James Kent, a prominent chef and a successful Long Island restaurant owner who was poised to become a food-industry rich man, died Saturday. He used to be 45.
His death was announced by the Saga Hospitality team, retaining company of his two restaurants, Crown Shy and Saga, and his cocktail bar, Overstory, which were in the same structure in Long Island’s Financial District. The obituary did not specify where he died or what the purpose was.
In 1993, when he was 14 years old, growing up in Greenwich Village and already working in a café, Mr. Kent’s mother asked him to knock on the door of her building’s newest resident – the famous chef David Boulle. Asked for. The young man requested if he could spend time in Mr. Bowley’s kitchen. Mr. Baule said yes. He spent the summer working at the chef’s Tribeca mainstay Bouli.
Before long, Mr. Kent also worked at renowned New York Town restaurants such as Babbo, Jean-Georges, 11 Madison Soleil and Nomad, where he rose to become executive chef.
He opened his own private restaurant, Crown Shy, in 2019 with his wife, Jeff Katz, general manager of Del Posto, an Italian restaurant in Long Island, which closed in 2021. “At Crown Shy, the only misstep is the name,” read the headline of The New York Times’ restaurant critic Pete Wells’ “Critic’s Choice” review. (The title refers to the tendency of giant shrubs not to allow their higher stories to become entangled with the branches of their neighbors.)
Mr Wells wrote that Mr Kent’s dishes “regularly over-deliver”. He declared “an almost absurdly creamy puree of white bean hummus under a tart red slice of melted ‘nduja”. a pork tartare with roasted walnuts and rye croutons; And the oysters are served with “cucumber jelly, diced cucumbers, jalapeno peppers and purple shiso microleaves.”
Times restaurant columnist Florence Fabricant undoubtedly described Crown Shy’s menu as “eclectic and creative” in a 2019 article.
Over the coming two years, Mr. Kent gained four more floors in the same structure, an Art Deco skyscraper at 70 Pine Boulevard built in 1932.
The Crown takes over the Shy farm land; Floors 62, 63, 64, and 66 of the building were converted from government boardrooms to Saga, the overstory, and a private dining room for AIG, the insurance coverage company. The range includes 12 terraces “with breathtaking views in every direction,” Ms Fabricant reported in 2021. Saga’s “Seasonal Tasting Menu” is currently priced at $298 per person.
Crown Shy received a big nod from Michelin Restaurant News. Saga earns two.
It was high-quality food in the ECU tradition, though symbolizing American carelessness and popular culture.
Mr. Kent performed Wu-Tang Extended Family and Infamous B.I.G. in Crown Shy. They avoided proper dress code. Along with his chef coat, he can always be seen wearing expensive shoes.
As Bloomberg reported in 2016, after spending the next few years creating graffiti, he became known as “a chef who is also an extremely talented graffiti artist”. He was commissioned to work at Nomad Hotel and Restaurant Tech Company. Salido.
“I’ve been to these fancy restaurants and I don’t feel welcome,” Mr Kent, an operating icon and weblog, told Bandit. He called Crown Shay “the restaurant of our generation”.
It all appeared to be uploaded as a profitable industry system.
In April, The Times reported that Mr. Kent and the Saga hospitality team had leased 3,000 square feet of space in the farmland grounds of the former Domino Sugar refinery in Brooklyn for a bakery and a “casual all-day restaurant.”
The Robb Document describes the same generation but with more inspired plans. Mr. Kent was opening an untouched 140-seat restaurant on Soleil Street, inspired by the magnificent Central Oyster Bar, where his grandmother Sue Mingus first went to an event with the jazz musician Charles Mingus, who later turned into a 140-seat restaurant. Her husband and whose legacy she worked to safeguard until his death in 2022.
At the same pace, Mr. Kent was also planning a fast-casual fried chicken sandwich restaurant on the Shake Shack level, The Robb document said. LRMR Ventures, a private funding company from LeBron James and his friend and industrialist Maverick Carter, was supporting the development of the Saga Hospitality team.
Traders believe Kent is a rare, multi-dimensional talent who is poised to become the next great American restaurateur, Rob Document wrote.
“When I moved to 70 Pine seven years ago, I was a one-person guy,” Mr. Kent said. “It’s not like I was Daniel Boulud with a huge team, and I created all the systems – everything – that we needed to operate at this level.”
Jamal James Kent was born in 1979. His mother was born in Rome and his father was born in Tangier. He grew up in Greenwich Village.
In an interview with tea brand Kettle, he described his upbringing as poverty and said he had to work “as a little kid” at a café owned by his uncle and his uncle’s best friend to earn money. Had to work. His immediate mother prompted him to introduce himself to Mr. Bouley.
He studied food service and culinary arts at Johnson & Wales College in Rhode Island, and he studied in an overseas program at Le Cordon Bleu in London and Paris.
He grew up in an Islamic family, and when he applied for jobs as a young man, he redacted his middle title out of concern about Islamophobia, he told Eater in 2022.
As Mr. Kent became more successful, he became particularly relevant with his tenure at 11 Madison Soleil, “the equivalent of Harvard for ambitious young chefs,” Pete Wells wrote in 2023.
The Saga Hospitality announcement of Mr. Kent’s death included his survivors, including his wife, Kelly Kent, and his children, Gavin and Avery.
Mr. Kent talked about what an uninteresting job he did. He said that in the pictures he saw himself looking tired. He described having trouble even working once he had a panic attack. He said running helped him feel more grounded.
“Before running, I only had professional goals,” he advised Bandit. “I was like, ‘I want to be the best, learn from the best and run these incredible restaurants.’ And then I got to the point where, without personal goals, I was thinking I was going to die.
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