First Look at Edna Lewis Dishes at Reborn Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn
Edna Lewis was perhaps New York City’s greatest Black chef of the last century, rivaled only by Patrick Clark. Among many other accomplishments, she was the chef at Gage & Tollner from 1988 to 1992, beginning there at the age of 72, and filling the seafood-rich menu with family recipes from her childhood in Freetown, Virginia. When it was announced that Gage & Tollner was being reopened by chefs and partners Sohui Kim, Ben Schneider, and St. John Frizell, I decided to go and search for the ghost of Edna Lewis (she died in 2006). I didn’t have to look far. There at the greeter’s podium w...