When I arrived at Eny Lee Parker’s apartment building in Fort Greene on the ceramicist and designer had just returned from her studio, pushing two carts with matching conical sculptures atop each one. The cartoonishly scaled pieces are floor-standing candlestick holders, she explained, for the evening’s dinner party. Together we pushed the carts down the hallway to her apartment, where Woldy Reyes, Parker’s co-host and the evening’s chef, exuberantly greeted us with the accent of a British aristocrat’s butler.
It was a cute and playful welcome, but it turns out the accent is actually a funny affectation—a tic—he occasionally takes on when he’s anxious, said Reyes, who is American and first-generation Filipino. As someone who’s an infrequent, often self-conscious host, it was endearing (and even a bit of a relief) to witness a seasoned professional exhibiting nervousness before his own dinner party.
Since launching his catering business and brand Woldy Kusina in 2016, Reyes, 38, has quickly become a go-to caterer for New York’s fashion and art worlds. His creative menus showcasing fresh, seasonal ingredients and visually inspiring presentations have attracted clients such as Alaïa, J.Crew, and Giorgio Armani. Last month, Reyes debuted his first cookbook, In The Kusina, featuring plant-based Filipino recipes that nostalgically nod to the food he grew up eating around his family’s dinner table in Southern California.
“Tonight’s dinner is in celebration of the cookbook, and a lot of the people coming are close friends who also contributed to the book in some way,” said Reyes, looking on as Tara Thomas, a model and fellow chef who was assisting for the night, put the final touches on the table’s place settings and decor. Bitter melons and other unusually shaped green gourds fashioned into candlestick holders were set alongside tall stalks of blossoming alliums. The plates, meanwhile, were made by Parker. “Tara, for instance, helped with the creative production, and my friend Arsh [Raziudden] who works at Christie’s, also did two illustrations in the book,” he added.