soul or Southern food. Before they arrived, a craving for soul food meant heading uptown to Harlem for takeout containers or sitting down at Sylvia’s, opened by Sylvia Woods in 1962 near the famed Apollo Theater.

These newer places continued the story, bringing worldly, upscale takes on Southern food downtown. Each space was a view into a world curated and inspired by its creator. And each, in its time, offered some of the most coveted seats in the city; their legacy can still be seen in the number of restaurants today highlighting Black stories. Budding entrepreneurs like Melba Wilson and Marcus Samuelsson were inspired to build their own restaurant empires by seeing these pioneers build theirs.

Below, friends of these trailblazing women and guests of their restaurants share memories of what the chefs and their restaurants meant to them.

Few restaurants elicit such nostalgic sighs as Jezebel, a busy and ornate Southern restaurant in the theater district that Alberta Wright opened in 1983.