Masa veteran opens Ikigai with a mission
This beautiful kaiseki restaurant in Fort Greene will donate its profits to stem food insecurity.
Fort Greene has become a little bit of a restaurant wonderland with Evalina, Miss Ada, Theodora, Sailor, Strange Delight. Now comes Ikigai, at 87 Lafayette Avenue. But this gorgeous little 12-seat kaiseki-inspired restaurant from chef Rafal Maslankiewicz (MASA, Eleven Madison Park, JF Restaurants, Wildflower Farms) and owners/philanthropists Dan & Paige Soha, does something different. It donates all of its profits to Rescuing Leftover Cuisine, founded by Robert Lee and dedicated to redistributing excess food to those experiencing food insecurity.
This means that after the cost of goods, team salaries. and the various expenses of running a restaurant, all of Ikigai’s monetary profits are donated to the organization - which estimates that $5,000 allows for the rescuing of 50,000 pounds of food.
Now, this business model is reason enough to support Ikigai, which means “reason for being” in Japanese, but there’s also the food. The 12-14 course menu ($165) reflects Rafal’s weekly finds at the nearby Fort Greene Park Greenmarket, and leans into his considerable fine-dining experience, but looks beyond Japan for inspiration. Rafal draws on his Polish heritage and time spent cooking alongside his grandmother for dishes that stray from your typical kaiseki experience.
The opening menu dips into freshly baked milk-bread service, in addition to quail-egg-in-a-hole on brioche surrounded by uni with husk cherries, cacio e pepe udon, and duck with sansho pepper, pluot, and maple. Dinner ends on a sweet note with a twist on Knedle, the traditional Polish dessert, served in mochiko with a cheesecake center, raspberries and sour cream. So good.
Also, I think you’ll find that the dining experience itself is really quite special. Every meal begins in the tea garden, a sweet little spot shaded by a retractable roof, lit by a custom-made, pendant Nelson lamp inspired by Japanese tree spirits known as kodama and sliding Shoji screens made of paper and wood. It’s feels sort of like a set from a Miyazaki animé but in real life.
Inside the restaurant, elegantly designed by Scott Kester (Double Chicken Please, Uchu), the ceiling was replaced by shou sugi ban wood sourced from Japan and charred in Oregon (naturally), with a smooth serpentine dining counter tucked in with oversized armchairs covered in forest green fabric. There’s even a little shelf below the dining counter to store cell phones, so you can “be present for the meal.”
Ikigai is open for dinner Tuesday - Saturday, with seatings at 6PM and 8PM Tuesday - Thursday, and 5:30PM, 7:30PM and 9:30PM Friday & Saturday. Reservations are available via RESY.