Yard with Style

Caribbean Flavors to Shift the Palate, from Yardy | The New Yorker

"I ate a salad I'd ordered from Yardy and kept short-circuiting every time I bit into a cube of yellow fruit dusted with Francis’s riff on Tajín—what looked like pineapple turned out to be mellow, sunny-fleshed watermelon—whose heat, heavy on dehydrated Scotch-bonnet pepper, reframed my palate while bringing pleasure. Francis, a twenty-seven-year-old artist, chef, and model whose Jamaican‑immigrant parents once owned a restaurant in Norfolk, VA, runs Yardy as an event-production company that before the pandemic focused on food-centric gatherings (from a roller disco in Bushwick to an Afro‑Caribbean dinner at Dimes) and now aims to reframe the American palate by wielding pleasure and style. His Living Room series has moved to Instagram Live, he’s offering takeout from the SoHo café Smile to Go, and he hopes Yardy becomes a household brand selling Caribbean-inspired ice cream and condiments made with ingredients grown by Black farmers. The short menu feels essential and familiar while spotlighting Caribbean ingredients: a roast chicken with a blackened skin coated in tamarind and ginger; a brown-rice bowl dotted with cubed mango, black beans, and pickled cabbage with a papaya vinaigrette; and a reimagined chayote—thinly sliced as a savory tart filling atop caramelized onions in a thick but flaky pâte brisée, garnished with culantro. He’s collaborating with the Black Farmer Fund to source produce, and most everything I ordered kept well for at least a week, playing a happy accessory to daily life (dishes $8–$32)." - Hannah Goldfield