Jamal James Kent, chef of Saga and Crown Shy in lower Manhattan, passed away suddenly on Saturday, June 15, 2024, at the age of 45. Below, Esquire contributor Joshua David Stein, who worked with the acclaimed chef on a book, reflects on who Kent was and the impact he had on the food industry.
One of the things I miss about Jamal James Kent is the way he shook hands. He was a master of greetings. Fist bumps, handshakes, dap-ups, hugs. He loved greetings. The last time I saw him was the day before he died, as I was leaving a meeting with him at Crown Shy. He said, “I've got to dap-up with you.” He rose from the table where we were sitting, came over to me, and raised his right arm, straight and perpendicular to the floor, at an angle that told me what was expected of us. We joined hands and put our left arms around each other. It's a familiar gesture between men, divine when done well, embarrassing when messed up. As we embraced, I thought, “It's a pleasure to know this man.” I gave him that gesture that is most revered in male friendship, took my right hand off and patted him on the side of his stomach. He did the same. Of course, we didn't say anything sweet, but it was still an expression of affection.
Jamal is his real name, and it's also what he asked me to call him. We were writing a cookbook together, which included recipes for the three restaurants on the first and second floors of 70 Pine: Crown Shy, Saga, and Overstory, as well as some home-cooked recipes from the apartment in the building where he lives with his wife, Kelly, and their two children, Gavin and Avery. When you write a book with someone, you get to know them inside and out, through their voice, or a mix of their voice and yours (I call it a “word baby”). With a cookbook, you get to know the person through both their words and their work. Jamal's recipes were precise, laborious, and thoughtful, befitting a chef who first stepped into the kitchen as a teenager under David Bouley. For example, the way Crown Shy prepares its romaine salad is by smearing each leaf with an herb dressing before stacking them so that, as Jamal says, when the salad is shared with the table, “every bite is perfect, so no one is disappointed.” It's the purest expression of Jamal's approach to cooking.
Chef James Kent Chris Connor
I first met Jamal in 2010, when he was a baby-faced sous chef at Eleven Madison Park and competing in Lyon for the Bocuse d'Or. Like all the dishes he made in that year's competition, his dish (monkfish and lamb) was in some ways a homage to New York, the city he was born in and loved dearly. The monkfish was served on a sleek, curved BMW-designed plate that evoked Sag Harbor, where he spent summers with his mother, uncle, and grandmother; the lamb was served on an angular plate inspired by Frank Gehry's 8 Spruce Street and the city's grid. (His 10th place finish had more to do with European allergies to autobiographical food than it did with the dish itself.)
EB White wrote that there are three types of New Yorkers: natives, commuters and migrants. “The commuters give it its hustle and bustle, the natives its solidity and continuity, and the migrants its passion.” Jamal was that rare person who was born in New York and brought with him the passion of the newcomers. When we began writing the book together, I was struck by how much his passion has not diminished in 45 years. His life was written on the streets of Manhattan.
Matteo Prandoni/BFA
He grew up in Greenwich Village, performing at the LaGuardia Theater, and escaping a rather strict upbringing by taking to the streets at night with a spray can. His grandmother, Sue Mingus, was married to jazz legend Charlie Mingus, and young Jamal spent his childhood in gin joints and jazz clubs where the Mingus Big Band played. Deep in his mind, the insistent bass line of “Better Git it in Your Soul” and the thumping baritone sax of “Moanin'” played over and over, no doubt shaping his abiding love of hip hop.
Walking with him through the city, his rapid-fire storytelling sounded like a New York song, with every block telling a story, every monument a memory, “This is how it is now” followed by “But I remember it used to be like this.” Jamal saw the present as a palimpsest. I believed then, and I believe now, even more poignantly now, that to grow up in New York is to know impermanence.
Writing this on Father's Day, I naturally think of Jamal's children, Gavin and Avery, and his wife, Kelly, whom I met at LaGuardia High School. (Jamal studied voice; she studied dance.) His death brings with it many layers of grief. A commonly confusing aspect of mourning is the difficulty of figuring out how to do it. The grief switchboards are all lit. I'll just pick one. He was certainly a very talented chef. He blended the soulfulness of Babbo, where he worked in his youth, with the frenetic precision of Daniel Humm's Eleven Madison Park. And the 70 Pine restaurant was just the beginning for him. Saga Hospitality Group had just taken over the food and beverage division of the legendary Santa Monica Pier. With pastry chef Renata Ameni in charge, it opened a 3,000-square-foot bakery across from Domino Park in Williamsburg. He was planning a 140-seat oyster bar and fast-casual chicken concept for Midtown, and had just announced a new project for Paris department store Printemps in New York, with Gregory Gourdet at the helm. “This is exactly how I want to grow,” he told me over a family meal on Friday. “I don't need to have a creative say in every project.”
Sylvain Gaboury
For obvious reasons, I rarely do this, but for this book project I agreed to be paid primarily for the food. His food was that good. Jamal had a great team: Justine Osorio, Renata Ameni, Harrison Ginsberg, to name just a few of those I worked most closely with, and the restaurant will continue to operate to his exacting standards. When an order is placed at Crown Shy, you will still hear a resounding “Yes, chef.” But what I learned from interviewing him for Headnotes, for example, is that even the saga's most complex and unusual dishes had a deep personal resonance for him. That connection has now been severed.
It's funny. When I first heard the rumors of his death, my first instinct was, of course, to call Jamal. “Dude, you're never gonna believe these rumors that are going around about you.” To this day, the person I most want to talk to about this absurd event is Jamal himself. He'll shake his head and, in the words of Mingus himself, say, “God's got an interesting soul, he plays like Charlie Parker,” and then he'll pull me in for a hug.
You might also like
