NY Plugs — Abena Anim-Somuah
Food, drink, and leisure recs from a James Beard Award-winning writer and podcast host + LINKS
Plugs is The Angel’s recs column. On most Saturdays, you’ll get six picks—a restaurant, a bar, a shop, an ingredient, a person, and a treat—from someone in New York or Los Angeles who knows what they’re talking about, plus a selection of Angel-curated links. Plugs are for paid subscribers of The Angel only; upgrade your subscription to receive all six!
#13 is Abena Anim-Somuah, a food writer, podcast host, and entrepreneur. Born in Ghana, raised in Canada, and now firmly rooted in New York City, Abena has made quite the name for herself in both the local and national food scene. She hosted The Future of Food is You on Cherry Bombe's podcast network, earning the James Beard Award for Broadcast Media Emerging Voice in 2023, and last year took home IACP's prestigious Toni Tipton-Martin Award. She's the founder of The Eden Place, a community-based dinner experience company, and currently works on special projects for the comms agency Daly. On Substack, she writes Your Friend in Food, and she has bylines in Vogue Mexico, Synonym, and Resy. Here's Abena with her Plugs.
Restaurant — Dean's
Someone recently told me that NYC has 25,000 restaurants and counting, so that made responding to this prompt even more challenging. Dean’s is my current pick because it’s a beautiful representation of NYC dining vibes. Annie and Jess have blessed us with such incredible establishments as King and Jupiter, which focus on elevated expressions of seasonal produce. And while Dean’s is an English pub, a restaurant format known for menus that can feel bland, this powerful restaurateur duo has managed to make it delightful and not lose the grungy charm of pub fare.
It’s hard to even decide what dish is the star of the show. Sure, you’re coming for the classics like the fish and chips with the mushy peas, the quail scotch egg, and the boiled ham. As a child of the commonwealth, they manage to feed the nostalgia with authentic presentations. And as a cosmopolitan who has a high bar when it comes to being dazzled, they knock it out of the park with dishes like pork scratchings served in a silver cup, akin to long breadsticks, and the gin-cured, drunk salmon. And when it comes to beverages, I feel like it’s Pavlovian to reach for a pint of Guinness but the carrot margarita is inching its way up to the top spot.
Also, I would consider Dean’s to be a multimodal restaurant. It doesn’t matter if you’re going for a quick pint before another dinner or staying for a two-hour adventure that trails wee into the night, you can still get the full experience and be doted on by their incredible staff.
